Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. DORGAN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. DORGAN. So this project would not only help to improve math and science scores for all children but in particular help to assist underserved communities? What other benefits would it provide?

Mr. DORGAN. I agree that this sounds like a very worthwhile project. What Federal appropriation would be necessary to begin work on it?

Mr. DORGAN. I ask unanimous consent the vote be a 10-minute vote and all succeeding votes be 10-minute votes.

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

Mr. DORGAN. I support the amendment offered by the Senator from Nevada. I must point out I think there are wonderful public servants in this country serving, day and night, the public interest, the public need. I think this simple, easy notion that you can just contract everything out and things will be better is really pretty much wrong- headed. Oh, there may be some circumstances where it is appropriate, but I will tell you, you take a look at firefighters, the police officers, go back to 9/11 and talk to the folks who responded to the calls on 9/11 when that terrible tragedy occurred in New York City, the devastating attack on this country--and, yes, those were public employees who were rushing up those stairs--firefighters, law enforcement men and women, rushing up those stairs--losing their lives, as the building was collapsing, trying to save lives. These were public employees. There are so many serving in so many different ways--the archaeologists and biologists working in the Park Service and in so many different areas. In this piece of legislation, one of the agencies had spent money they should not have spent studying contracting out when, in fact, they did not have the money for the kind of basic repairs and maintenance necessary to be done in the parks. So instead of doing what they should have done to keep the parks in the kind of shape they should be, they were using money to study: How can we contract these jobs out? Well, there are plenty of examples--my colleague from Nevada has used some of them--where you completely lose control with respect to contracting out. I just think it is important sometimes to stop and take a look at the workforce that belongs to the public sector, and to say that, in many instances--most instances--they do a wonderful job to serve this country very well, and there is no substitute--no, not contracting out, and no other substitute I know of--that could replace that group of dedicated public workers who serve this country day after day after day. That is why I am happy to support this amendment.

