Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Well, Mr. President, now that I have that off my chest, let me go on to talk about energy. I am proud to be on the floor of the Senate in support of the ethanol amendment, which is bipartisan. It is interesting to me that this legislation dealing with ethanol is an amendment that comes to the floor by virtue of Senator Frist, Senator Daschle, myself, Senator Talent, Senator Johnson, and so many others, with strong bipartisan support. It is saying: At least one part of this country's energy strategy that makes sense is to take the starch and sugars from a kernel of corn, ferment that, and get a drop of alcohol and extend America's energy supply. You do a couple things with that: You expand the opportunity for markets for agricultural products and help family farmers, and you actually grow your energy supply in America's farm fields by producing corn that can be then used to produce ethanol. What a remarkable thing to do. It makes good sense to extend our energy supply by producing ethanol. Now, let me talk a bit about what sets us up to do this. First, we have to have a serious discussion about America's energy future. I have spoken of this before, but I wish to do it very briefly again. We need to use fossil fuels in this country's future. There is no question about that: coal, oil, natural gas. We use them, and we will use them. But if our energy strategy is only that--if America's future energy strategy is only a dig and drill strategy--then it is a ``yesterday forever'' strategy. Every 25 years we can come to the floor of the Senate, we can have another debate about how much we are going to dig, how much we are going to drill, and probably satisfy our urge to speak. But we will not have satisfied this country's need for a different kind of energy strategy. So an energy bill that makes sense for this country's future is one that does dig and drill, with environmental safeguards, but it must do more than that. It should, first, include incentivized production, but, second, it should provide conservation measures, because a barrel of oil saved is a barrel of oil produced in our economy. Then, in addition to production and conservation, an energy bill that makes sense is an energy bill that has a title that deals with the efficiency of all of the appliances that we use in our daily lives. And, fourth, it should include a provision that deals with limitless and renewable sources of energy. That is what this amendment is about. So production, conservation, efficiency, and limitless and renewable sources of energy--that is what an energy bill is about, if it is balanced. Add in the limitless and renewable sources of energy, for my money, it means we should pole vault over all of these 25-year debates and say, we want to move to a new energy future. One hundred years ago, when you wanted to gas up an old Ford, a Model T Ford, you pulled up to the gas pumps, you stuck that hose in the gas tank and began pumping. One hundred years later, we do exactly the same thing. If you happened to have driven a Ford this morning, and stopped at a gas pump, you did exactly the same thing they did a century ago: You run gas through the car's carburetor. And God bless us, we have great cars, and we have fuel at every gas pump, and no waiting lines. That is the way we fuel our automobile, our transportation fleet. Let me describe what is happening with respect to energy in this country. If you look at the total demand for oil, and then look at transportation, you will see that the fastest rising demand for energy in this country, for oil particularly, is in transportation; it is in our vehicle fleet. That is where our demand for energy is rising. What I believe we should do is heed the words of President Bush, who said: Let's move to a hydrogen fuel cell future. When President Bush called for that in the State of the Union Address, I said: This makes great sense. I had previously introduced a piece of legislation suggesting the same. I suppose that is why I thought it made great sense. But the fact is, for this President to put his administration on the line in support of a hydrogen future with fuel cells is a very important step. To be sure, his plan is not very bold. I suggest that his plan is rather timid: in fact, it is $1.2 billion, half of which is new money, and part of which comes out of other important energy initiatives, particularly in renewables. But I don't want that to diminish the fact it is very important that this President--a Republican President, who comes from an oil State--says: Let's move to a different kind of energy future, especially with respect to transportation and the vehicle fleet. Let's see if your children, and our grandchildren, might not be able to turn the key on an automobile that uses hydrogen in fuel cells. Hydrogen is ubiquitous. It is everywhere. Hydrogen is in water. You can put up a windmill, with more efficient turbines, and take energy from the wind, produce electricity, and use that electricity--through the process of electrolysis--to separate hydrogen and oxygen from water, and then store the hydrogen, and use that to power our vehicle fleet. That is one application: using wind energy to produce electricity to produce hydrogen. But there are so many ways to produce hydrogen, and it is everywhere. So what we have to do is begin to solve this problem of moving to a hydrogen future--the problem of production, the problem of transportation, storage, and infrastructure. But the fact is, although these are problems, they are not insurmountable. I drove a hydrogen car yesterday that was here on Capitol Hill. It is the second one I have driven. This was a General Motors car. One was United Technologies. Hydrogen vehicles are twice as efficient in getting power to the wheel as the internal combustion engine. Do you know what they put out of the tailpipe? Water vapor. What a wonderful thing: You find an engine that is twice as efficient, using a fuel cell, and you clean up the environment by putting water vapor out of the tailpipe of a vehicle. What a wonderful thing to do. Now, I can't tell you how important it is to have the President's support on this. I nearly tripled what the President wanted by pushing, along with Senator Domenici, and others in the Energy Committee, to say: Let's substantially increase the amount of resources we are going to put towards moving in this direction of a hydrogen future. This requires bold, big initiatives. So the bill on the floor is slightly over $3 billion. I would like it to be $6.5 billion. I would like targets and timetables. I would like to see 100,000 vehicles using fuel cells on America's roads by 2010. I would like to see 2.5 million vehicles on America's roads by 2020. Targets and timetables is the way we drive this issue. With research and development in a whole range of areas, and development of infrastructure, we can do this. We won't do it if we just revert back to what we have always done. When I was a little boy growing up in a town of 350-400 people, they decided to try to dig an oil well 5 miles from my little town. It was the biggest thing in the world. We were so excited when somebody said they would try to dig an oil well on Bon Woodruff's farm. We thought it was the biggest thing. I remember driving out there. We used to drive out there all the time, the whole town. We would all drive out to see where the oil well was. We would watch the rig being put up. When it got up, it had lights all over it. They were drilling day and night. People were driving out and parking, watching. There was nothing going on, just lights and a rig. In my town that was a big deal. It was a dry hole. They never got oil. But it was a pretty interesting several months. As a little boy, I thought about the drilling for oil, where we find oil abroad, and how we use oil to power our vehicle fleet. Fifty-five percent of that which we use comes from outside of our country. That doesn't make sense. Much of it comes from troubled parts of the world, a third from the Middle East. We could wake up some day and discover the supply of oil is cut off because of terrorists. Then America's economy would be flat on its back. The 55 percent foreign oil we are now dependent on is going to rise to 68 percent if we don't do something. What is the greatest demand? Transportation. We have to do something big and bold. We have to have an energy policy that says to the people: We will get out of this. We may never be completely independent, but we will sure be a whole lot less dependent on foreign sources of energy. That brings me to the amendment. The amendment dealing with ethanol. I am a big fan of growing part of our fuel in the farm fields. You grow that corn, take that ear of corn, take the kernels off, and with those kernels of corn you produce alcohol. It is important to farmers. It is a new market for their crop. It is important to our country's energy needs because it extends America's energy supply. MTBE, a