Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, 90 years ago students at a small school then known as the North Dakota Agricultural College created a drama facility called the Little Country Theater. This was surprising-- the school was, after all, largely focused on agricultural science and professional training for specialities like pharmacy and chemistry. But the college had one of those rare phenomena that every institution lusts after--a dynamic, driven professor who was both dreamer and doer. For the next four decades, Alfred Arvold was the guiding force of the Little Country Theater and the theater itself was the school's intellectual and artistic heart. Arvold and his students took an unused chapel and turned it into a home for drama; rebuilt an attic garret into a faux log cabin that became the college's premier meeting spot, one which hosted luminaries like Marian Anderson, Charles Laughton, Yehudi Menuhin, Ethel Barrymore, Eugene Ormandy, Charles Lindberg, Paul Robeson and Carl Sandburg; and produced a flurry of productions, many written by the students themselves. The focus of Arvold's philosophy was to bring theater to the public and he provided instructions and guidance for rural communities on how to produce plays at low cost and in the most modest of facilities, in cow pastures and haylofts, lit by lanterns and with planks for seating. Drama was to be used, he said, ``as a force in getting people together and acquainted. Instead of making the drama a luxury for the classes, its aim was to make it an instrument for the enlightenment and enjoyment of the masses.'' To do that, the Little Country Theater toured regularly, sometimes traveling by special train and often producing sweeping outdoor epics-- one pageant mobilized 1,500 performers--that attracted huge crowds, including one of 30,000 spectators. After Arvold retired, Dr. Frederick Walsh and then Dr. Tal Russell took the reins and the theater moved in 1968 from its old quarters into a few facility built with significant help by friends of the school, Reuben and Hilda Askanase. By that time, the college had switched its name to North Dakota State University. Despite those changes, the legacy of the Little Country Theater continued. There was still the outreach. For a number of summers a troupe of actors known as the Prairie Stage toured the state, moving by semi-truck and performing in a circus-like tent. An outdoor drama, ``Old Four Eyes,'' a saga of Teddy Roosevelt's adventures in the North Dakota Badlands, was written by Walsh and performed right in the Badlands. ``Trails West,'' the story of Custer's last days, was also performed at Fort Lincoln, his last post. During its 90 years, the Little Country Theater has produced 600 plays, turned out a number of performers who went on to professional careers, entertained audiences, and, most critically of all, educated generations of students. It's a proud, vital, and continuing legacy that I'm proud to acknowledge and, more importantly, honor today in the Senate.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, first let me thank Senator Burns. Senator Burns is the chairman of this appropriations subcommittee. I have been very pleased to work with him. I think his leadership and his work on this subcommittee is exemplary. This is my first year on this subcommittee. I moved to this position from another subcommittee and so it is the first year I have had the opportunity to work with Senator Burns, but we have had an excellent working relationship. This is a very large appropriations subcommittee bill, and I shall not repeat that which Senator Burns has already described in any great detail, but I do want to make some points. I will go through a couple of the items. Senator Burns mentioned this bill deals with the BLM, Bureau of Land Management, and the funding for their programs, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, the National Park Service, and a number of smaller agencies as well. There is the Office of Surface Mining, Minerals Management Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Bureau of Indian Affairs--I am going to speak a little bit about that in a couple of minutes--and then the larger departmental offices down at the Interior Department that includes the Forest Service, which is a very large agency, the Department of Energy--a portion of the Department of Energy funding is in this--the Indian Health Service, Smithsonian, National Gallery of Art, Kennedy Center, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Endowment for the Arts, and more. As you can see, these are very important public functions for which we provide funding. I think we have done as good a job as is possible to do, given the restraint on financing many of these functions. I think Senator Burns would probably agree there are a number of issues that are presented in this appropriations bill for which we would like to provide additional funding but could not. But that is the process these days, trying to find ways to stretch limited resources over unlimited wants that are expressed to the committee. Let me mention a couple of issues specifically. First of all, payment in lieu of taxes. My colleague, Senator Burns, mentioned that. For those who do not understand this issue, it is called P-I-L-T. Payment in lieu of taxes is a payment the Federal Government makes on land it owns that otherwise would have borne a property tax but, because it is in Federal hands, does not pay a property tax. So payment in lieu of taxes is the payment the Federal Government makes to these counties that makes up what they should have collected in property taxes had that land been in private hands. As you know, in most cases property around this country has to bear a responsibility to help raise the funds for our school systems. Yet if you have a substantial amount of Federal land, it doesn't pay property taxes and therefore you don't have the revenue coming off that land to support the school system and other governmental functions. That is what the payment in lieu of taxes is about. I am pleased Senator Burns and I were able to increase that amount this year. It is very important. The administration had suggested that it be decreased a bit. We have actually appropriated, in this bill, $30 million above that which the administration requested. I think that is something important to highlight. I want to spend a couple of minutes talking about Indian issues because, while that is not the largest part of this bill, it is a very important set of issues. I want to talk a bit about it and then I want to talk about grazing permits and a couple of other smaller items. Let me talk about the Indian issues for a very specific reason. We have trust responsibility in this Government for Indian education, among other things. That trust responsibility is not something we have been able to shed. That is a responsibility we have. It is a responsibility we must meet. I believe we have, on Indian reservations in this country, bona fide crises in health care, education, and housing. This bill deals with two of those--education and health care. Let me talk about how it deals with education first of all. The administration request on Indian education suggested that we zero out funding for the United Tribes Technical College in North Dakota and also the Crown Point Technical College in New Mexico. Both of them are vocational/technical schools that are wonderful opportunities for Indian men and women, children, to learn and to get a college education. I am pleased that Senator Burns and I were able to restore funding to both of those important institutions. In addition to that, we are restoring some funding that is much needed for the 28 tribally controlled community colleges in our country. These are tribal colleges that have been remarkably successful. Once again, there was a requested cut. We are actually increasing funding over last year. Senator Burns and I have talked about trying to do more. We hope to be able to do that as we work through this process on the floor of the Senate. I thought it would be useful, instead of speaking in the abstract, to read a letter from someone because I have visited many tribal colleges. I said there is a bona fide crisis in education, health care, and housing on our reservations. If one doesn't believe that, I encourage you to visit and then ask yourself whether that is what we want to confine Indian children to, or the adults who live on those reservations, with respect to access to health care, access to good education, and more. Let me read a letter from a woman who wrote to me some while ago describing the value of tribal colleges in her life. I think it is an instructive letter. As I said, I have visited many tribal colleges and this letter says it very well. She says: I grew up poor and considered backward by non-Indians. My home was a two-room log house in a place called the ``bush'' on North Dakota's Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation. I stuttered. I was painfully shy. My clothes were hand-me- downs. I was like thousands of other Indian kids growing up on reservations across America. When I went to elementary school I felt so alone and different. I couldn't speak up for myself. My teachers had no appreciation for Indian culture. I'll never forget that it was the lighter-skinned children who were treated better. They were usually from families that were better off than mine. My teachers called me savage. Even as a young child I wondered . . . What does it take to be noticed and looked upon the way these other children are? By the time I reached 7th grade I realized that if my life was going to change for the better, I was going to have to do it. Nobody else could do it for me. That's when the dream began. I thought of ways to change things for the better--not only for myself but for my people. I dreamed of growing up to be a teacher in a school where every child was treated as sacred and viewed positively, even if they were poor and dirty. I didn't want any child to be made to feel like I did. But I didn't know how hard it would be to reach the realization of my dream. I almost didn't make it. By the time I was 17 I had dropped out of school, moved to California, and had a child. I thought my life was over. But when I moved back to the reservation I made a discovery that literally put my life back together. My sisters were attending Turtle Mountain College, which had just been started on my reservation. I thought that was something I could do, too, so I enrolled. In those days, we didn't even have a campus. There was no building. Some classes met at a local alcohol rehabilitation center in an old hospital building that had been condemned. But to me, It didn't matter. I was just amazed I could go to college. It was life- changing. My college friends and professors were like family. For the fist time in my life I learned about the language, history and culture of my people in a formal education setting. I felt honor and pride begin to well up inside me. This was so unlike my prior school experience where I was told my language and culture were shameful and that Indians weren't equal to others. Attending a tribal college caused me to reach into my inner self to become what I was meant to be--to fight for my rights and not remain a victim of circumstance or of anybody. In fact, I loved college so much that I couldn't stop! I had a dream to fulfill . . . or perhaps some would call it an obsession. This pushed me on to complete my studies at Turtle Mountain College and to ultimately earn a Doctorate in Education Administration from the University of North Dakota. I've worked in education ever since, from Head Start teacher's aide to college professor. Now I'm realizing my dream of helping Indian children succeed. I am the Office of Indian Education Programs' superintendent working with nine schools, three reservations, and I oversee two educational contracts with two tribal colleges. My life would not have turned out this way were it not for the tribal college on my reservation. My situation is not unique and others feel this way as well. Since 1974, when Turtle Mountain College was chartered by the Turtle Mountain tribe, around 300 students have gone on to earn higher degrees. We now have educators, attorneys, doctors and others who have returned to the reservation. They--I should say, we--are giving back to the community. Instead of asking people to have pity on us because of what happened in our past, we are taking our future into our own hands. Instead of looking for someone else to solve our problems, we are doing it. There's only one thing tribal colleges need. With more funding, the colleges can do ever more than they've already achieved. We will take people off the welfare rolls and end the economic depression on reservations. Tribal colleges have already been successful with much less than any other institutions of higher education have received. That is why I hope you will continue to support the American Indian College Fund. I'm an old timer. The College Fund didn't exist when I was a student. I remember seeing ads for the United Negro College Fund and wishing that such a fund existed for Indian people. We now have our own Fund that is spreading the message about tribal colleges and providing scholarships. I'm so pleased. I believe the Creator meant for this to be. But so much more must be done. There still isn't enough scholarship money available to carry students full time. That is my new dream . . . to see the day when Indian students can receive four-year scholarships so they don't have to go through the extremely difficult struggle many now experience to get their education. I hope you'll keep giving, keep supporting the College Fund, so that some day this dream becomes reality. I know it can happen because if my dream for my future came true, anything is possible. Thank you. Let me describe to you the signature. The signature is: ``Loretta De Long, Ed.D.'' This is a woman from North Dakota who has done wonderful things in the field of education. She describes the circumstance that allowed her to get this education, the presence of a tribal college that gave her hope and opportunity. We need to fund them and we are not funding them adequately. The per-pupil burden that exists on tribal colleges and the reimbursement we provide to meet that burden is not equal at all to that which we do for public community colleges. In fact, it is somewhere very close to half. I have the numbers here. The support per student for public community colleges is $8,900 and the public support for tribal colleges is just under $4,000. One final point. I know this is not a major part of this bill, but I have spent a lot of time working on tribal college issues. I just want to tell you