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I support and cosponsored the amendment offered by the Senator from New Mexico. I think it is not only written appropriately at this point and has proper safeguards, but I think it is also a necessary amendment for the reasons that my colleague from New Mexico has described. I understand my colleague from Wyoming, who is chairman of the subcommittee on these issues, and his statement as well. If we pass this amendment with this particular wording, I think it accomplishes something important, and I am happy to cosponsor it and support it.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me, too, thank my colleague, Senator Burns. This is a very significant piece of legislation. We have had excellent cooperation. I also thank the staff, if I might: Peter Kiefhaber, Brooke Livingston, and, of course, the majority staff: Bruce Evans, Ginny James, Steve Fonnesbeck, and also Ryan Thomas. The Interior bill has, on occasion, been a bill that has taken a long time to move through the floor in some years. Other years, it has moved rather quickly. I think we have had a good discussion on some very important issues. I appreciate the work of my colleague from Montana. I believe we have a couple of managers' packages, and then I think we will have an opportunity to voice vote final. There is one additional amendment as well. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, we should momentarily come to the floor with the final managers' package and wrap up this bill and I think we will have a voice vote at the end. I did want to make a couple of comments while we were waiting for the final pieces of this appropriations bill. Earlier today I visited just a bit about the issue of reconstruction in the country of Iraq. Today we were visited in our Democratic caucus by Ambassador Bremer who just returned from Iraq. He appeared before the Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday, before our caucus today. He talked about the request of $87 billion, both for military appropriations for our defense establishment--that is appropriations of about $60 billion necessary for the efforts we are making in the country of Iraq--and, in addition to that, there is about slightly more than $20 billion for reconstruction in Iraq. I want to make the point that first I think every dollar requested for the military could, should, and I believe will be appropriated quickly to support the efforts of our troops. This Congress has to understand when we ask our sons and daughters to go to war and to commit themselves for the mission this country asks of them, we must support them with appropriations. The second issue, the reconstruction in Iraq that is necessary, is a different and an interesting problem. Should the American taxpayer pay for the reconstruction of Iraq? First of all, we did not target Iraq infrastructure. Shock and Awe was a campaign that began with smart bombs and smart weapons. It did not target their electric grid. It did not target their dams. It did not target their roads. It did not target the infrastructure of Iraq. The destruction of the infrastructure of Iraq has come from a guerrilla insurgent movement inside Iraq, but it has not come from American military force. So the question is, who should provide the $20-plus billion for reconstruction of Iraq? Let me make a point about that. Iraq is a country of 24 million people sitting on sandy soil that contains the second largest reserves of oil in the world, the second largest reserves in the world next to Saudi Arabia. It is estimated that by next July the Iraqi oil wells will be producing around 3 million barrels per day. It is also estimated at that level the net export value of Iraqi oil will be about $16 billion a year. So over the next 10 years the Iraqi oil revenues should produce about $160 billion. In addition to that, I asked Ambassador Bremer what do you intend to do with respect to the Iraqi oil revenue and what do you intend to do with respect to debts that are owed to other countries from the country of Iraq? The reason I ask that question is, I said: Why don't you use Iraqi oil to reconstruct Iraq? It seems to me logical you would do that. He said, We can't do that because Iraq owes a great deal of money. It has great debt. I said, Who holds the debt? Yesterday during the Appropriations Committee hearing, he said Russia--Iraq owes Russia money, it owes France money, and Germany money. Since yesterday I have gotten more information about that. It turns out the largest holders of Iraq debt are Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. It is very interesting to me: Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, the largest holders of debt, according to published reports, from the Iraqi government. So the Iraqi government owes Kuwait and the Saudis perhaps $50 billion. Who is the Iraqi government? Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein obligated the Iraqi government, the Iraqi people, to pay certain moneys to other countries for the debts incurred. But Saddam Hussein does not exist; his government is gone. So who should repay that debt? Ambassador Bremer says the American taxpayer should repay that debt. I don't think so. I think what ought to happen is you ought to collateralize or securitize the next 10 years of Iraqi oil. You can easily provide the resources for the reconstruction in Iraq from the oil that will be pumped from the sands of Iraq in the next 10 years. Iraqi oil ought to be used to pay for the reconstruction in the country of Iraq. With respect to the debt Ambassador Bremer says under international obligations is owed by the country of Iraq to other countries, it seems to me there is a term called debt forgiveness. I don't know how you say to the Saudis and the Kuwaitis: You were owed money by Iraq. Go find Saddam Hussein and collect it. I don't know quite how you say that, but there must be a way of saying that. Go find Saddam Hussein and try to collect that debt. That is who obligated that debt on behalf of the Iraqi people. It seems to me, the first thing we ought to do is say this debt that overhangs the people of Iraq ought to be negotiated down, first and foremost. Second, it seems to me we ought to say we will provide all the money that is requested, first for the military side of the request for the appropriations the President asked for, and second, we will provide the money, because we should, with respect to reconstruction. But it will not be American taxpayers' money. We will provide the mechanism by which we monetize or rather collateralize or securitize the oil revenues that we pump from under the sands of Iraq over the next 10 years. Ambassador Bremer says that will be up to 3 million barrels per day by next July. At 3 million barrels per day you produce about $20 billion a year, about $4 billion of which is going to be needed for Iraqi oil needs, the rest of which is available for export. That is $16 billion of export earnings. That is the way you reinvest in Iraq. Invest in Iraq infrastructure with oil revenue from Iraq. Ambassador Bremer said one other thing that was interesting to me. He said, by the way, we have just put together a tax structure in Iraq. I might point out that a nonoil state, that is a nation that doesn't have oil reserves, and that's a good many nations around the world, they put together a revenue structure, a tax system by which they raise the money to build the schools, to build the roads, to maintain the