fuel additive, will be phased out in this legislation. We are discovering when MTBE shows up in America's groundwater, it is harmful to health. We will get rid of it. When we do, it will dramatically increase the demand for ethanol across America. That demand will increase to nearly 5 billion gallons. That means we will see more and more plants built around the country that will use the agriculture feedstock, take the alcohol from it. You still have the protein feedstock left to feed to the cattle, and you have grown some energy in America's fields. It is, therefore, renewable. We are not using it up. It is renewable year after year. I am pleased that now for the first time we see a robust bipartisan group. It is not that it has not always been bipartisan; it has always been a bipartisan debate. But when you have the majority leader and minority leader leading an amendment, that is a big deal. Those of us who care about ethanol understand this is a moment in time in which we register strong support for moving in a different direction, for being bold. I talked about hydrogen and fuel cells. That is one part of being bold. The other part of renewable and limitless sources of energy is ethanol. There is more, including biodiesel, among others. So there is much to do. The legislation we have brought to the floor from the Energy Committee is imperfect. But it has some good features. We will add some additional features. Senator Domenici should be commended. He is a pleasure to work with. Senator Bingaman on our side of the aisle, ranking Democrat, is the same, a terrific Senator who has done a great job. The energy bill needs some strengthening. We need a Renewable Portfolio Standard to improve the future for renewable energy for electricity. We need a Renewable Fuels Standard, which includes the ethanol amendment. We need protections on the electricity title that do not now exist. I chaired hearings in the last year and a half with respect to what Enron Corporation did in the State of California and on the West Coast. When I said during that time that it looked to me like it was massive manipulation of electricity markets, and grand theft going on to the tune of billions of dollars for consumers in California and the West Coast, that was pooh-poohed by everybody. All the conservative columnists and others, Mr. Krauthammer and others, would write: Who are you kidding? There is no manipulation. Every time something likes this goes on, the Democrats claim there is manipulation. We now know there was grand theft going on. Massive criminal investigations are occurring. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which for a long while did its best imitation of a potted plant and decided it would not do anything while the people were victimized, has now said it was not just Enron, but there were a number of companies on the West Coast that decided to take the opportunity to shut down the electricity plants, short the load, drive up prices, and profiteer as a result of it. Strategies like Death Star, Get Shorty, Fat Boy. You don't know what Fat Boy is? Fat Boy was a strategy by which energy traders working for the Enron Corporation colluded to try to see if they could steal from consumers. Death Star, same thing; Get Shorty, there were a dozen of them and more. Even more than the strategies, which were written in memos that we now have, we also have the transcripts of telephone conversations in which they talk about how they will shut down the plant in order to short the load and drive up price. They moved electricity in and out of a couple of States in order to increase the price, in some cases tenfold in 24 hours. What is that called, except stealing? There are going to be people who go to jail for it. The electricity title in this bill must address these issues, wash trades, and others. It addresses a couple of them, but not nearly enough. We need to put consumer protections in here so what happened to the people in California does not ever happen again. We have a lot of people running around the country saying: We need to restructure the electricity title. We need to restructure electricity issues so there is massive competition. We have a bit of experience with that which tells us that when you have very big players who have the ability to control and monopolize markets, and you also have a consumer, if you don't have a referee in between making sure the big interests are not cheating, the little interests get trampled. That is what happened on the West Coast. It is not just petty theft. It is billions of dollars. My colleague who will speak following me, Senator Nelson of Florida, was a member of the subcommittee where we investigated these issues. Frankly, it made you sick to see what was going on. Finally FERC stepped in and imposed a price cap. Finally an investigation was undertaken. The Justice Department is involved. The fact is, we should not and will not pass an energy bill through the Congress without an electricity title that provides protections to make sure this never happens again. There will be other amendments. I am proud today to support this amendment, a bipartisan strong amendment on ethanol. We will also need to include a Renewable Portfolio Standard in the bill. We need to put in provisions that deal with consumer protections with respect to electricity. There is much yet to do. It is a pretty good start. This bill will advance America's energy interests, if we can add the amendments and add some protections. Following the war in Iraq, what we know exists in the Middle East, as well as all of the uncertainties around the world, if anybody still wonders whether we need an energy policy, they have been asleep. This country needs to make sure its economy, its way of life, the future for the American people is not held hostage by the whims, confrontations, tragedies and conflicts in other parts of the world. That is what a good energy strategy, a balanced energy strategy, will do for our future. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. I am happy to yield for a question.

Mr. DORGAN. The Senator from Florida should know that I offered an amendment in the Energy Committee that failed, I believe, by one or two votes. I intend to offer it again on the floor. It is similar to legislation introduced in the Senate that creates an Apollo-like program on hydrogen and fuel cells. My belief is we ought to do for this as we did with respect to going to the moon. President Kennedy said let's put a person on the moon by the end of the decade. Sure enough, Neil Armstrong stepped off that ladder running and planted his foot on the surface of the moon by the end of the decade. It seems to me if this country really wants to effect substantial change, then you have to set goals and timetables. My proposal, which I introduced with a number of colleagues in the Senate--actually prior to the State of the Union Address in which the President announced his support for this initiative--is a $6.5 billion authorization over 10 years that sets targets and timetables and puts this country squarely behind an aggressive Apollo-type program, saying let's get there and, as a nation, let's aspire to reach a goal. Yes, I intend to offer it as an amendment to the energy bill.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I know the Senator wants to take the floor in his own right. I think it is important for people to know he is the only Member of the Senate who has actually flown on the space shuttle. Many people know that. Many years ago, he was part of the crew of a space shuttle. He knows of what he speaks. I was originally going to call the bill I introduced--trying to move us in a bold, aggressive way toward a hydrogen future and fuel cell-- the Manhattan Project, which was another successful project that dealt with something different. The Manhattan and Apollo Projects were both projects that had this country saying let's do this with targets and timetables. I think that is what we should do with respect to the President's call for a hydrogen economy and fuel cell, especially having this President's administration behind this initiative. It is no small thing to have a President from an oil State say to the country: Let's see if we can move toward a future with hydrogen and fuel cells. Good for him. That support is going to be very important. I will indeed offer my amendment to the energy bill at some point in the coming days, and I am happy to have the support of the Senator from Florida. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, how much time did I consume?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, might I ask a parliamentary inquiry for the moment? I now understand we were under a period of morning business. When I came, the Senator from Texas was speaking, I assume, perhaps, under morning business as well. I don't know whether I consumed more time than he did or whether it was about even. Could you tell me how much time the Senator from Texas used?