one other story about going to a tribal college graduation. When I spoke at the graduation, I asked who was the oldest graduate. And they said: That's her over there. And I went over to say hello. This was a woman who was in her early forties. Here is her story. I asked her: ``What is your story? `` She was a janitor. She was cleaning the hallways and the toilets of the community college. She had four children, her husband had left her, and she was working at low wages cleaning the hallways and the bathrooms of the community college. She thought to herself: I would like to be a graduate of this college. Somehow, by the grace of God, through Pell grants, or through all of the support we offer to give people opportunity, the day I was there this woman was not cleaning the hallways or cleaning the bathrooms of this college, she was graduating, wearing a cap and gown, and wearing a smile--something no one will ever take from her because she did it herself with the help of what we put together to provide opportunity to people. But, once again, it enriches people's lives. Education is the way up the steps, up out of poverty. I spoke about tribal colleges just because I care a lot about them. These in many instances are places in our country that look like Third World parts of the globe. Yet they exist in this country with people terribly disadvantaged. It is the route of progress. Education provides the opportunity for these people who want opportunity, those who live on Indian reservations. This woman is an example of that, and there are so many others. I have a whole list of them here which I could talk about today. My hope is that in the time we are on the floor of the Senate, Senator Burns and I can continue to work on this issue, and we intend to do that. I will speak just for a moment about Indian health care. The fact is, if you visit Indian reservations and take a look at the amount of money spent on Indian health care, you will decide that there is something fundamentally wrong. This is about young children and others who do not have adequate health care. Go and find a reservation with 5,000 people living on it with one dentist working out of a trailer house and ask yourself: What kind of care for those people exists with respect to dentistry? Go to a reservation, for example, and take a look at the funding through the Indian Health Service and through the BIA, especially with respect to protecting Indian children against sexual abuse. I had a hearing on that in Bismarck, ND. A woman came to the hearing to testify. On this Indian reservation, she was in charge of the social services and trying to protect these children. She said to me: I have a stack of files on my floor a foot and a half high. These are files of allegations of child sexual abuse and abuse of children. They have not even been investigated. Why? Because there is no money to investigate them. She said: Even when I just have to find a way for somebody to come and take a child to the biggest town 10 miles away, to the hospital off the reservation, I have to beg to try to borrow a car, to put a young kid in a car to take them to the hospital or the clinic. At that point, she broke down and began weeping, at a public hearing. She just couldn't continue. She said it is just too sad. The fact is we are not doing what we should do to protect these children. I have this story about some years ago learning of a young lady named Tamera Damirez. She was a 3-year-old. She was on an Indian reservation. She was a child from a very difficult set of circumstances. She was put into foster care by a woman who was handling 150 cases. You get a social worker handling 150 cases, and do you think that social worker is going to inspect the home where she assigns that child to foster care? She didn't. This young girl was sent to foster care at age 3. There was a drunken party at that foster care residence. Her nose was broken, her arm was broken, her hair was pulled out by the roots--at age 3. Why? Because there was not enough money to fund enough social workers to inspect the house where you were going to send a 3-year-old child. I fixed that problem. There is more money there now. There are more social workers there. They are inspecting where they are sending children. But this should not happen, and it is happening today across this country because we are not adequately funding Indian education and Indian health care by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Part of it is the bureaucracy of BIA, I might also say. I don't want to suggest that the BIA is an agency that functions very well in many circumstances. I have a lot of grievances with the BIA as well. My point is that we have spent a lot of money on a lot of aspects of this Government. None is quite so important to me as protecting children. I visit places in this country where I just shake my head and wonder why it is that these children are not a priority for this country. This bill is one bill where we have a responsibility to do more, and we need to keep working and fighting and funding ways to do more. Let me mention just a couple of other items as we proceed. Before I finish that piece of my discussion, I know I am taking one piece out of this large bill and talking about it some. It is because I feel so strongly about it. I know my colleague, Senator Burns, does as well. The dilemma and the disappointment is that we have limited amounts of money. We need more. We need more to address these issues with children, particularly on reservations, and address the issues of education and health care. Let me talk just for a moment about an issue in the Forest Service dealing with grazing permits for ranchers. We have a requirement as a result of a previous Federal law that says those who graze on public lands and have grazing permits with which to graze cattle on public lands, in order to get a renewal of the grazing permit when the permit reaches its end, have to have a NEPA--the National Environmental Policy Act--evaluation of that permit. It was easy enough, I suppose, for the previous administration and the previous Congress to say this should be done. But it has proven much more difficult for it to be done. The Forest Service has done precious little in moving forward on the NEPA evaluations of the grazing permits. Ranchers out there who are trying to make a living grazing cattle on public lands don't have the foggiest idea of whether at the end of this year they will get an extension of their existing grazing permit because the NEPA evaluation has not been done. That is not their fault. That is the Forest Service's fault. The Congress hasn't funded it. The Forest Service hasn't done it. As a result, the rancher is wondering whether they will get an extension of their permit. In recent years, we have extended it a year. This bill extends it a year. But at end of each year we are in the same situation. I believe we ought to do a couple of things: No. 1, we ought to say to the Forest Service: Do this. No. 2, we ought to fund it to get them to do it, and we ought to stop holding ranchers hostage on the completion of these duties. Until we decide to do that, it isn't going to be done this year because adequate funding does not exist to do what the law would require with respect to NEPA evaluations on grazing permits. I think we ought to do more than extensions of 1 year. We don't know exactly what it should be. We ought to be talking about that during the discussion of this bill. Frankly, we should not say to those ranch families out there who have cattle grazing on public lands: By the way, at end of each year you are going to be threatened with the loss of the permit. The law says the NEPA evaluation must be done, but we know it is not being done. Let us decide either it gets done and provide the resources to do that or at least have reasonable extensions so ranchers aren't held hostage at the end of each year by actions of an appropriations committee each year. Let us find a way to do that if we can. I hope we can talk about that as we move along. I will mention one other concern. I have not talked to my colleague from Montana about this. He talked about the We The People Project. I am a strong supporter of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts. I think both enrich our country. Both are programs that are excellent. Visit Europe and see what remains from the 15th century. It is not some fossilized, arthritic, calcified human being. It is their art. It is this wonderful art that enriches Europe and tells us something about the 12th century and the 15th century. So, too, are the arts important to our culture. I think these are very important--arts and humanities. But I must say that doing a new start of We The People--no one, in my judgment, would say that We The People--whatever that acronym attaches to; in this case, it attaches to the study of history--no one would say that is unimportant. It is very important. But we have added money previously to the Department of Education for this. To the extent we are going to do something new, I really would prefer that it be in the Department of Education, or some other device, rather than starting a new program in the National Endowment for the Humanities. I think history is critically important. The issue of how we are going to enhance the learning and the teaching of history is really a function of doing so in the classroom. I will not object to it being here this year, but the problem with all these things, once they stick, it is kind of like Velcro. It gets stuck in here and next year it will be here and it becomes a permanent program. I think this program belongs somewhere in an education piece of legislation. I understand $100 million was added in an amendment by Senator Byrd for that purpose and I prefer we do that. Those who are pushing for the enrichment of the education of history in our school system, absolutely, I fully support it. We have spent a lot of time talking about the maths and sciences, which I think is important. It is very appropriate to say we want kids coming out of our schools to have a great sense of the history of this wonderful country of ours. But I don't believe the place to do that in terms of nurturing that is in the National Endowment for the Humanities. I believe, as Senator Byrd has appropriately pushed, the right place to do it is over in the education legislation. I know we have colleagues who feel very strongly about that. I hope they can perhaps work with Senator Byrd and with us so next year we do not have to have this as another continuing and building program in the National Endowment for Humanities. Having said that, I know there are some who think, boy, this is a terrific expansion of National Endowment for the Humanities. I am someone who supports the National Endowment for the Humanities. I think it is important. But I also believe this particular piece that is now added to it is more appropriate with the Department of Education, if we are going to do this, and I believe we should do this initiative to enhance and stimulate the education of the history of this wonderful country in our school system. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. I am tempted to talk about the intelligence of sheep and enjoying munching on leafy spurge, but I will not do that. My colleague describes the real serious problem with spurge and nap. We have known in North Dakota when you put sheep on the land, baby spurge and leafy spurge is gone and the sheep seem happy. Having said that, I go back to make a point on this issue of, we, the people. We have Lewis and Clark money to celebrate the bicentennial in a number of different places in legislation in several different appropriations bills. It was a wonderful expedition, perhaps the greatest expedition certainly in the history of this country, perhaps ever. The greater the education and the bigger the celebration of that, the better for our country and the better for our children to understand the richness of that history, as well. My only point is, as we think through this in the longer term, this money is in the bill and I would like to see if we can find a way with the administration to put it where I think it really belongs, and that is education. The other point I would make in terms of priorities, if we have $15, $20, $25 million here and there, we have urgent priorities, especially dealing with Indian health, that we need to find some additional resources for. I did not mention in my opening statement something my colleague from Montana mentioned, and that is the forest fire issue. Fire suppression money has been borrowed from every account. It is the wrong way to do business. What we should do--and we talked about this in the spring when we received the budget request; we traditionally get a budget request that does not ask for the money that all of us know will be necessary and then when the need comes for fire suppression money, they take it from virtually every corner and come back with a request for emergency funding. We ought to understand that forest fires are events that cause a lot of television cameras to record them, and cause a lot of angst for people who are in the way, but they happen every year. This isn't like some big typhoon some place that happens every 10 or 15 years. We know we are going to have forest fires every year. We know about what it is going to cost us if we have a moderate season of forest fires, or more forest fires than a moderate season, and we just as well ought to begin to plan for it. Both the administration and the Congress should; frankly, neither have. I fully support the comments made by my colleague from Montana. We need to find a way to come at this up front, in the spring of the year each year, to put in sufficient money. In some cases, it may not be enough, if we have an extraordinary season of massive forest fires, but in most cases we could put money in to cover the kind of year that we would have in most situations in this country. So I hope we can do that. Let me also say, we have some folks on this side of the aisle who will have amendments. As my colleague has indicated, I would prefer if they would just bring them over and offer them. And let's deal with them quickly. We do have a little rain coming to the east coast. It would be nice to be able to finish this bill. The bill is going to be open for amendment, and I would ask colleagues to come over and work with us, offer the amendments, and let's work through them today. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, there is 30 minutes granted to each side, as I understand it.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me grant myself such time as I may consume. Then I will yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Texas.