electric grid. They put together a tax system to do that. They have just put together a new tax system in the country of Iraq and Ambassador Bremer pointed out yesterday we have a new tax system. Apparently that is designed to produce the revenue to run the Government of Iraq. He said the top income tax rate is 15 percent. I am thinking to myself, so those at the highest income levels in Iraq--and there are some very high income-earners in Iraq--will pay a 15 percent tax and then American taxpayers at the highest level will pay a 39 percent tax and we should pay a 39 percent tax so we can send money to the Government of Iraq so the Government of Iraq can send money to the Saudis and the Kuwaitis to satisfy past debt obligations while the Iraqi citizens at the top of the income level are paying 15 percent income tax. I don't think so. That is not a construct that makes much sense to me. I am not saying by all of this that we don't have obligations--we do--or that we don't have a priority interest in dealing with the military and the nonmilitary needs in Iraq. We do. The question is not whether; it is how. My hope is we will bifurcate this request for appropriations of $87 million, and take the military side first and pass that. I support all of that. We ought to move that through this Congress quickly. Second, we ought to work with Ambassador Bremer and others and describe to those folks how we want to reconstruct Iraq to rebuild the infrastructure. Let me describe what they are talking about. It is restoring marshland, building seven communities with 3,500 new homes, rehabilitating 1,000 schools, developing a telecommunications system. Need I go on? Is the reconstruction of Iraq necessary in which to build a market system and a healthy economy? Perhaps. Should it be done? Sure. With whose money? Who pays the bill? In this case, it makes no sense to me for us to say the American taxpayer should foot that bill for reconstruction. It makes eminent good sense, in my judgment, for us to say we will help, as we already have, to develop the central banking system of Iraq, develop the economy that is now emerging in Iraq, and through that process securitize future Iraqi oil revenues. As I see it, that is $320 billion in revenues over the next 20 years. It just seems to me that $320 billion in 20 years provides the collateral to easily provide the upfront funds--not a grant from the American taxpayer, but a loan in the form of a security document securitizing or collateralizing future oil production in Iraq. We will have a lot of discussion about this. I suspect some will say if you do not believe in every single sentence or every punctuation mark in the President's request that somehow you are not thinking squarely. I really believe the piece we ought to describe in some great detail here and the piece we ought to debate is the issue of who should pay for the reconstruction of Iraq--not the issue of security. We need to do that. Not the issue of military needs; we need to do that, and now. But we need to have a good, strong debate here in this Congress about how to provide the funds for the reconstruction that is being proposed in Iraq. I for one come down on the side of saying let us have Iraqi oil produce the revenues to invest in Iraq. That is what makes good sense to me. For the record, let me describe the circumstances with Iraqi debt. The reason I do this is because Ambassador Bremer says that is why they propose the American taxpayer pay the money for Iraqi reconstruction rather than have Iraqi oil do it. The World Bank Debtor Reporting System is where you find the evidence of which countries have how much debt. Saddam Hussein's Iraq was one of the few countries that did not report its debt statistics to the World Bank Debtor Reporting System. So you have to rely on other pieces of information. The best we can determine, the biggest lenders to Saddam Hussein were France, Germany, Gulf states, Japan, Kuwait, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. Of those, the largest was Saudi Arabia, then Kuwait, and Russia a close third. All the other Gulf states together were substantial--close to $30 billion, France and Germany in the $6 billion range. I think it is really important to ask the question. If you are saying we can't use Iraqi oil to reconstruct Iraq because Iraq has all of these debts Saddam Hussein apparently incurred, then how do you tell countries such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and how do you tell them quickly, by the way, that the debt you have, that paper you hold, is the debt you incurred in negotiations with Saddam Hussein. We are sorry. He doesn't live here anymore. You might want to put that piece of paper somewhere where you have other things to collect which have very little worth, then start over understanding that Iraqi oil can be used to reconstruct the urgent needs that exist in the country of Iraq. I will have more to say about this at some future point. Because Ambassador Bremer is here, I wanted to make that point. Let me also say that I said to Ambassador Bremer we pray for his safety. He has a very difficult job and dangerous job, as do the men and women who wear our country's uniform and who are in Iraq today and stationed in other parts of the world as well. We pray for their safety and thank them for their services to our country. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I support this amendment. We have reviewed it. I am a cosponsor. I asked Senator Burns to include me as a cosponsor. This really needs to be done. In fact, we need to do more than this. This is what we can do at this moment and we will continue to work on this in conference.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, if I might, while we are waiting, on this issue of fire and fire suppression, I know Senator Burns has spoken on this floor at some length, and we have had a discussion in the committee. We have to really stop this process of underfunding these accounts at the start of the year. It is not a great surprise that we are going to have forest fires. I come from a State that doesn't have a lot of trees. But my colleague, Senator Burns, comes from a State that is full of trees. In a good many States in this country, we have seen the devastation by massive forest fires. They cause a substantial amount of damage. The amount of money that is required to deal with the issue of forest firefighting and forest fire suppression is a very substantial amount of money. We know at the start of the year and in recent years that the money has not been requested which is going to be necessary. Then we come later on in the year acting wide-eyed and surprised--not my colleague from Montana. He never acts wide-eyed and surprised. But there are some who walk around here acting like they have just been hit with this huge surprise. It is not a surprise to us. At the start of the year we need to ask OMB to request the money that is necessary, and we need the Congress to appropriate the money necessary so we are not in this bind every single year. The amendment we have just agreed to, the Burns amendment, is an amendment that moves us in the direction of restoring the funding that has been taken from other accounts. But it doesn't provide all the money necessary for that. We have much more to do in conference. Senator Burns has done a remarkably good job in trying to fight with those with whom you have to fight to get the resources. We will continue this fight in conference.