Mr. DORGAN. That is correct.

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

Mr. DORGAN. I am happy to yield for a question.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, what is the allotted time under morning business?

Mr. DORGAN. Right.

Mr. DORGAN. That is correct.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, my colleague and many other colleagues in recent weeks have spoken on the floor on the subject of judicial appointments, Federal judgeships. I want to offer a few comments on the subject, not because I think I am an expert--I don't even serve on the Judiciary Committee--but the comments that have been made on the floor of the Senate suggest to the American people that somehow one side of the Senate is blocking judicial nominations, the system is broken, it is not working, and somehow it has to be fixed. Let me see if I can at least provide some clarity. In the summer of 1991, we had 110 vacancies in the Federal courts. That has now been reduced to 47 vacancies. Why is that the case? Because we have been processing nominations from the White House for Federal judgeships and approving new Federal judges for lifetime appointments. We have voted. We have had votes on 123 of President Bush's Federal judges who have been confirmed. I have voted for 120 of the 123. Incidentally, of those 123, 2 of them were North Dakota Federal judges. I recognized that the openings in the Fargo and the Bismarck district would be filled by President Bush, would be filled by Republicans. The process worked the way it should work and the way I believe it should always work in that circumstance; that is, the White House and Senator Conrad and I worked together to find candidates, a list of qualified candidates in North Dakota from which the President would select. He then selected a candidate, a Republican, to send to the Congress to say: Here is who I believe should be the new Federal judge for a lifetime in the Fargo district. Here is who I believe should be the Federal judge for a lifetime in the Bismarck district. He nominated both. I am proud to say I supported both. Both are wonderful lawyers. Both are going to be great judges. They both now sit on the bench. They do so with my vote, and I was proud to do it. That is exactly the way this ought to work. Let me describe a bit about what the Constitution does say about judgeships. It says the President: . . . shall nominate and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate shall appoint . . . judges of the Supreme Court and all other officers of the United States. . . . What that means is the President shall nominate and the Senate in its process shall make a judgment about whether it advises and consents to that nomination. So the President has no inherent right under the Constitution to send us a name and say: Oh, by the way, this is who I aspire to appoint to the Federal bench, district court, or circuit court, and you must accept this nominee. That is not what the Constitution says. The Constitution says there is a two-part process: The President proposes and we dispose. The President nominates and we give our advice and consent. A President not of my political party has the right to nominate members of his political party to sit on the Federal bench. When it worked as it worked in the circumstance with North Dakota, I was proud to be someone who said: Count me in. I vote for these nominees because I think they will be great Federal judges. When it doesn't work is a circumstance where the White House says: We don't care what you think down in the Senate. Here is a name, and we are going to shove it down that pipe, and if you don't like it, tough; we are going to fight like the dickens to get it. You have the right to fight, I would say to the White House. You have a right to fight for your nominees. But if you don't have a process where there is some agreement and understanding of working together on lifetime appointments, sometimes nominees are going to get snared and caught in a web down here. We have approved 123 of the nominees sent to us by President Bush. As I indicated, I have voted for 120 of them. This so-called breakdown or collapse in the process is over two nominations at this point. This is not new. We have two nominations that are caught in the web, and I will explain why in a moment. The fact is this web has been a much tighter web for a long period of time in which we have reduced far more than half of the vacancies in the Federal bench. Why? Because we are in the business of approving the President's nominees. In a circumstance where we have approved 123 of them, it can hardly be said that this process is broken. But it has been broken. There were times when this process was broken. One of the judgeships, the nominations that were sent here that is caught, is in the Fifth Circuit. Let me describe what happened in the Fifth Circuit just so we have some history. In the Fifth Circuit, from 1995 on we had three nominations by the previous administration--three nominations--Judge Rangel, Enrique Moreno, and Alston Johnson. They never got a hearing--not one hearing, not a day, not a minute. They were dead when they got here. There were going to be no hearings because there wasn't going to be a judge on the Fifth Circuit Court appointed by that administration, by the Clinton administration. What happened? The administration changed. So did the control of the Senate for a while. Judge Clement was confirmed in 6 months; Judge Pickering had two hearings, had a negative vote in the committee. Perhaps--I guess it was a negative vote. I was thinking perhaps he pulled his nomination from consideration. But in any event, there was action in the committee for Judge Pickering. Judge Priscilla Owen: two hearings, a vote in the committee. Judge Edward Prado: a hearing, a vote. Do you see the difference? Under the previous administration, the Republican Senate would not even allow a hearing--not 1 minute of hearing, let alone bring a candidate to the hearing room and have a discussion and have a vote and bring it to the floor--not even a hearing, not 1 day. That was when the system was really broken. Now we have a circumstance where we are told that because we have two nominations on the floor of the Senate that have not moved--and I will explain why--that the system has somehow completely collapsed and we should change the rules of the Senate. Let us take a look at the DC Circuit Court. There was not any intention to add a judge to the District of Columbia Circuit Court under the previous administration. We had the nomination of Allen Snyder. He was never given a vote. Elena Kagen was never given a vote because they said the District of Columbia Circuit doesn't have enough work. We shouldn't add a judge to the DC Circuit. Now, all of a sudden, the administration changes, and there is room for more. We need more, and we need to add someone to the District of Columbia Circuit. You go up and down over the recent years, and you see, in the circuit court especially, candidate after candidate who was never given a vote and was never given a hearing. That is when the process was broken and had collapsed. It can hardly be said that the process doesn't work at this point when we have reduced the vacancies on the Federal bench by confirming 123 of the President's nominees. And I have voted for almost all of them. That is not a process that has collapsed. Let me talk about the two that are at odds that Members have come to the floor of the Senate and talked about how the system has collapsed. The first is Mr. Estrada. Mr. Estrada was nominated by the President to the second highest court in the land. Mr. Estrada had been asked for certain information: No. 1, to answer the questions posed to him by the Judiciary Committee when he appeared; and, No. 2, to have the information released--that is, information about his work when he was with the Solicitor General's Office. The fact is, until and unless Mr. Estrada releases that information and provides that information, in my judgment he will never get a vote in the Senate. He just won't. One might not like that. Fine, you do not have to like that. But if we are talking about putting people on the Federal bench for a lifetime, we had better discharge our responsibility in a serious way and be serious when we seek information from a candidate. That candidate has an obligation to provide the information. If it is not forthcoming, there is no entitlement and no inherent right under