Mr. DORGAN. I was simply making the point that this is a resolution of disapproval. It is rarely used in the Senate. I think this is only the second time it has been used. But this is a critically important issue. We will have a number of speakers describing why this resolution of disapproval has been brought to the floor of the Senate. I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Texas.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I think appropriately at this point, Senator McCain in opposition will yield time and then I will be happy to yield time to the Senator from Wisconsin at an appropriate time.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I yield 4 minutes to the Senator from Wisconsin.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from Washington, Senator Murray.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from Maine, Ms. Snowe.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from New Jersey.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Texas. Before yielding, let me just briefly say, this resolution of disapproval dealing with the rules on broadcast ownership by the Federal Communications Commission is a rarely used----

Mr. DORGAN. How much time is remaining on both sides?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I yield myself the remaining time. I have great respect for those who disagree with the position that I, Senator Lott, and many others have taken on this issue, but the resolution of disapproval, which is part of the Congressional Review Act, is, in effect, a legislative veto. It is perfectly appropriate to use it in this circumstance. I will talk a little bit about why this bipartisan resolution is important. First, it is acknowledged by everyone that we have had galloping concentration in the broadcast industry in recent years. One company now owns well over 1,200 radio stations. The same is happening in television. I do not happen to think big is always bad but I think the FCC's new rules will just hasten the day when we have fewer and fewer companies owning virtually all of the broadcast properties in this country. So if one thinks that what the American people see, read, and hear should be controlled by fewer and fewer people, then they would like the FCC rules and they would want to oppose this resolution of disapproval. But if they believe in localism, diversity, and competition, which are the hallmarks of the reason we provide free licenses and the free use of the airwaves to companies by which they profit, in which we say to them they have responsibilities attached to this license, localism, diversity, competition, if you believe those enhance this country, enhance local areas or communities or counties or States, then you are going to want to support this resolution of disapproval. A lot of our folks think the FCC has written rules that fundamentally weaken our democracy. Our democracy is nourished by the free flow of information, by localism, by competition. The fact is, three-quarters of a million people sent their comments to the FCC saying: Don't do this. It ranges from the National Rifle Association, National Organization for Women, Walter Cronkite, Jesse Helms. This is a broad- based group of American people who believe very strongly that what the FCC has done is wrong. The most dramatic rule changes in the history of broadcasting have been embarked upon by the FCC with one hearing in Richmond, VA. They concocted this rule that said: Oh, by the way, here is what we think should happen. We believe it is all right, in the largest city in this country, for one company to own the dominant newspaper, three television stations, eight radio stations, and the cable company. And the same company can do that in the largest city, the next largest city, the next largest city, the next largest city. It is not all right. We know better than that. Let me describe a little of what is happening with this concentration. Perhaps you are driving down the street in Salt Lake City listening to your car radio, tuning the dial until you find a radio station you happen to enjoy, one with good music, someone with a sonorous voice saying: Good morning in Salt Lake City. It's sunny here. What a beautiful day outside. The sky is blue. And you think what a great announcer they have in Salt Lake City when, in fact, that person may be broadcasting from a basement broadcast booth in Baltimore, MD. It is called voice track. It is called let's pretend. Let's pretend someone is broadcasting locally, but instead that person is using the Internet information to say it is sunny here in Salt Lake City, trying to make folks in Salt Lake City believe they are broadcasting in Salt Lake City. ``Voice tracking''-- remember that term. Central casting--it is the same approach in television. You like that? You just take localism, take local interest out of broadcasting and pretend it is local. If localism is unimportant, why do they even have to pretend? What about turning on your television set seeing people eating maggots? Yes, you can see that on television. Maybe you don't like seeing people eating maggots. Maybe you think seeing people eat a cupful of maggots shoved in front of them--maybe you think that ought not be shown in our community. So you call the broadcaster, and you say I am going to complain about this programming. How did you do this? Why would you show a program in which people eat maggots? And the broadcaster writes back--this happens to be a July 25 letter. I won't use names: We received your letter dated June 30, 2003, regarding the content of the . . . show. . . . We forwarded your letter to the . . . Network. The Network, not [us], decides what shows go on the air here for the . . . Owned and Operated Television Stations. The network likes maggots. It comes to your hometown and you don't have a choice, nor would a local broadcaster, and certainly not affiliates, stations owned by the broadcaster. They are going to broadcast it. What has happened to localism? Dead? Wounded? Bleeding? If the FCC has its way with this rule, it will be gone, just plain gone. Is there a reason for us to be concerned? I think so. There is a broad, bipartisan group of interests in the Senate using the legislative veto to say let's say to the FCC: What you have done is wrong. Let me read a letter from our distinguished former colleague, Jesse Helms, because, as always, he puts it very succinctly. Mr. President, how much time remains?

Mr. DORGAN. Jesse Helms wrote a letter to my colleague, Trent Lott. Dear Trent: Thank you for your leadership in trying to undo the disaster created by the Federal Communications Commission's new media ownership rules. These rules will benefit huge conglomerates and no one else. Let me point out, Senator Helms is one of the few people who served in this Senate who came from a broadcast background. Sometimes I think people in Washington, particularly at the Commission, have forgotten that the FCC role is to preserve localism, diversity, and competition. In no way are those criteria supported by the recent FCC ruling. If the commission fails, as it has, then Congress must step in. You and Senator Dorgan have done that. I can think of no reason to allow fewer companies to own more and more of the media. Media ownership is a bipartisan issue that commands a close review by Democrats and Republicans. When your resolution comes to the Senate floor, I'll be cheering for 51 votes. It is signed by Jesse Helms, former U.S. Senator. In this morning's newspaper, the FCC chairman, Mr. Powell, makes comments about what we are doing here today. I happen to like Chairman Powell. Personally, I think he is a good person. We have had a good relationship. I think he has made a horrible mistake. His leadership on this issue at the Federal Communications Commission, as I have said previously, has led the Commission to cave in as quickly and as completely to the special interests as anything I have ever seen. Mr. Powell says ``the move in the Senate today'' referring to this move ``is bordering on the absurd.'' I am sorry. There is nothing at all absurd about the Senate taking direct aim at a rule by a Federal regulatory agency that is wrongheaded, and saying we are going to veto this rule. There is nothing absurd about that at all. This Congress has the right under this legislation to do it. This has been rarely used. It is the second occasion in which the Senate has used this. We would only do it when a regulatory agency, issuing regulations, has so starkly decided to misrepresent what is the public interest. The FCC is a regulatory body. One would expect them to wear striped shirts and have a whistle and blow the whistle when it is needed on behalf of the public interest, to stand up for the public interest. But when regulatory agencies refuse to stand for the public interest, then we must take action. My colleague, Senator McCain, talks about S. 1046. I am a cosponsor of that legislation. I support it very strongly. I hope the Senate will pass that as well. I will only observe that this resolution of disapproval will run into some whitewater rapids when it comes to the House. I understand that. So, too, would S. 1046 if it gets to the House of Representatives. The fact is, we ought to in every conceivable way avoid the problems that will come from these rules. My colleagues and others have talked about the problem of growing concentration in the media. It is getting worse, not better. The worst possible result, in my judgment, would be to say let's just let the FCC rules go into effect. A Federal circuit court has already issued a stay. They understand that the American people were not given the opportunity in the hearing, the one hearing that existed in Richmond, VA. The case has not been made for this FCC rule. So we have a stay at the Federal court. A reasonable step and a thoughtful step on behalf of this Senate is to stand up this morning for the public interest and say to the FCC: You had a responsibility and you failed. We have every right under the Congressional Review Act to enact, this morning, a resolution of disapproval. I hope sufficient numbers of my colleagues will join me, will join Senator Lott, and others, in a strong bipartisan resolution to say we don't like what the FCC has done. We think it is not at all in support of the public interest. We believe it undermines this democracy which rests on the free flow of information. We believe we ought to disapprove of this rule.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Nevada for his support, and I would like to work with him and the chairman of our subcommittee to find additional funding to combat this growing problem in the energy and water conference. Right now, the Corps is stretched thin financially and, as a result, it cannot keep pace with this expansive and growing problem. The Corps has a clear responsibility to address this problem and it cannot be ignored. It is my hope that the Corps will dedicate funds to controlling this weed problem from the money that would be provided from the amendment offered by Chairman Domenici and Senator Reid that would add $65 million to the Corps operations and maintenance budget. The low lake level is due to the persistent drought plaguing much of the West, and I believe that the Corps has a responsibility to address problems on its lands resulting from weather-related conditions.