Mr. DORGAN. The amendments have been cleared on this side of the aisle.

Mr. DORGAN. Let me add to the chairman's remarks that I, too, am interested in investing in programs that support math and science.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I concur. The chairman is correct, and I, too, want to help ensure this situation is addressed in conference.

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

Mr. DORGAN. I am aware of the Senator's interest in the Little Rock Audubon Nature Center, but did the Senator say that the Center will support national science and math goals?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Montana, the distinguished chairman of the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, for the committee's recognition of the important environmental and energy security benefits of expanding our nation's E85 Infrastructure. E85 is a form of alternative transportation fuel consisting of 85 percent Ethanol and 15 percent gasoline developed to address America's air quality needs and dependence on foreign oil. Currently, there are over 3 million E85-capable vehicles in the National Vehicle Fleet. The use of E85 in these vehicles has the potential to reduce foreign oil imports by 34 million barrels a year, while adding $3 billion to total farm income and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In the fiscal year 2003 Interior bill, in the committee report for the transportation sector, the committee recommended a $2 million increase in technology deployment for the Clean Cities Program. The report language further recognizes the work being done by the National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition to increase E85 fueling capacity and urges the Department of Energy to give careful consideration to proposals that might be submitted to further this goal. My understanding, is that the Department, consistent with this language, has awarded funds to the NEVC and others for the continued development of E85 Infrastructure and E85 promotion. On page 69 of the fiscal year 2004 Interior Subcommittee report, under weatherization and intergovernmental activities, it states: Within the amount provided for clean cities, the department should continue efforts to expand E85 fueling capacity. I ask the distinguished Chairman whether I am correct in my understanding that the committee intends that a portion of these funds be used by the Department to continue the existing E85 Infrastructure development initiatives that were funded in fiscal year 2003.