our Constitution to proceed to a vote on a nominee sent to us by the President. It is interesting that Mr. Estrada testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee the same day Judge Hovland from North Dakota testified before the committee. I referenced him before--a Republican who now sits on the bench in Bismark, ND. He is someone for whom I was proud to have voted. The same questions that were asked of Mr. Estrada were asked of Mr. Hovland that day. Mr. Hovland answered them. Mr. Estrada did not. That is why Mr. Estrada's nomination is caught in a net here in the Senate. It is why he has not had a final vote. He has not released the information from the Solicitor General's Office. He did not respond to the questions. As soon as all of that is available to the Senate, as I have said repeatedly on this floor, I think he ought to be given a final vote, up or down. Until that time, no Senator ought to aspire to give a final vote to a candidate, to a lifetime appointment of judgeship, or on the circuit or district court who says ``I am not going to provide the information you requested.'' No Senator should insist on proceeding to final vote in that circumstance. That is not discharging the obligations of the Senate. Let me talk for a moment about an article that I read in the San Antonio Express News which I thought really described exactly the same circumstance we face here in the Senate, ``A Tale of Two Texas Judges.'' It happens to deal with the nomination of Judge Priscilla Owen and Judge Prado. I am going to read this because I think it is important. In the nomination of U.S. District Judge Edward Prado for the Louisiana-based 5th Circuit Court of Criminal Appeals, President Bush has found a fail-proof strategy for selecting federal judges. Prado faced no opposition from the Senate Judiciary Committee--or anyone else for that matter--because, unlike some of the President's other recent nominees, Prado is well-qualified with a long record of fairness and moderation. Unfortunately, the full Senate will be consumed this week with bitter debate over another White House judicial nominee--Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen, who has a different kind of record. Instead of moderation, Owen is known for her conservative activism. Opposition to Owen was so strong that her nomination was rejected last year. This year's Republican-led Judiciary Committee resuscitated it, giving Owen a slim 10-9 party-line vote. It is not as though Democrats are opposed to all White House nominees. After all, the same committee voted 19-0 in favor of Prado. Now Democrats in the Senate appear likely to filibuster Owen's nomination. Once again, the battle over the White House's judicial nominees is gridlocked. To avoid this kind of partisan strife, the Bush administration should employ the Prado strategy for future judicial nominees. That strategy is to choose moderate nominees with long experience who understand that the role of the judge is not to legislate from the bench. There is a solution to all of this. It has nothing to do with changing the rules. In fact, I submit that when we have confirmed 123 judges submitted by President Bush--and I voted for 120 of them--this process is hardly broken. But the solution to this is for the President and Mr. Gonzales to engage with the Senate and work with the Senate with respect to the kind of nominee that we will put on the circuit court. There is no inherent right in the Constitution that says the President shall nominate and somehow the Senate must consider expeditiously every nomination. In fact, the Republicans for years and years since I have been in the Senate refused to hold hearings--not even one hearing for nominee after nominee after nominee. We did not hear the discussion on the floor of the Senate so much about changing the rules and the system being broken with Mr. Enrique Moreno, who, I believe, is from Texas. I have met him. He would have been a terrific judge. Unfortunately, he wasn't given the time of day by the Senate. We have not done that. This side has not done that. The fact is that even the two nominees who are in dispute at this point had their hearings. They had their day before the committee. They had their vote before the committee. But Mr. Moreno is an example of so many others who never got any consideration at all. Let me be quick to say that despite the miserable failure of dealing with these judgeships back in the 1990s in the previous administration, I don't think this is at all payback. I don't think this is what this is. Payback would mean we would not have approved 123 of the nominations sent to us by President Bush. We have done that because we think the selection of judges is a process that requires the opportunity for both of us to work our will. The President can send a nomination to us and we can consider that and the options that we have to deal with that nomination. The way to avoid the pitfalls and the problems that exist with the two nominations that are causing such angst and people coming to the floor saying the sky is falling and the system has collapsed is for the President to work with the Members on the nominees they send to the Senate. There are some--not many--who are simply not going to be confirmed. It is almost automatic that this President's nominees are going to sit on the Federal bench--not quite automatic but almost-- evidenced by the fact that 123 we have approved with the votes of almost all Democratic Senators. There is a way to solve this problem. If you don't believe me, then believe this editorial which is exactly on the mark. If they say our strategy is simple, we are going to pack the circuit courts with philosophical extremists, and they send us names that reflect the desire to pack the circuit courts with extremists, I am sorry; this process isn't going to work. This process is going to slow down and perhaps stop because, in my judgment, this Senate is not going to allow that to happen. We insist if someone is going to sit for a lifetime on the Federal bench that they be qualified and not be judicial activists who bring an aggressive agenda to the bench. With respect to the Owen nomination, I was not on the Judiciary Committee and was not part of the hearings, but I have read the record. I have certainly heard from a lot of people who know and who have worked with Judge Owen. I have read the statement of Mr. Gonzales himself from the White House exercising his great angst at her judicial activism on the bench in Texas. But the fact is, she had her day in the Senate last year, and she was turned down by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Now that nomination comes back to us. The fact is, she is one of those few who clearly is a very aggressive judicial activist. The Gonzales quote is very telling to me. It is not just Judge Gonzales. That same quote about the disposition of Judge Owen and what she does on the bench in the State supreme court is not just from Mr. Gonzales, it is from a range of sources, which I think persuades many in the Senate not to want to proceed with this nominee. But do not--do not--take the two instances of Mr. Estrada, who has refused to provide the information that is requested by the Senate, and Judge Owen, who was turned down last year by the Senate Judiciary Committee, to say somehow the sky is falling and the structure is broken and we ought to change the rules of the Senate, and how awful this is. Nonsense, total nonsense. Mr. President, 123 judges sitting on the Federal bench are testimony to the fact that we are approving President Bush's judges. It is just that there are two who stick in the craw of people because they say we have a responsibility, somehow, to rubberstamp all these nominations. I am not going to rubberstamp anybody who is going to serve for a lifetime, especially on a circuit court. If they are not going to provide the information, then they ought not sit on the Federal bench-- simple, just open and shut. It has nothing to do with politics, nothing to do with Republicans, nothing to do with Democrats. If you don't provide the information, you are not going to sit on the Federal bench. Maybe those of us who think that way are in the minority. If so, eventually, I guess, those people will get to the Federal bench. They will say to Congress: I'm sorry, I have a Presidential nomination, and I have no obligation to give you additional information. If there are enough Senators who believe that is discharging