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, I brought with me to the floor a picture of a woman named Joan Slote. Joan, as you can see, is a bicyclist, standing there with a bicycle helmet and a bicycling outfit. She is a senior olympian. She is a 74-year-old grandmother of six and a champion cyclist. She rides about 100 miles a week, and has pedaled her bicycle through 21 countries. I am showing a picture of Joan Slote on the Senate floor because she is in trouble with the Federal Government. Joan Slote never sought to deceive the U.S. Federal Government. She responded to a Toronto-based adventure catalog for a bicycle trip to Cuba. It intrigued her. It said, incorrectly, in the advertisement that U.S. law does not bar citizens from visiting Cuba as long as they fly there through Canada. So Joan Slote, this grandmother cyclist, joined a cycling trip through Cuba. When she returned to the United States through Canada, they asked her where she had been. She said she had been in Canada and prior to that had been in Cuba. So she was not attempting to deceive anyone. Guess what happened to this grandmother? She went from her home on the west coast to Europe on a bicycling trip. While she was gone, she learned her son had a brain tumor. She rushed back, packed some clothes in her place in Oregon, and rushed to her son's side. He died of this brain tumor. She finally got back home and she saw letters from OFAC, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, at the U.S. Department of Treasury. OFAC was upset because Joan Slote had been to Cuba. They told this 74-year-old grandmother the Feds were hot on her trail and that the Feds wanted a $7,600 fine from her. The Feds wanted $7,600 dollars from this grandmother because she violated American laws by travelling to Cuba. We have people down here at the Department of Treasury looking after Joan Slote and people like her. They fined her $7,600 because she visited Cuba and spent $38 there. Since that time, OFAC added penalties and interest until the total was almost $10,000. Then a few months ago in July, Joan Slote received a collection letter saying she would pay up in 10 days or they would start attaching her Social Security payments. They say, we are slapping you with a big fine; you are obviously a problem for this country. Let me remind listeners, this is the Office of Foreign Assets Control. This is the office that is supposed to be tracking terrorism in the Department of Treasury. This is the office that ought to be busy full time tracking the movement of terrorist funds across this world. As a matter of fact that is what most of the employees in the Office of Foreign Assets Control do. But not all of them. Some of them are taken off those duties to make sure Joan Slote does not undermine this country's interests by visiting Cuba. They are chasing a retired schoolteacher riding a bicycle in Cuba trying to slap her with a fine. They cannot find Osama bin Laden but they can sure find this retired grandmother. They are determined to levy a fine on this grandmother. I learned about that. They wanted to take it out of her Social Security payments if she did not pay the fine. Her monthly income, by the way, is $1,200, so she is no match for the Feds. The Feds are a big, strong, bulky group of people going after this lady. Earning $1,200 a month income, she is no match for the Feds. She called OFAC and told them she had not been home to get her mail and she had not responded to their notice because her son had brain cancer and died. She asked if they would give her a hearing. Absolutely not, they said. Wouldn't give her a hearing and would not reduce her fine by one cent. I met Joan at a conference and I got involved in her case. I called OFAC and said: You ought to be embarrassed. I know there is law against U.S. citizens traveling in Cuba. It is a foolish law that ought to be repealed. The House of Representatives has now, incidentally, voted to prohibit the enforcement of that law. But the fact is this country long ago decided to try to punish Fidel Castro by limiting the ability of the American people to travel. The nuttiest idea I ever heard of. So we end up saying to Joan Slote that you have to pay a fine. Well, I got involved and said to the OFAC folks: You ought to be ashamed of yourself and you ought to be embarrassed. They agreed to reduce her fine to $1,900. I don't think she should have paid a cent, but they reduced it to $1,900. So Joan paid $1,900 with two checks. She paid the $1,900. She lives on $1,200 a month. Then this morning I received this email from her: I sent the settlement money in two payments, one in July and paying it all by the end of August. I checked with the bank and the bank said the checks have not been cashed as of a week ago. Two weeks ago I got a letter from a collection agency asking for about $10,000 and a letter from the Social Security system telling me they will start reducing my Social Security payments in November. Shame on the Federal Government. Do we have completely and totally incompetent Federal agencies? No. 1, they are chasing old ladies riding bicycles when they ought to be chasing terrorists. She may not like me calling her an old lady, but she is a 74-year-old senior bicyclist. She is proud of what she does. She bicycles in the Olympics. And she has the Federal Government after her. They ought to be chasing terrorists, not retired schoolteachers biking in Canada. What are they thinking? Is there no common sense at all at the Office of Foreign Assets Control. I had the Secretary of the Treasury in front of a committee a year and a half ago. He got in trouble because he answered the question honestly. I liked him. He was a guy who said what was on his mind. I said: Let me ask you a question. Don't you think if you could use your assets the way you want to use your assets in the Office of Foreign Assets Control, you would pull employees off of tracking little old schoolteachers and others from bicycling in Cuba and instead use all of your muscle and all of your energy and all of your resources to track terrorism? Don't you think that is where the priorities ought to be? Well, he did not answer. I asked again. He didn't answer. I asked again and finally he said: Of course. Of course I prefer that be the case. But he got in mighty big trouble, according to the press, with the White House because there is a political correctness about this issue of travel to Cuba and they want the Office of Foreign Assets Control to clamp down on the folks. Go get them. Let me tell you who they are getting: Joan Slote. She should not have had to pay a penny. Not a penny. How about Cevin Allen, Washington State. He traveled to Cuba to bury the ashes of his late father, a Pentecostal minister of prerevolutionary Cuba who wanted his ashes buried on the grounds of the former church he had in Cuba. OFAC tried to slap his son with a $20,000 fine for taking his father's ashes to bury them on the church grounds in Cuba. He told the hearing that I chaired on this subject that the trip to Cuba let him deal with the pain of losing his parents. But he said the good feelings from giving them the burial he knew they wanted and reuniting with friends from his childhood when his parents were missionaries in Cuba were crumbled when he came home to face hostile officials and the fine for traveling to Cuba illegally. Then there is Tom Warner who is 77 years old. Tom Warner has not even traveled to Cuba. He is a World War II veteran. He posted on his Web site the schedule for the February 2002 annual meeting of the United States-Cuba Sisters Cities Association in Havana. What happened to him? This 77-year-old World War II veteran heard from OFAC. OFAC accused him of organizing, arranging, promoting, and otherwise facilitating the attendance of persons at a conference in Cuba without a license. Mind you, this World War II veteran never went to Cuba. He simply posted on a Web site the information he had about a Sisters Cities meeting in Cuba. Warner got a letter from OFAC giving him 20 days to tell OFAC everything he knew about the conference and the organizing folks who participated in it. He has since, of course, hired a lawyer. I just don't understand. We can travel to Communist China. We can travel to Communist Vietnam. We can travel virtually anywhere in the world except for three countries: Cuba, Libya, and, for now, Iraq. The fact is, other Communist countries, we are told, will move in the right direction through engagement: engage them in trade and travel and that is the way to persuade them to move in the right direction towards greater human rights, towards democracy. With Cuba, for 40-some years, we have been telling people: Well, you cannot travel there, you cannot trade there, because somehow that would be giving aid and comfort to the Castro government. Well, the best way to give aid and comfort to the Castro government is to continue this embargo. The best way to undermine the Castro government is through trade and travel. It is what we do in China. It is what we do in Vietnam. It is what we ought to do with respect to Cuba. But the reason I came to the floor today is to say this poor woman ought not to be chased by the Federal Government. She has done nothing wrong. She made a mistake by responding to an advertisement in a magazine that said what she was going to do on this bicycle trip was not illegal. She did it in good faith and now comes home to have the Federal Government chase her. What is galling to me is the agency in the Federal Government--the Treasury Department and this little organization called OFAC, which we require to track terrorists--is using their resources to chase Joan Slote. Shame on them. We are going to try to change the law in the Senate. I am going to offer an amendment to the Treasury appropriations bill that is identical, word for word, with every punctuation mark, that was in the House bill. I think it passed the House by 40 votes. My expectation is, if we have a chance to vote on it, it will pass the Senate as well. It simply says this travel ban makes no sense. We ought not enforce the travel ban. No one ought to be chasing a retired schoolteacher or a bicyclist or someone who takes their father's ashes back to bury in Cuba. I don't know. Maybe the folks at Treasury can be just embarrassed into doing the right thing. But it is inexplicable to me that we talk about homeland security, we talk about fighting terrorism, and then we have an agency of the Federal Government that is using its resources to do this. Yes, I know what the law is. But I also know what the priority is: to use scarce enforcement dollars to track terrorists. Common sense would tell you not to divert those dollars to try to take part of the Social Security payments away from this retired woman because she went on a bicycle trip in Cuba. That is the kind of heavy-handed Federal Government I do not want to be a part of. I believe we ought to do something legislatively to address that situation, and I intend to do that when we have the right appropriations bill on the floor of the Senate.