Mr. DORGAN. I thank the Chairman. Air Products and Chemicals

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, we are awaiting a couple of votes, I believe, at 5:30. We will vote on a couple of judgeships. Following the votes today, we are going to see an event in the Senate that is unique. I will describe briefly what this is about. Senator Kyl, who is the chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, and I have visited about sponsoring debates in the Senate on a series of very big issues. I am chairman of the Democratic Policy Committee. We thought it would be interesting and useful to create a setting in the Senate that is not connected to a specific piece of legislation on the Senate floor and have a debate back and forth, a structured debate about a big issue. We will do a series of those debates. This evening, following the two votes will be the first of such debates. I have asked, on the Democratic side, Senator Durbin and Senator Corzine to be involved in this debate. The debate will be on the subject of Social Security. I believe--I hope I am not misstating the hypothesis--I believe the Republican side, which will be represented by Senator Sununu and Senator Santorum, will be describing their proposition that we ought to have private accounts in Social Security and the Democratic side will describe, I believe, why having private accounts in the Social Security system is inherently risky and moving in the wrong direction to provide security for this important program. The point is, this is considered, and has always been considered, one of the great deliberative bodies in the world. Senate debate is a fascinating opportunity to not only inform Senators but inform the American people about the respective positions of the Republican caucus or the Democratic caucus on very significant issues that have national importance or worldwide importance. I suspect my colleague, Senator Kyl, will be here in a while, perhaps when the debate begins. I wish to describe what will happen following the two votes today. I am pleased we are going to be able to do this with our two policy committees. It is important to have an aggressive, structured debate with ground rules and portray to the American people the importance of an issue of this type. This is the first, but there will be a number of additional debates in the coming months. We hope this will enhance the reputation and ability of the Senate to sink its teeth into big and important issues. This is a great country in which we live. We are lucky to be Americans. We are lucky to be alive now. Those who are fortunate to be able to serve, or are given the privilege of serving in this great body, never for a moment misunderstand the wonder of it all. As you stand at these desks that have served this country in public debate and the development of public policy for now two centuries, the more you understand the grandeur of this great body. There are times all of us grit our teeth a bit or wipe our brow and wring our hands and wonder if the partisanship or the way these issues are presented is very attractive to the American people. Yet for over two centuries this democracy has endured, and the Senate, this great Chamber of debate about significant, important national policies, about who we are as Americans, about what we aspire to become as Americans, this Chamber has been the location of all of those great debates. Those in the Senate who describe our experiences very often describe our experiences in the context of the Senate desk. I sat at a desk on that side of the room. The first desk I was assigned permanently was a desk of a man named Robert La Follette. He stood for many hours on May 29, 1908, doing a filibuster. Apparently, according to history, he sat down for a turkey sandwich and a glass of eggnog. He lifted the eggnog to his lips and spat it out and began screaming: ``I've been poisoned.'' This was 1908. They sent the glass of eggnog to a laboratory to have it analyzed and discovered someone had put enough poison in his drink to have killed him if he had drunk it. One little moment on the floor of the Senate. They never figured out who did that, by the way. That is one little desk and one little story. There are stories of majesty and courage and wonderful representation, great debate. This is the Chamber where Webster stood and gave his orations. It is the Chamber where the great debates about this country's history and future occur. I am not suggesting tonight's debate will rise to quite that occasion, but we are starting tonight to have an opportunity to exchange views in a debate sponsored by the Republican Policy Committee and the Democratic Policy Committee. I say thank you to the four colleagues who will participate and say I think this does advance the opportunity to exchange views and to have the American people learn from that exchange of views about the two parties' positions on some very important issues. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I rise today to support the amendment offered by my colleague, Senator Daschle, to increase clinical services in the Indian Health Service. I wish to speak just for a moment about the issue I raised yesterday, that there is, in my judgment, a full- blown crisis on Indian reservations in this country dealing with health care, education, and housing, and we are not addressing that crisis the way we should. I have been pleased to work with my colleague from Montana, Senator Burns, who I think does a remarkable job. We have not gotten the allocation we really need in order to meet all the obligations we have. Included in those obligations, in my judgment, is the obligation to fund the Indian Health Service in order to provide the kind of medical treatment that is necessary for those who are showing up at the Indian health treatment centers. I must say, I just recently toured a clinic on the Fort Berthold Reservation and talked to doctors, nurses, and health care delivery personnel. They are wonderful people, but it is dramatically underfunded. The fact is, if you have a heart attack at that Indian reservation at 5 o'clock, you are in some trouble because the clinic is closed. They do not have the resources to keep it open. If you have a heart attack on a Saturday, you are in trouble because you won't have access to the health care you need at that point. So we need to work on these issues. We need to resolve these issues. Some say: Well, why special issues dealing with American Indians? The fact is, they were here before we were, first of all. But, second, Native Americans in this country have served this country in so many ways, so many wonderful ways. One Sunday morning, some years ago, I traveled to the veterans hospital in Fargo, ND, to present medals that were earned by an American Indian. His name was Edmund Young Eagle. I have told my colleagues about this, I believe, on one other occasion. Edmund Young Eagle was an American Indian, living on the Fort Yates Reservation. He was called to serve his country during the Second World