our responsibilities, by saying, yes, sir, absolutely, well then maybe these nominations will happen, but they won't happen with my vote, not with a Republican or with a Democrat. This is what Judge Gonzales said. In Jane Doe, Judge Alberto Gonzales--incidentally, a then-supreme court justice, who is clearing these nominees through the White House--stated that to interpret the law, as Justice Owens did in this case ``would be an unconscionable act of judicial activism.'' I will tell you what. It is not just this phrase. If we had time and I had the interest, I would show you other examples of exactly this sort of activism which persuades me this is not the kind of judge I want to put on a circuit court. Let me make the point, once again, that the Constitution provides two things: The President shall nominate, and the Senate shall advise and consent. If a President, any President, decides he is going to try to stack a circuit court with people of extremist views, then this Senate--I guarantee you, this Senate--whether it is Republicans against a Democratic President or Democrats stopping a Republican President-- this Senate is going to say: I am sorry, it is not going to happen. Perhaps we should get a long list out here, perhaps a list of 123 names. We could start with North Dakota with Justice Erickson or we could start with any one of a number of the others on that list of 123 who are now Federal judges because President Bush said, ``I want them,'' and because the Senate said, ``You bet. We have taken a look at these judges and they deserve to be on the Federal bench.'' Perhaps going through 123 of them, reducing the number of vacancies by well more than half, we would define that as success rather than a calamity. But if we do not want to take a look at the success, then let's take a look at the two who exist that are causing these problems and these difficulties. I will tell you, we have, in my judgment, every right to say to the President, in these circumstances: Work with us to send us nominees who we can put on the DC Circuit, who we can put on the Fifth Circuit. Work with us to do that, just as you worked with us with 123 other Federal judges who now are on the Federal bench.

Mr. DORGAN. That is correct.

Mr. DORGAN. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. DORGAN. Yes, including filibusters, of course.

Mr. DORGAN. Well, many of the nominees never got a hearing--ever-- under any circumstance.

Mr. DORGAN. Yes. The Senator is correct, yes.

Mr. DORGAN. Absolutely. I remember Mr. Paez, who is now a Federal judge, his nomination was here 1,500 days. I remember the number of times people came to the floor of the Senate expressing great angst about that. It took forever. But unlike Mr. Paez, many nominees never got a hearing, let alone a vote, never got called to Washington, being told: All right, your nomination is before the Senate. This is the date of your hearing. Many nominees never ever got a hearing. But I say to the Senator from Nevada, this ought not be, and should never be, payback for ``this side did this, that side did that, so for the last 20 years, let's get even.'' That ought not be what the case is. And I demonstrate and I assert it is not the case because we have approved 123 of President Bush's nominations. I said: I am proud to do that. I was proud to support the two Republican nominees from North Dakota because I think they are terrific judges. I think we have had great success here. I admit that there is a hangup with two of the judgeships. I say to my colleague from Texas, who spoke before I did, I do not mean to be pejorative about this. I do not mean to question anyone's motives. I only say that when one asserts that the sky is falling, the system is broken, and nothing is working, there is another view. I was trying to express another view, respectfully. I respect the opinion of the Senator from Texas, but I have a very different view about our responsibilities, our obligations, and our accomplishments with respect to these nominations. If I might make one additional comment, I say to the Senator from Nevada, I am not on the Judiciary Committee. I do not pretend to be an expert in these circumstances with these issues. I have studied enough and learned enough to know that many of the nominations that are sent here have been excellent. I have been proud to support them. But I also understand there are circumstances where we have an obligation and a right to assert our rights. That is exactly what is happening in two circumstances that I think have caused great angst among some and caused them to say the sky is falling. But the sky is not falling at all.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Jerry Hinkle and Cami Dodge have floor privileges during this debate.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I know my colleagues have made presentations on the energy bill. The chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Senator Domenici, and the ranking Member, Senator Bingaman, have made presentations on the energy bill. I wanted to come to the floor to speak about this piece of legislation. There are some provisions in this legislation that I think are particularly worthy and some that are not. There are some provisions that should be in the bill and, as of yet, are not in the bill. My hope is that as we debate and discuss the energy issue on the floor of the Senate, we will be able to construct a bipartisan energy bill that advances this country's energy interests. That ought to be our goal. It is a fact that our country, for well over a century, has been wedded to the use of oil, particularly for the purpose of moving our transportation fleet. Because we are so chained to the use of oil--and especially now chained to the use of foreign oil, with 55 percent of what we use coming from places outside of our country--most believe that our economy is at risk. What do I mean by ``at risk''? I mean that if, God forbid, some morning we wake up and discover that the supply of oil coming from areas of the world that are deeply troubled is somehow shut off, our economy will be flat on its back. I do not think there is any dispute about that. The 55 percent of oil that now comes from outside of our borders is expected to increase to nearly 65, 66 percent in the coming years. Is that advancing this country's economic and energy security? No, not at all. In fact, it injures our country's opportunities in both the intermediate and long term. So the question for us with respect to energy policy is, How do we become less dependent on energy that comes from outside of our country? How do we produce more, over which we have control? How do we conserve more? After all, conservation is another form of producing. How do we increase the efficiency of appliances and other items that we use energy for in our daily lives? And how do we increase the role of limitless and renewable supplies of energy? Those are the key questions for all of us, it seems to me, in trying to write a better energy bill. As we see more and more States begin to experiment with restructuring and deregulation, we also need to address in this bill the question, ``How do we prevent from happening once again what happened on the west coast, particularly in California, where there was grand theft committed by some companies now under criminal investigation?'' Enron, of course, was one company that was subject to these allegations. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is now taking action against a number of companies. But there is no question about what happened with respect to electricity restructuring in California: that some companies engaged in basic criminal wrongdoing, and that the consumers on the west coast were bilked to the tune of not millions or hundreds of millions of dollars but billions of dollars. That is why I call it grand theft. How do we prevent that from happening in the future? I will talk about that in just a couple moments. But let me put up a chart that shows from where we have received the imports of crude oil, by country of origin, in a recent year. No. 1 was Saudi Arabia, 588 million barrels of crude oil in 2001 from Saudi Arabia; and then you have Mexico, Canada, Venezuela, Nigeria, and Iraq as No. 6. You can see, if you look at this list, we are importing oil from very troubled parts of the world. The future opportunity of growth and economic opportunity in this country is to be able to continue this supply. Our economy depends on it. So should we become less dependent on that? The answer is yes. Will we in this bill? I hope the answer will be yes. One of the points I have made is about our dependence on foreign oil. We import 55 percent of that which we consume. Fifty-five percent comes from off of our shores. That is expected to go to 66, 68 percent by the year 2025. Nearly all of our cars and trucks in the United States run on gasoline. They are the main reason America imports so much oil. Two- thirds of the 20 million barrels of oil that we use each day is used for transportation, and it is the fastest growing part of our energy consumption. I have mentioned many times on the floor--and I will not bore you with the whole story--that my first car, when I was a young teenager, was a 1924 Model T Ford that I restored. It took me a couple years to restore this old Model T. When I did, I finally sold it. But the fact is, you put gasoline in a 1924 Model T Ford the same way you put it in a 2003 Ford. Nothing has changed. You pull up to the pumps, and you just pump gas in the tank. That is the way it is; that is the way it has been; it is the way it is going to be, unless we change. So can we, after three-quarters of a century, or a century, decide to take a look at what is consumed in transportation, especially for our vehicle fleet, and decide that we do not have to run gasoline through our carburetors in order to propel our vehicles? Can we do that? I hope the answer is yes. Someone who trains elephants once told me a story about why elephants stand with a cuff on their leg that has a small chain attached to a little stake in the ground. I saw it first when a small circus came to our town. It was a really small circus because my town had a population of only 350, 400 people, so they only had 1 elephant. But they put a cuff around the elephant's back leg, with a small chain attached to a little stake that was stuck in the ground, and the elephant never moved. I always wondered, how could they have an elephant stand there, when clearly that little stake in the ground was not going to hold the elephant, but the elephant never tried to pull it. Well, that is because when they capture elephants in Thailand, what they do is put a cuff around the elephant's leg attached to a big chain, and they tie it to a banyan tree. And for a week, week and a half, 2 weeks, the elephant does nothing but pull and tug and, with all of his might, try to pull away from that banyan tree. But it is not to be. That elephant is chained to that banyan tree, and pretty soon the elephant stops because the elephant understands it cannot get loose. So it never again tries. They take the chain off the banyan tree and put a little stake in the ground, and the elephant never moves; it just stays there, understanding it cannot move from that stake. That is kind of the way we are. We are kind of like the elephant and the banyan tree with respect to our dependence on foreign oil. We never think that what we can do is pole-vault over this to new technologies. At the end of this debate, if what the Senate will have exhibited to the American people is that our debate is really only about two things--the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and CAFE standards--shame on us, because that is the same old debate we have every 10, 15, and 25 years when we talk about energy. Are both of these issues important? Sure, they are. But it is more important to evaluate how, in 5, 10, 15, 25, and 50 years from now, our children and grandchildren will be driving vehicles that are not running gasoline through the carburetors. How we can move to a hydrogen economy using fuel cells? The President said: Let's do that. Good for him. He put his administration on the side of moving in the right direction. His proposal was timid and did not propose much new money, but proposed to use funds from other important accounts on renewables and conservation in order to finance it. The fact is, even though it was a timid, not bold, proposal, the direction was an important direction for our country. If this country decides that, in the next 10 and 25 years, we are going to set timetables and goals to develop fuel cells for our vehicles, then we can become much less dependent on foreign oil. That does not mean we shall not and will not always need fossil fuels. We will use oil, natural gas, and coal. There is no question about that. And we have incentives in this bill to find more and use more. For coal, for example, we have clean coal technology in this bill, which I support. We are always going to do that. But if our policy is only to dig and drill--if that is our energy policy--then it is a ``yesterday forever'' policy. To be forward looking is to understand there are actions we can take that are revolutionary, that can give us a different kind of energy future--one that provides more economic and energy security for our country. That is why moving towards a hydrogen economy by developing fuel cells makes such good sense. Fuel cells are twice as efficient as the internal combustion engine. The supply of hydrogen is inexhaustible. Hydrogen is in water. You can take the energy from the wind, and use the electricity in the process of electrolysis, separate the hydrogen from the oxygen, and store the hydrogen and use it in vehicles. The fact is, hydrogen is ubiquitous. It is everywhere. What do we do to get there? We have to decide as a country that is where we want to go. That is what Europe is doing. That is what Japan is doing. We do have to solve some issues: the production, storage, and transportation of hydrogen, as well as the continued development of fuel cell vehicles. I have ridden in a fuel cell vehicle. We have had fuel cells propel a vehicle from Los Angeles to New York. It is not as if they don't exist. The question is, ``Does this country want to move forward with that type of future?'' The President says yes. I say yes. It makes sense to do that. First and foremost, we should talk seriously about the range of issues dealing with fossil fuels. I agree with all of that--incentives for the production of coal, oil, natural gas. I will not support drilling in ANWR. There are a few areas that are precious and unusual. We ought to put them aside. I do support the construction of a natural gas pipeline to access the 32 trillion cubic feet of natural gas from Alaska. I support drilling in the Gulf of Mexico where there are important and exciting areas for oil and natural gas development. I believe that with clean coal technology, we can make substantial use of our coal resources. That makes sense to me. With respect to fossil fuels, yes, we can produce more. We have incentives in the bill to do that. With respect to conservation, it is very important for us to understand that conserving a barrel of oil is similar to producing a barrel of oil. Conservation provides some of our least expensive opportunities. We don't conserve nearly enough. Incentives for conservation make sense, as well. We have had many debates about the efficiency of the appliances, from light bulbs to refrigerators, that we use every single day. Many of these appliances that we use have become much more efficient. We had a debate about the SEER standard for air-conditioners. We can, should, and will make appliances much more efficient, both by pushing those who produce them and those who purchase them. In addition, let me talk about limitless sources of energy and renewable sources of energy. Senators Talent, Daschle, Johnson, and others, including myself, will offer an amendment dealing with the Renewable Fuels Standard to nearly double the current production of ethanol to 5 billion gallons by 2012. We will ban MTBE across the country. MTBE is a gasoline additive that can find its way into water supplies. It is harmful to human health. As MTBE is phased out of gasoline, there is going to be a significant, demonstrable, new market for ethanol and renewable fuels--ethanol, biodiesel, and others. Especially with respect to ethanol, it makes sense to take a kernel of corn, extract the alcohol content, and still have protein feedstock left. What you have done is produce a new market for America's family farmers, extended America's energy supply, and you still have the protein feedstock left for cattle and livestock. We are going to nearly double, with this Renewable Fuels Standard, the amount of ethanol that will be produced and used. We will also offer a Renewable Portfolio Standard that