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, while I am on the floor, I wish to mention that a couple of my colleagues--I believe, Senator Feinstein and Senator Kennedy--will be on the floor later today with an amendment dealing with the issue of nuclear weapons. I want to join them in pointing out my special concern about what is happening with respect to nuclear weapons. We have roughly 30,000 nuclear weapons in the world--30,000 nuclear weapons, the use of any one of which would cause a catastrophe, as all of us know. So we have had what we call a doctrine of mutually assured destruction for a long, long while, with the other nuclear superpower believing no one would be able to use a nuclear weapon in an attack because they would be obliterated by the other side. That doctrine of mutually assured destruction has lasted for well over a half century. There are many in the world that aspire to achieve nuclear weapons for their own use--terrorists and other countries. The world depends on us and on our leadership to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. There is no--I repeat, there is no--duty that is more important, in my judgment, than for this country to use its leadership capability to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. For surely, if nuclear weapons proliferate in this world, they will, one day, be used, and when used in anger will persuade others to use them; and this Earth will not be the kind of Earth that we recognize in the future. The Energy and Water appropriations bill contains certain money to develop new bunker-buster nuclear weapons and to come up with so-called advanced concepts for new more ``useable'' nuclear weapons, and it has money to make it easier to end the ban on testing so we would begin testing once again. This is, in my judgment, reckless discussion, reckless talk. It certainly falls under the rubric of free speech and free debate, but I happen to think this country ought to say to the rest of the world: We want to reduce the number of nuclear weapons, No. 1. And we don't need to develop new nuclear weapons. We have far more than anyone needs. And second, the last thing we ought to do is to suggest to anyone there is a green light for anyone to use, at any time, under any circumstances, nuclear weapons. Here on this chart is what the House of Representatives said in their report recently about the administration's plans for nuclear weapons: It appears to the Committee the Department is proposing to rebuild, restart, and redo and otherwise exercise every capability that was used over the past forty years of the Cold War and at the same time prepare for a future with an expanded mission for nuclear weapons. As indicated on this other chart, here is the stockpile of nuclear weapons--roughly 30,000. We have about 10,000; the Russians have about 18,000--you can see a few others around--the use of any one of which or the stealing of any one of which or the loss of any one of which to a terrorist group or a rogue nation would be devastating if they were to detonate. The people who are talking about developing new nuclear weapons are saying: What we ought to do is take a look at earth-penetrating, bunker-buster nuclear weapons. What a wonderful idea that is, they say. Well, the best scientists tell us you cannot penetrate the earth much more than 45 or 60 feet; you just can't. But they are talking about nuclear weapons up to 1 megaton, 60 to 70 times bigger than the Hiroshima bomb. That is what they talk about here: earth-penetrating, bunker-buster nuclear weapons. That means this country would build a nuclear weapon that we could actually use, not to deter someone else from using it, but a nuclear weapon that would be a useful weapon for designer purposes. If you have a bunker that you can't bust, lob over a nuclear weapon. Here is a picture of what a 100-kiloton nuclear explosion 635 feet underground does at the surface. These are not tiny, little designer nuclear weapons. These are huge explosions. The explosion shown on this picture was 635 feet underground. Likely, a bunker-buster weapon would be detonated at 50 to 60 feet underground. The point is this: We have a responsibility in this country, it seems to me, on these policies to exhibit great restraint. We have countries in the world that do have nuclear weapons, and we worry a great deal about them using them. India and Pakistan each have nuclear weapons. They don't like each other very much. There have been moments when we have been very concerned about the command and control of nuclear weapons in some other countries. Our job, at this point, is not to be talking about building new nuclear weapons: low-yield nuclear weapons, bunker-buster, earth- penetrator nuclear weapons, to begin testing nuclear weapons. Our job, it seems to me, is to talk about restraint. We have all the nuclear weapons we will ever need, well over 10,000, both theater and strategic nuclear weapons. We do not need to be building more. We do not need to talk about using nuclear weapons. Those who talk about building specific-use nuclear weapons and saying there is a use for actual employment of nuclear weapons in conflict, that is not, in my judgment, in the long-term interests of this world or this country. I hope we will exhibit much more restraint than that. I know some will say: Well, we are simply beginning research on some of these issues. I say we do not need to research earth-penetrating, bunker-buster nuclear weapons. That is not in our country's interest, with due respect. What we ought to do is to exhibit every ounce of energy that we can and that we have to try to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, so that, God forbid, other countries do not acquire nuclear weapons, and then begin to work to reduce the number of nuclear weapons around the rest of the world. I know the amendment that will be offered by my colleague Senator Feinstein, this afternoon, will be controversial and will be debated. I respect people who do not share my own opinion on this issue, but I feel very strongly that the only conceivable future for nuclear weapons--for my children and grandchildren and yours--is to try to prevent nuclear weapons from ever again being used. That is the only thoughtful and conceivable future that will not address the future of this world in a very negative way. We must use our leadership capabilities. We are a great country and a mighty country. We must use our capabilities to persuade others that the use of nuclear weapons is not something that is thinkable or conceivable. We must exert every energy to stop the spread of nuclear weapons to so many others who want to obtain them in a way that would be destructive to our long-term interests. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me begin with a brief opening statement about why we are here and what brings us to this point. My colleague from Arizona, who will speak in opposition to this resolution of disapproval, is here to make a presentation and my colleague with whom I have worked on this resolution of disapproval, Senator Lott from Mississippi, is here and will make a statement. I believe others will arrive as well. Let me describe what we are doing. There is a provision in Federal law that allows the Congress to effectively veto a rule offered by a Federal agency under certain circumstances. This is called the Congressional Review Act. I call it a legislative veto. It is rarely used. In fact, this is only the second occasion on which it will be used. It requires 35 signatures of Senators to discharge a proposition from a committee and bring it to the Senate floor, with 10 hours of debate. Following the 10 hours of debate, there is then a vote on the resolution of disapproval. The specific rule that brings us to the floor today with a resolution of disapproval is a rule by the Federal Communications Commission dealing with broadcast ownership rules. This is an issue that is controversial. It is highly charged and very significant. Some Members believe very strongly that what the Federal Communications Commission has done is horribly wrong for the interests of this country. I said at the Commerce Committee when we discussed this, especially in the aftermath of the FCC making and announcing its rules, never have I seen a Federal agency that is supposed to be a regulatory agency cave in so quickly and so completely to the large economic interests. That is exactly what I think has happened. It has happened at the expense of the public interest. The foundation of our democracy is information. The free flow of information is what nourishes and refreshes this democracy of ours. When what the American people see, hear, and read is controlled by fewer and fewer interests, in my judgment, it is detrimental to this government and to our country. The ruling by the Federal Communications Commission says, among other things, this will be just fine in the future; in America's largest cities, one single company can own the dominant newspaper, the dominant television station, and two other television stations, eight radio stations, and the cable company in that same town. It is just fine. And they can do it in that town and another town and another town and another town, and that is just fine, according to the FCC rule. Pardon my expression, but I think that is absolutely nuts. It is not fine--not fine with me, not fine with a good many of my colleagues. What we design to do is to pass a resolution of disapproval in the Senate to say to the Federal Communications Commission: Do it over, and do it right. The Federal Communications Commission held only one public hearing before embarking on the largest rule change in the history of this country with respect to ownership of broadcast properties. Having held only one hearing, they then said: Well, let's do this Katie-bar-the- door approach to allowing the additional concentration and this new orgy of mergers that almost certainly will occur as a result of this rule. They said: Let's allow newspapers to own television stations in the same town, have the same television stations and radio stations marry up. We know what has happened since the 1996 act. Ownership rules have changed; we have seen galloping concentrations. One company in this country now owns nearly 1,300 radio stations. In one city in North Dakota, we have eight radio stations. One of them is a religious station, one is a public broadcast station, and six are commercial stations. All six are owned by the same company. I ask my colleagues, does anyone think there is a public outcry in this country for the need to have more concentration in broadcast ownership? Has anyone heard that public outcry? I have not. The airwaves in this country belong to the American people. They do not belong to the broadcast companies. They do not belong to a television or radio company. They belong to the American people. We license them for use by companies that want to send a television or radio signal and we say that, attendant to that use, you have certain responsibilities and obligations: Competition, diversity, and localism. What does localism mean? It means we anticipate that when you have a property to broadcast radio or television signals in your local community, you have a responsibility to that community to broadcast some of those local basketball games, talk to the people in the community about the local charity event this weekend, tell them about what is happening on Main Street. That is localism. What do we have these days? All too often we have the concentration that has developed in all broadcast media. Now we have something instead of localism; it is called voice tracking. Do you know what voice tracking is? With this massive amount of mergers, with one company owning many stations, voice tracking is that which occurs when you drive down the street in Salt Lake City, UT, and turn on your dial on the radio station and hear someone saying, ``It is sunny out here in Salt Lake City this morning,'' and that person may be in a basement in Baltimore, MD, broadcasting from a broadcast booth. Do you know what that is called? Voice tracking; ripping a sheet off the printer from the Internet that shows the sun is shining in Salt Lake City so they can pretend they are broadcasting from Salt Lake City, UT, from a Salt Lake City station, when in fact they are not 1,000 miles near Salt Lake City, they are halfway across the country pretending there is some local element to that radio station. That is not moving in the public interest. As we engage in this debate, I want someone to tell me that localism is old fashioned. I want someone to tell me that what I consider to be a transcendent truth about the value of requiring localism in exchange for being able to use the airwaves with a radio or television license is somehow an old-fashioned value. For me, it is not. There is so much to say about all of this, and I will speak at great length, but I have a chart that shows where we are with respect to these broadcast properties these days. I will not attempt to tell you about all of this, but the News Corporation, of course, is Fox and Rupert Murdoch; Clear Channel; Viacom; Disney; AOL/Time Warner. Let me use Disney as