War. He left and went to serve. He served in Africa and in Europe, Normandy. He served this country with great distinction in World War II. Then he came back to live on the Indian reservation. He never had very much, never married, never earned much income. He did not, perhaps, have as much joy in his life as he would have liked. Then he developed lung cancer. In his mid seventies, when I met Edmund Young Eagle, he was lying in a veterans hospital bed in his pajamas. I didn't know it that Sunday morning, but he was about a week from dying. He died a week later. His sisters had asked me if I could achieve for him the medals he earned during World War II that he had never received. And I did. I took them to the VA hospital on that Sunday morning. Edmund Young Eagle was sick with, as I said, lung cancer. His sisters and the doctors and nurses came into the room. We cranked his bed up to a seated position, and I pinned those medals on Young Eagle's pajama top. He earned those medals fighting for this country in the Second World War. He had a very distinguished record. This very sick man, an American Indian, said to me that Sunday morning in the hospital that it was one of the proudest days of his life, as he sat there in his hospital bed wearing his military medals that he had earned serving this country. If you look at the service given this country by American Indians, Native Americans, who have been drafted and then enlisted in massive numbers across this country, they have served in virtually every conflict, every war with great distinction. Go to a pow-wow someday and watch those Native Americans wear their uniforms, being part of the American Legion or part of the group in that reservation or with that particular tribe that is celebrating their service to our country, and you can't help but be enormously proud. But when you take a look at other things that are part of the culture of their lives, and you see service to their country was one part that was very important to them--and they served in higher numbers as a percentage of their population than almost anyone in this country--most of them, many of them came back to their reservations to find there was a crisis in health care, housing, and education. My colleague, Senator Daschle, offers an amendment dealing with health care. This is not just about veterans. It is about children. It is about retired folks. If you tour these Indian reservations and take a look at what the Indian Health Service is doing, what the public health system is doing, we have some wonderful men and women working very hard, long hours, doing the best they can, but the resources don't exist to provide the kind of health care for these children and these citizens as exists in the rest of the country. It is just plain fact. The Indian Health Service has a budget of about $2.5 billion. The analysis is they need about $12 billion more. Of course, that is not going to happen. This is not some academic debate. This is not about theory. This is about people living and dying. This is about life or death decisions for a lot of people, especially the more vulnerable in that population. I am talking about children. You want to hear stories about children who die because of chicken pox. We can talk about that on some of these reservations. You don't hear that much anymore, people dying of chicken pox. The primary health services that are available to American Indians on reservations are inadequate. I mentioned yesterday 5,000 people getting their dental care from one dentist in a small trailer. That is not health care. It doesn't meet the needs of those people on that reservation. My colleague, Senator Daschle, offers an amendment to try to find some additional resources for clinical services. I support that. Senator Burns missed what I said about this bill. I said, Senator Burns has Indian reservations in Montana and cares a lot about these issues. We have done as well as we could given the allocation in this bill. I wish we could do more. I support this amendment because it will do more. I recognize the offset comes from outside the bill, and there is some difficulty with that. I think when you are talking about issues of life and death, we need to make fit the solution that is necessary to provide the health care needed, particularly by these children but also people who are more vulnerable. Go to an Indian reservation, for example, and talk to people about diabetes. You will discover the rate of diabetes on, for example, the Fort Berthold Reservation is not double or triple or quadruple the rate of diabetes in this country. It is 12 times the rate of diabetes, 12 times the rate of the American population. One day I flew into New Town, ND, with the late Congressman Mickey Leland and former Congressman Tim Penny. We held a hearing on the Fort Berthold Reservation. We had a range of people talk to us about the diabetes epidemic. Go to that reservation today and see the rows of people doing renal dialysis to stay alive, go to the diabetes clinic-- which I got funding for--and see what they are doing to try to deal with this scourge called the diabetes epidemic. There are so many challenges that need to be met and so few resources. That is why I fully support this amendment. When I walked in the Chamber, my colleague from Montana was speaking of forest fires. North Dakota is a State that is ranked 50th among the 50 States in native forest lands. We are a wonderful State. We cherish the trees we have. But we rank 50th among the 50 States. We are not affected much by forest fires. We do have some range fires on the grasslands. The forest fires, of the type my colleague and his constituents face, or the forest fires we have read about in Colorado and Arizona and other areas, are devastating events. The fact is, we know these events occur. This is not some tsunami or typhoon that occurs once every 5 or 10 years. We know these events occur. As my colleague said, we ought to provide for the payment for fire suppression and firefighting in the budgets that we put together. The President ought to do it. He ought to request it, and we ought to fund it. It doesn't make sense for us to pretend we are surprised when there is a forest fire. We must be the only people surprised. Forest fires happen. There is no reason to continue having budgets come down from the President that say, let's not adequately fund this so that we can borrow money from this, that, and the other place. Then we pretend we are shocked when a fire comes around and we have to pay for it. Then we try to do some emergency fix someplace. That doesn't make sense to me. Forest fires are devastating events. We know they are going to happen. We should provide funding for fire suppression activities. Hundreds of millions of dollars ought to be in these budgets. My colleague from Montana and I are determined to try to make sense of this and work with the White House and others to do the right thing. I echo his comments about the urgency of doing that. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.