would help increase the use of renewable energy, such as wind energy and other sources of renewable and limitless energy, as part of the energy mix for electricity. I believe both the Renewable Fuel Standard and the Renewable Portfolio Standard will become part of this bill. Going back to the hydrogen fuel cell issue, this bill certainly improves on the President's proposal, but it is still short of what can and should be done. We ought to establish timetables and set goals. I offered that amendment in the Energy Committee and lost by two votes. I intend to offer it on the floor once again. It is the right direction. The President thinks it is the right direction. But we ought to try to stimulate timetables and goals in order to strive to reach something we establish. Finally, let me talk about the electricity title for a moment. We do need to address issues such as transmission. We have serious transmission problems. In my home State of North Dakota, we have the capability of producing more energy, but we have a transmission problem, because we don't have the transmission capacity to move the energy that we can produce. We have to try to find a way to solve this transmission problem. FERC is working on it. There are various plans, such as Standard Market Design and so on. We need to do that in a constructive way. There is a lot of disagreement about how you price the transmission and the movement of electricity along various lines, as well as disagreement about the establishment of Regional Transmission Organizations. All of this is part of what is being discussed both in the executive branch, the FERC, and also here in Congress with respect to this bill. This point is important. I chaired a series of hearings a year and a half ago with respect to the behavior of Enron in California. It was not just Enron, but Enron is the only company I will name at this point. The FERC has since done an evaluation on the west coast-- California and other States. What happened there was, in my judgment and the judgment of the FERC, criminal. There is a criminal investigation ongoing. Companies have been and will be charged. What they did was manipulate the supply and price of energy. In fact, they took plants offline. We now have testimony that this is what happened. They did it deliberately to manipulate the load. What was the result? Cheating the consumer-- wholesale cheating. This isn't petty thievery; this is grand theft to the tune of billions of dollars. We happen to know what their strategies were because we dug them out. Get Shorty; does anybody know what that is? How about Fat Boy? Death Star? Yes, Get Shorty, Fat Boy, and Death Star are the names of strategies by which a company decided to steal from consumers. Yes, I used the word ``steal.'' They did, a massive quantity of money. The question is, How much is going to be paid back? That is the question. The question for us in the energy bill is, How do we prevent this from happening again? How do we make sure this never happens again? This bill has the prohibition on round trip trading and a series of issues such as that, but the bill does not have enough protection in it for the consumers, so that in a marketplace where some have the opportunity to cheat, we have the protections to prevent that from happening. There is a purpose for regulators. I know a lot of people don't like government, but there is a purpose for regulators. Regulators are the referees because there are some--a minority--who will cheat. Most businesses are wonderful, run by great people; they want to do the right thing. But there are some who are willing to cheat. We saw that on the west coast in the electricity markets. I don't want to see that again. I want this bill and the electricity title to have sufficient safeguards so we are not ever again talking about Fat Boy, Get Shorty, or Death Star. We have a lot to talk about with respect to energy. There is not much more in the policy area that is as important as energy. But we will talk about fiscal policy and, I believe starting next week, the President's tax cut proposal and other issues. Our economy, our country cannot proceed without energy. Every single day when we awaken and we begin to open the doors to our factories and to produce, we drive to work, do all that we do during the day as Americans, we do that because we have ample supplies of energy. When we have an economy that is now dependent, to the tune of 55 percent, on oil that comes from other parts of the world, our economic security and our other security is threatened. Can we ever become truly independent? Maybe not. But should we have over one-half of our oil coming from outside the country? The answer is no. Yes, we ought to do some digging and drilling, produce more fossil fuels--natural gas, oil, and coal. But if that is our only strategy, that is a yesterday forever strategy, not a strategy that advances this country's interests. Let's be bolder and do more. Let's move toward a hydrogen economy. Let's produce hydrogen and fuel cells. Let's decide to become less dependent on oil from other parts of the world. Let's do it in a bold way. Yes, let's produce additional energy from renewable and limitless sources of energy. Let's take the energy from the wind, with the new, efficient turbines. Let's do all of these things. Let's produce ethanol and let's have an energy bill that does all of that which should be done to make this country more energy independent and make this country understand that it has the energy to provide long-term economic growth without being held hostage by others outside of our borders. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, are we back on the energy bill? Is that the order of business?

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I wish to ask another question. Why do we have a ceiling on Federal indebtedness? The answer is because we want to try to control it. But there is another form of indebtedness for which there is no ceiling, and that is the trade debt. There is definitely no ceiling on that. We have a foreign trade debt of about $2.8 trillion at the moment. Every single year, there is more and more red ink. There was a $470 billion trade debt, merchandise trade deficit in 2002. Overall, $2.8 trillion deficit is now about 27 percent of our GDP? How does that happen? The foreign debt comes from record foreign trade deficits. We are the biggest debtor in the world. As one can see by this chart, we run a deficit every year, and every year it grows. One-fourth of the trade deficit is with China; $103 billion last year alone. China is not the only country. We have deficits with Canada, $50 billion a year; Mexico, $37 billion a year. We have deficits with every major European country except Belgium and The Netherlands. We have deficits with every major Asian country except Singapore, and we are about to fix that because we are doing a free trade agreement with Singapore, and I am sure we will turn that into a trade deficit quickly. We have deficits with all the major countries in Latin America. In addition to having deficits with the countries, let me talk about how our deficits are constituted: A $110 billion deficit in motor vehicles; a $47 billion deficit in consumer electronics; a $58 billion deficit in clothing. I have been on the floor many times to talk about vehicles, so I will not do that today except to say, to use Korea as an example, Korea sends over 600,000 Korean automobiles every year; some 600,000 Korean cars come in to this country. We sell 2,800 cars into the country of Korea. Why? Because our market is wide open, and the Korean market is largely closed, and nobody has the spine, the backbone, the nerve, or the will to do much about it. That is always the problem. If you want to use potato flakes from the United States to make fast food in Korea, the potato flakes will find a 300-percent tariff going in to Korea. The fact is, we have big problems in a range of areas and nobody does much about it. We used to have a big surplus in meat. That surplus declined by $1 million last year. Our deficit in livestock trade reached $1.5 billion last year. Our deficit in vegetables and fruits reached $2.5 billion last year. These deficits come from a very simple fact: Our markets are open to foreign products; foreign markets are closed to ours. Too often the products that flood into this marketplace are products made by 12-year- olds working 12 hours a day being paid 12 cents an hour, and it is not