an example: Ten television stations, including in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Houston, Raleigh, Fresno, Flint, Toledo; 53 radio stations. The ABC Network, Disney Channel, ESPN, A&E, SoapNet, History Channel, Lifetime, Disney Pictures, Touchstone, Hollywood, Caravan, Miramax. It goes on and on and on. People say: What is the big deal here? We have so many more outlets in which you can get information. We now have the Internet. We didn't used to have that. You have so many different outlets. Do you know something. Go to your cable system and find out who owns the major channels. The same people. Go to the Internet and find out who owns the top sites on the Internet. The same people. So you have many different voices; yes, from the same ventriloquist. Many voices, one ventriloquist or two or three or four--at least fewer ventriloquists in terms of what the American people see, hear, and read. I do not accuse the Federal Communications Commission of bad faith. I happen to like the Federal Communications Commissioners. I believe I know all of them personally. The chairman is someone I have had lunch with a couple times. I like him a lot. I just think they have made a horrible mistake, and I think they did it without the due diligence that is required of those in a regulatory commission position. We expect them to be the referees of sorts. We expect them to wear the striped shirts with the whistles that say: We are here to call the fouls. We are here on behalf of the public interest to call the game. The fact is, this regulatory agency did exactly what the big economic interests and the broadcasting industry wanted. And they did it cleanly and quickly, with minimum nuisance of public participation. There was only one hearing in Richmond, VA. Well, they did get three-quarters of a million pieces of mail and communications over the Internet saying: Don't do this. It is against the public interest. But it did not matter to the FCC. They did it anyway. As a result, I hope this Senate will send a message to the Federal Communications Commission: This rule is a bad rule. This rule opens the gates to massive additional concentration, mergers, and acquisition to fewer and fewer companies owning more and more properties, at least in the circumstance with respect to broadcasts and newspapers. And, by the way, they also eliminate the ban on cross ownership. At least in this circumstance, we don't think it is in the public interest. That is what I hope the Senate will tell the Federal Communications Commission today. By this vote, it will be the first step--a big step--in a process of saying to the Federal Communications Commission: We in Congress veto this rule. You must go back and do it again. Do it over and do it right. Mr. President, I have a lot to say today, and I know my colleagues do as well. But I think in the interest of time, having described why we are here, and the origin of this effort, I will yield the floor. My colleagues from Arizona and Mississippi want to make presentations, following which I will again then amplify my remarks. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, this has been an interesting discussion on the floor of the Senate today on an issue that I think is very important and one that will affect the life of every American citizen. It is complicated and difficult to understand. In some circumstances, it deals with cases of law in Federal court, ideals with arcane rules, and the history of the Federal Communications Commission with respect to broadcast ownership. So it has all of those aspects. I respect the fact there are those who feel strongly on the other side of the issue. I believe very strongly, of course, that the Federal Communications Commission has created a set of rules that will benefit the largest corporate interests in this country in broadcasting. I think they will, however, be a significant detriment to the American people. I was sitting here thinking about the issue of radio and television. Of course, we have not had radio and television in the lives of humankind for very long. It is a relatively recent phenomenon. And I was thinking of the statement that was attributed once to David Sarnoff. I don't know for sure that it was his. But he was asked to comment about the advent of the radio when he was presented with this new invention, and he said: ``The wireless music box--which he called it--has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?'' That was his vision of radio. But, of course, radio has become a very significant feature in our lives, and television as well. Television is a central part of the lives of many Americans. I am told that when children go to school in this country, by the time they are a senior in high school and graduate from school, they have spent somewhere around 12,500 hours sitting in a classroom in our schools and around 20,000 hours in front of the television set. It tells you a little something about the importance of television in the lives of at least children. Let me respond to just a couple of the thoughts that have been expressed by my colleagues. My two colleagues who just spoke are on the Commerce Committee, and on the Commerce Committee they supported the FCC and believe these rules are appropriate. They indicated, for example, that in many ways these rules are for the purpose of protecting--they don't use the term ``mom and pop,'' but let me use it--this is really for mom and pop television stations--you know, the little guy. It is helping the little television station out there that you know is going to go by the wayside if we don't let the big guys buy them up, I guess is the contention. In fact, Commissioner Powell has an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal today. He begins his Wall Street Journal op-ed piece by saying: ``The days of free television may be numbered.'' That is Commissioner Powell in today's Wall Street Journal. And he uses the title ``And That's the Way It Is.'' I guess that suggests Walter Cronkite, who actually opposes what Commissioner Powell is doing. ``And That's the Way It Is.'' The days of free television may be numbered. Interesting. This rule is nothing about free television. It certainly is nothing about mom and pop. It is nothing about saving small television stations. Its point is that we are in the midst of a lot of change that has a dramatic impact and the only way the television industry can make it is to allow this concentration. Well, perhaps we could just separate some fact from fiction. There is no evidence anywhere that the television industry or television stations or mom and pop stations are in any kind of financial trouble. We have a substantial amount of evidence, in fact, that that is not the case. Let me quote Barry Diller, who is a giant in this industry. He recently said: ``Anybody who thinks the networks are in trouble hasn't read the profit statements of those companies. The only way you can lose money in broadcasting is if somebody steals it from you.'' That is Barry Diller. The Wall Street Journal reports that: Fox's president for sales said, ``We all knew that it was going to be big, it just turned out to be the biggest year that we had ever had.'' The chairman of Fox Entertainment noted that Fox will generate significantly more revenue this year than in its previous 17 years, with revenue growth up more than 20%. So free television in financial trouble? I don't think so. It is interesting to hear this discussion, that somehow the rule the FCC has developed--that is really just a high dive on behalf of the largest corporate interests--is being done in order to save the little guy. I have heard a lot of things on the floor of the Senate but never anything quite as entertaining as that. But it is so far from fact that it is almost hard to respond to. The FCC, we are told, in another argument, did what the court said it had to do. The court said: The rules you have on broadcast ownership cannot be justified. You must change them. That is not what the court said. I have what the court said in my hand. The court said: ``It is entirely possible that the Commission will be able to justify a decision to retain the cap.'' It just said that in the response the FCC provided, it did not provide the justification. It did not say: Go change the rule and give the largest corporate interests everything they want. It said: Justify it. The FCC did not even appeal the court's ruling, and now has not tried to justify it. It just said: Well, apparently the court said we must cave in here and decide that there is a kind of ``Katie bar the door'' limit, and we will do what the big interests want. Again, this is a regulatory agency that ought to be concerned about the public interest but, in my judgment, with respect to these rules, is not concerned much about the public interest. My colleagues say: This is all about the market system and the Constitution. The first amendment says you have the right of free speech and the right to buy what you want to buy. One of my colleagues talked about being able to acquire property you want to acquire. That is not an inalienable right in this country. We have things such as antitrust. We have laws dealing with antitrust. When somebody wants to steal from you by creating a cartel and jacking up the price, that is called stealing. It violates the law, and we put people in jail for it. So you do not have an absolute right to do whatever you want in the marketplace. We have had some experience with this over time. The most recent experience, of course, is the Enron Corporation. And I suppose some of those Enron folks are going to get 2 years of hard tennis at some minimum-security institution some place. Some of them are still waiting to see if indictments and charges will come. Hundreds of millions of dollars were bilked from people because of concentration in the marketplace monopoly, pricing, and so forth. Look, the point is this: If, in this circumstance, what people see, read, and think is controlled by fewer and fewer interests, it is, in my judgment, detrimental to the democratic way of life and system of government that we have because the foundation of this system of government is the free flow of information. Now, if somebody decided tomorrow, look, we are going to buy up all the hamburger stands in America, and instead of driving down the street and seeing a McDonald's or a Burger King or a Wendy's, one company decides we want all the hamburger stands in our name. We just want to call all those hamburger stands ``The World's Best Burger Stands,'' and we are going to buy them all. That would be awful, would it not? It would not affect our lives very much. We might have indigestion once in a while, and there would be no variety. Somebody would probably say it violates the antitrust laws for a company to own them all, but I wouldn't have an apoplectic seizure on the Senate floor because I don't stop at those stands much. But what about instead of hamburger stands, we talk about information? Information is what makes a democracy work. What about the control of information in fewer and fewer and fewer hands? Is that something we should be concerned about? Yes, of course. That is something that is important. They say, well, but the market system should make this judgment. Look, that market system is wonderful; it is a great thing. I used to teach economics briefly. I taught about the market system. I love the market system. It is a wonderful allocator of goods and services. But it is not perfect. That is why we have regulators and regulations. Under the market system--Judge Judy, that woman on television with an attitude, gets $25 million a year. Good for her. That is the market system. Judge Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, gets $180,000 a year. That is the market system. A shortstop for a Texas baseball team makes the same amount of money in a year as 1,000 elementary school teachers. Good for him. Is that a market system judgment that you think makes sense? I don't. But that is the market system. The market system is not perfect. In circumstances where you are dealing with ideas, and the free flow of information in a democracy, we need to be concerned about making certain that we don't have fewer and fewer people, fewer companies or institutions, determining what we see, read, and hear in this, the greatest democracy on Earth. That is what this is about. I mentioned earlier that there are some trashy things in the media. I talked about the television programs that my colleague, Senator Nunn, talked about on the floor of the Senate. I could have updated it and used the same things for this year or last year. I should hasten to say, however, there are also some wonderful things. I don't want to just tarnish an industry. I think there are wonderful things, gripping things, things with such incredible, utter beauty that you can hardly describe them, on television and on the radio. It is really quite remarkable. Some of the things that we are able to see and experience are great. I don't want anybody to think that I am somebody who doesn't watch television, doesn't appreciate television, or radio. I just want there to be some vibrancy with respect to the use of the airwaves, which belong to the American people and are licensed to companies. I want there to be vibrancy with respect to serving the local communities they serve. The reason we license a radio station in a community is to be responsive to local needs and interests in that community. It doesn't attach at all when properties are purchased by companies that only want to run homogenized music from a thousand miles away. They are selling advertising and making profits, but they don't do anything with respect to the localism requirements in those local communities. That bothers me. I offered this amendment with my colleagues, Republicans and Democrats. This isn't a partisan or political issue in any way. Senator Lott from Mississippi and I, and many others, including Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and others, have been very concerned about what is going on with respect to concentration in the media. This battle that has shaped up in the FCC to write a new rule is a battle between the public interest and the special interests. Frankly, the special interests won everything. They won the whole pot. By that, I mean it was put in the middle of the table and they turned over a card and the FCC said: You win, big interests; you get it all. We have a procedure called the Congressional Review Act by which we can, as the Senate, vote on whether we want to disapprove this rule. I want the Senate to decide that now in this time we will say to the FCC that we disapprove of that rule. That rule is not in the public's interest. That rule is not what we expect this regulatory agency to do on behalf of the American people. I mentioned earlier, I come from a very small town. We didn't have a radio or television station. I come from a town of 350 people in a southwestern corner of a sparsely populated State. North Dakota is a wonderful place, but we have 640,000 people spread out in a landmass the size of 10 Massachusettes. The nearest television station to where I grew up was 125 miles away. The first television in our little town was at a place called the Regent Garage. The people in town--at night, especially, because that is when you can catch disparate signals being broadcast--would gather at the Regent Garage. With this one television set--the only one in our town, they would all peer into that set and see this grainy, snowy vision coming from Bismarck, ND, 125 miles away. Occasionally, there would be some sort of a skip and they would pick up professional wrestling from West Virginia, or a strange program from way out East. The people in my hometown thought it was just incredible. The people began to get television sets. It wasn't just the Regent Garage; they got sets in their homes. So it has gone for some 60 years. There wasn't any question years ago about localism. When stations were developed, one developed closer to my hometown. It is still the closest television station now. It was 60 miles away--KDIX television in Dickinson. As television stations developed, they were locally owned. The only way they got a television station in Dickinson is folks in the region put in money. They asked people to contribute $100. So my dad contributed $100. He was one of a lot of people who contributed to building a television station in Dickinson, ND. So we had localism, local ownership. But that has changed dramatically. The question is, Do we want it to change more? Do we want most of our properties in broadcast radio and television to be owned from a thousand miles away? Do we want, in most of our big cities, the dominant newspaper to own the dominant television station? Do we want, in most big cities, to have one company own three television stations, eight radio stations, the dominant newspaper, and the cable system? Does anybody think that will benefit the consumers of this country? The answer ought to be no to those questions. That is not what we want or expect from the FCC. It is not the direction that we anticipated when we created the 1996 Telecommunications Act. Mr. President, there is a lot to say. I want to correct one other thing with regards to the discussion about the quality of programming. Somebody talked about the quality of programming and said network-owned stations, where you have one big owner, you get higher quality programming from those folks because they have the money and they are big shots and they have it all going. They are producing great things. Well, here is something I think is interesting. Two organizations, NASA (Network Affiliated Stations Alliance) and the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), were highly critical of a study that the FCC did on the quality of news programming between affiliates and network-owned stations. While the original study indicated that network-owned stations did better than affiliates because they won more awards, NASA and NAB demonstrated that the conclusion was untrue once the study was adjusted to take market size into account. After controlling for market size the data showed that independent affiliates outperformed network-owned stations on all measures of news quality. Affiliates win substantially more Dupont awards and substantially more Peabody awards. In addition, the Project for Excellence in Journalism study showed that affiliates are superior to network-owned stations in terms of news quality. I think that is important. Finally, it is also important in the context of what kind of program is going to come into your community. Is it going to be programming that someone in your community can decide they do not want? We see the programming these days on some of the national shows. It is almost embarrassing to read the names of the programming, and yet if you tune in some evening, when your television set comes on you will see someone standing in front of a bowl of maggots and they are beginning to eat this bowl of maggots. I forget the name, ``Fear Factor''--it is one of those shows. I have only seen it momentarily. When I saw somebody trying to eat a bowl of maggots, I thought: It is a good thing there is an off button on the television set. Maybe there ought to be an off button with the person who owns the local broadcasting company saying: I happen to think that is not the program I want to sell in Tallahassee, FL, or Chattanooga, TN. What I would like to do is put on an alternative program that I think is better than someone eating maggots. You know what. They cannot do that. I described earlier letters from local stations who say: We can't do that. So the more stations you get under this umbrella, under single ownership, the less opportunity anybody anywhere at any time will have to say: I don't happen to like that program. You might have put it together in the recesses of a closet in Hollywood someplace where you thought it was wonderful, but back in our hometown, we think it is trashy. I don't want to play it. I want to play something that more reflects the values of our hometown. They cannot change it. If you want more of that, if you want to move more in that direction, then you ought to vote to sustain the FCC. Like a cheerleader, shake some pom-poms, jump up in the air and say: We really like what you do; bigger is better. Katie bar the door, let them have anything. Let's have one big company give us a crooked smile every morning and say: We are for America, and we decide what you ought to see, what you ought to hear, and what you ought to read from Sunday to Saturday. Don't like it? Tough luck, we own it all. If that is your philosophy, then you need to vote for this resolution of disapproval. But if you believe in enterprise, in local control, in owning up to the responsibility we have given those who own local stations, if you believe in that, then you ought to vote for this resolution of disapproval. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. I yield such time as he may consume to the Senator from Colorado.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. President, let me begin with a chart that I had used previously. There is the suggestion that somehow concentration is not of any significant interest and, gosh, there is nothing wrong. This is all localism and mom-and-pop operations. I used this chart before. I mentioned Disney. Let me just say that although I picked Disney out, I happen to like Disney. Disney has given me some of the more rewarding moments of my life when I was young. Disney is a great company. But it is a very large company doing a lot of things. Let me go to News Corp: 22 TV stations including duopolies in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Washington, Minnesota, Houston, Orlando, Phoenix. They have newspapers: the New York Post, the Times, the Sun. They have books: Harper Collins, Regan Books, Amistad Books, William Morrow & Co. They have sports teams: the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Los Angeles Kings. I could go through all of this and describe the largest media companies, and you would see these are significant concentrations, dramatic concentrations in broadcast ownership, newspapers. And I don't know. Maybe some say it doesn't matter much. I think it does matter. Let me describe at least one part of why it matters. The issue of localism, by which we say you may use the airwaves--they belong to the American people, but you and your radio or television company may use these airwaves--not own them, but use them--in exchange for certain requirements. One of them is localism. That means you have to serve local interests. The question is, how do you serve local interests from a thousand miles away, where you create some homogenized music and run it through a board and play it though your radio or TV operation in that hometown. Earlier, I described voice tracking. Someone may be driving down the road in Salt Lake City listening to the radio station, and the announcer, with a sonorous voice, says, ``Good morning, the sun is shining here in Salt Lake City; what a wonderful day to wake up and be in America.'' You would think, what a great resident to have broadcasting for our radio station. The problem is, that person isn't in Salt Lake City; he is in a basement in Baltimore, MD, in a studio, ripping off a printer something that came from the Internet that says it is sunny in Salt Lake City. It is called voice tracking--pretending there is a local announcer on that radio station. That is going on all over the country now. There is something called central casting on television. You can turn on two television stations in two cities and see the same television personality giving the news--homogenized regional news, because they cannot quite do it locally. They are trying to convince people this is a local news person. Let's pretend there is localism. That is what it is all about. When you have these concentrations of ownership, this orgy of mergers that has occurred in recent years in both radio and television, it hurts there isn't much localism. We have had testimony before the Commerce Committee by a man who runs a pretty substantial television station. He said: I can't decide that my viewers don't want to watch a piece of trash that will come down from the network. Even though it is awful stuff they say you have to run it. Here is an interesting letter. It is dated July 25, 2003, by a television station in Kansas City, Missouri, to someone who complained to them: We received your letter dated June 30, 2003, regarding the content of [a certain show] that aired on [this date]. We forwarded your letter to the . . . Network. The Network, not [our station], decides what shows go on the air for [this network-owned station]. So it says that they don't decide what goes on the air in Kansas City. You can complain to us, but we don't decide. The network does. Is there localism involved in that? One of my colleagues, on the floor of the Senate a number of years ago, when we were debating all of this, said something interesting. I decided to pull it out and read it today because it relates to this issue of localism. Should we care about whether someone in Bismarck, ND, or Chattanooga, TN, has an opportunity to decide this is not a program that meets our standards? Or should we say, look, let the networks decide, and whatever they decide to produce in New York or Hollywood is going to be shown in Bismarck, ND, or Chattanooga, TN, and it doesn't matter what the local folks think. My colleague, Senator Sam Nunn, in 1995, when we were debating this prior to the 1996 act, talked about violence on television, what was on television. He said: To follow up on this issue, one member of my staff voluntarily conducted an unscientific survey of the topics on daytime talk shows. Every hour or so, he would scan the television on his desk and see what the day's topics were for the daytime talk shows. The reason I point this out is this: The first day, one show was called ``Stop Pretending To Be a Girl'' and featured young boys whose parents were upset that their sons dressed and acted like a girl. Another show offered a show entitled ``Boys Who Only Have Sex With Virgins.'' Yet another show offered a girl dumping her boyfriend on national television and asking her new ``significant other,'' another girl, to commit to her. He said: Mr. President, I thought that surely the next day's shows would pale in comparison to these. I was wrong. Subsequent days' reviews of these shows found titles such as ``One-Night Stand Reunions.'' Another show was entitled ``I Am Ready to Have Sex With You Right Now.'' And another show was called ``I Cheat and Am Proud Of It. One show featured a woman who chose to tell her fiance on national television that she cheated on him with her sister's boyfriend . . . It goes on and on. He said: Perhaps the most appropriately titled show of all was the one entitled ``You Look Like a Freak.'' Localism. Trash on television. Should someone who owns a television station in Tennessee have the ability to say, you know, what you are sending us in this time period is a show I don't think represents any kind of standard that makes sense for us. The answer is that too often the station are not allowed do that because someone else calls the shots, not the local folks. When you have this concentration, local standards no longer matter. Will there be more concentration as a result of what the FCC has done with its rules? Of course. In fact, I will read a letter written by W.B. Grimes & Company that was written before the FCC even ruled. They wrote it to the publisher of a newspaper in Seattle: As you know, the FCC is considering elimination of the ban on cross-ownership of media properties within a daily newspaper publisher's given markets. They can then buy the television station in the same market. It says: In anticipation of that ruling, several newspaper groups are already forging alliances and cutting handshake agreements with both radio and television broadcasters in their markets. If you are considering broadcast acquisitions to bolster your market presence, we believe the time to act is now. We would like to be your broker. This was before the FCC acted. Most people thought the FCC was going to do what the big interests wanted them to do. Here is a broker saying, let us get involved so we can help you buy television stations. Once again, more and more concentration. I will talk about some of the voices opposed to this. Some of my colleagues talked about this. William Safire, a very conservative columnist, who worked for President Richard Nixon as a speech writer, and for the New York Times for many years, said: The overwhelming amount of news and entertainment comes via broadcast and print. Putting these outlets in fewer and bigger hands profits the few at the cost of the many. Does that sound unconservative? Not to me. The concentration of power--political, corporate, media, and cultural--should be anathema to conservatives. The diffusion of power through local control, thereby encouraging individual participation, is the essence of federalism and the greatest expression of democracy. U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops: Without diversity of ownership, our meaningful alternatives to syndicated shows and info-mercials, and public affairs programs, are in jeopardy. NRA's executive VP Wayne LaPierre said: Most cities have only one major newspaper to begin with. Add ownership of the dominant local TV station, the top AM and FM bands and the local cable TV provider. Then do the same thing in 20 or 50 cities, and you see how a multibillion-dollar corporation corners the market in the marketplace of ideas. Minority or unpopular causes--think of women's suffrage in 1914, or civil rights in 1954--would be downplayed or dismissed to keep viewers watching and advertisers buying. That's no way to run a democracy. That is the executive vice president of the National Rifle Association. That is not a liberal organization. Walter Cronkite: The gathering of more and more outlets under one owner clearly can be an impediment to a free and independent press. I could go on and on. Parents Television Council: Almost 80 percent of families rely on their hometown papers and TV for local information. People can't turn to a national news network over the Internet. They provide one-size-fits- all programming, controlled from an office hundreds, perhaps thousands, of miles from your town. Barry Diller, former head of Universal Studios, who has acquired a rather substantial enterprise in information: The big, bad truth is--and I don't think it is given enough importance--the big four networks have in fact reconstituted themselves into the oligopoly that the FCC originally set out to curb back in the 1960s. They may have controlled 90 percent of what people saw, but they operated with a sense of public responsibility that simply doesn't exist for these vertically integrated media conglomerates, driven only to fit their next piece in the puzzle of world dominance. Let me speak for a few moments about my colleague, Senator McCain, someone for whom I have great respect. He gave a statement and I told him I was certainly not going to be supportive of his contention that anything we are doing here or any reason to come to the floor of the Senate on this issue has to do with the 1996 Telecommunications Act. That was his contention. Nothing could be further from the truth, in my judgment. I just disagree with that. In 1996, when we rewrote the Telecommunications Act, beginning in 1995, we addressed these very issues. I offered an amendment on the floor of the Senate in 1995 to S. 652 during debate on the Telecommunications Act--an amendment by Senator Dorgan of North Dakota: To strike the provisions of the bill that would allow television networks and other chains to own no more than 35 percent of the Nation's households and take it back to 25 percent. We had a vote on that amendment. Guess what. I won the vote by three votes. Senator Dole was standing at that chair--at that point he was majority leader--and Senator D'Amato from New York was at the desk in the back. I won the vote by three votes, to roll back the 35 percent, which was in the telecommunications bill, to say: You can't own more than 25 percent of the reach in this country when you own television stations. Guess what happened? Dinner intervened. The worst thing in the world around here is dinner because over dinner--we call it supper back in my hometown--over that period when you eat your evening meal, although I had won by three votes at 4 in the afternoon, three of my colleagues had some sort of epiphany over their main course, apparently. Senator D'Amato came back and asked for reconsideration, and he and Senator Dole decided to overturn the vote by which I had won at 4 o'clock that would have prevented the 35 percent and gone back to 25 percent. They changed three votes. We came back 3 hours later and I lost. So I won for 3 hours. My colleague--incidentally, Senator McCain made the point I voted for the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which I did, to be sure--my colleague Senator McCain voted against my amendment that would have rolled back the 35 percent back to 25 percent. I was fighting then to stop this gross concentration that is going on in the broadcast industry, and I won for 3 hours. Then I forgot, when you get people out of this Chamber and get arms twisted, you can have a re-vote and several people will apparently come here with a different mind-set. Winning is temporary in those circumstances, and it certainly was that day. This is a situation I understood then exactly what was going to happen, and it has happened wholesale. I mentioned earlier we have one company that has well over 1,200 radio stations in this country. The same is happening in television and happening very quickly. With newspapers, this new FCC rule says: Oh, by the way, in addition to allowing more concentration in radio and television, let's let the newspapers own the television stations and more radio stations in the same marketplace. I was taught long ago never argue with anybody who buys ink by the barrel. I guess I never quite understood that lesson. Here we take on the American Newspaper Association and the publishers, and they are lobbying furiously because they are opposed to what we are doing. They want to be able to buy television stations in the same city. I said the extension of what the FCC is going to allow to happen as a result of their rule is this: That in the largest American cities one company will now be able to own the dominant newspaper, the dominant television station, two other television stations, eight radio stations, and the cable company, and they can do that in city after city. If you think that is in the public interest, then I say look up the term ``public interest'' in the dictionary or understand the public interest in the context of what we ask of radio and television stations, of what we need for the free flow of information in our democracy. It is not in the public interest. I seldom ever come to the floor to say ``I told you so,'' but it is almost too tempting to avoid at this moment. In 1995, following what happened on the floor of the Senate when I was attempting to stop this orgy of mergers that was going to occur, when I won a vote for 3 hours and then lost because my colleagues left to have something to eat, this is what I said: If these changes are enacted, the media industry in this country will be controlled by a handful of conglomerates in the future. The long-held principles of localism and diversity will suffer. I said that on June 15, 1995, when I was fighting then for the same principle I fight for today, and that is to stop the massive concentration. What the American people see, hear, and read will increasingly be controlled by a very few voices. That is not in the interest of this country. I have more to say. I believe the Senator from Virginia wishes to speak either perhaps strongly supporting this resolution or maybe he will oppose it. Perhaps the latter. What I would like to do is allow him to speak, and I understand the Senator from New Hampshire is also going to be on the floor. I am going to make some concluding remarks this afternoon. I yield the floor so the Senator from Virginia can make his presentation.