fair trade. Let me use Bangladesh as an example. The fourth largest producer of garments for the U.S. market is Bangladesh. Workers in Bangladesh get paid on average 1.6 cents for every baseball cap they sew, under contract to an Ivy League school. That same baseball cap for which a worker gets 1.6 cents to sew is sold on the campus of this particular Ivy League college for $17. Each year Americans buy over 900 million garments made in Bangladesh, and yet workers in Bangladesh still cannot make the 34 cents an hour they need as basic subsistence. If workers in one of the poorest countries of the world cannot even get paid 34 cents an hour, how do U.S. workers and U.S. businesses compete against that kind of trade? Some say these trade deals are a way of getting other nations to improve their labor and environmental standards, but the fact is, our trade negotiators do not think about that and do not do anything about that. If one needs evidence of that, take a look at the trade agreement that was just negotiated with Singapore, which is going to come to the Senate floor at some point soon for a vote. This agreement has a provision that would allow massive transshipment of products through Singapore into this country from countries with abysmal labor and environmental records. How would that work? Article 3.2 of the agreement says the products made in third countries will be treated as Singapore products as long as the products are on a list approved by U.S. trade officials, which includes electronics, semiconductors, computers, cell phones, photocopiers, medical instruments. This chart shows what it says in that Singapore free trade agreement. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace issued a paper saying in that Singapore agreement this provision could very well torpedo the entire agreement. This is what a former senior official at the Department of State on labor matters wrote about what has happened in Indonesia: Government enforcement of child labor laws is weak or nonexistent. There is a long-standing pattern of collusion between police and military personnel and employers, which usually takes the form of intimidation of workers by security personnel in civilian dress, or by youth gangs. She quotes a State Department study which says: Institutions required for a democratic system do not exist, or are at an early stage of development. So we have a free trade agreement with Singapore. And what happens with that free trade agreement? What is going to happen is we will get products from Burma or Indonesia which go to Singapore and are transshipped into this country. As long as they are going on the product list, what we are going to see is transshipment into this country of products coming from areas with abysmal records with respect to child labor and workers' rights. This Senate has decided it would like to fit itself out with a straightjacket by unwisely passing something called the fast track agreement. The President called it TPA, which was a euphemism for a fast-track agreement, I should say. Under fast track rules, trade deals come to the Congress for an up-or-down vote, and there will be no amendments offered under any circumstance. And this very flawed Singapore free trade agreement will come to the Senate under fast track rules. The fact is, our trade negotiators don't care what happens after they negotiate a trade deal. We did a bilateral trade agreement with China a couple of years ago, and we did it so that China could then get into the WTO. Then China got into the WTO. When they joined the WTO in November 2001, the Chinese agreed to significantly expand the amount of imported wheat that could come into China at relatively low tariffs. China agreed that it would set a tariff rate quota of imported wheat at 8\1/2\ million metric tons. That meant 8\1/2\ million metric tons could enter the market at low tariffs. According to the CRS, the Congressional Research Service, the Chinese imports were less than 8 percent of that amount. In fact, the Chinese Agriculture Minister was reported in the South Asia Post saying: 8\1/2\ million metric tons does not really mean that is what we are going to bring into our country. This is a country that has a $103 billion trade surplus with us, that reaches a trade agreement with us saying they are going to buy some of your wheat but never really intends to. What do we do about it? Well, we say it does not matter so much. Nobody is going to do too much about it. It is unforgivable that this goes on. In fact, a U.S. trade official in charge of agricultural trade with China recently said China has not lived up to its promise. That official said the United States would be justified in filing a World Trade Organization case against China. The same official said the evidence of unfair trade by the Chinese was ``undeniable,'' and the Chinese themselves privately acknowledged they are cheating on agricultural trade. This official said the administration is reluctant to take action against China because the Chinese might be offended. The official said the administration is worried that a WTO case would be seen as ``in your face'' so soon after China joined the WTO. Well, what is in your face is what these trade officials are doing to farmers, to workers, and to businesses all around the country. It is not fair. In my judgment, we expect and demand that there be action to enforce trade agreements. I believe my time is about up. I am going to speak at greater length about China trade in the coming days, but I did want to say today that this is an area that is desperately in need of attention by Congress and the administration. And the Singapore trade agreement is a terrible agreement. We ought to pay some attention to that. Finally, going back to where I started, this fiscal policy does not add up. Everyone in the country understands it, and I hope when we talk about the need to increase the Federal indebtedness by $1 trillion this Senate will ask itself: Does this make any sense at all? The major subject before us is more tax cuts when we have the largest deficits in history for the next 10 years and a requirement to increase the Federal debt limit by $1 trillion. I come from a really small town. We had a guy living there named Grampy. He knew everything about everybody and everything about everything. I always wondered what would Grampy think if you explained to Grampy where we are--deep in debt as far as you can see; a requirement to increase the debt limit by $1 trillion; and the next big thing on the agenda is to cut your revenue, the benefit of which will go largely to the upper income people. I think Grampy from my hometown would say: Are you nuts? Can't you add? This is not higher math. This does not add up for the country and will not produce one new job. It will produce more despair, more concern, and less economic growth. Get your fundamentals right. Make things add up and put things back on the right track. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, later this week, I am told, we will be getting in the Senate a proposal to increase the Federal debt limit. My assumption is that the increase in the Federal debt limit we will be asked to consider will be nearly $1 trillion--$900-some billion. I am told it is shaved just enough to be under $1 trillion. That increase in the debt limit will equal, incidentally, all of the debt accumulated from George Washington until 1980, until Ronald Reagan took office. For all of those years, we accumulated less than $1 trillion in debt. The debt limit increase we will be asked to vote on will be just slightly under $1 trillion. What does that say about the country's fiscal policy? It says we are running very large Federal budget deficits. Two years ago, it was expected that we would run large budget surpluses as far as the eye could see. President Bush said: Let's have the American people keep their own money. Let's move the surpluses back. Let's have a $1.7 trillion tax cut. Some of us said: Maybe we should be more conservative. What if these Federal budget surpluses don't materialize? What if we are wrong about that? They said: Never mind. And they pushed it through the House and the Senate, and with great fanfare they signed the bill. Two years later, we have budget deficits as far as the eye can see; this year, the biggest budget deficit in history and this week, apparently, a proposal to increase the Federal debt limit by nearly $1 trillion. I don't understand that. In addition to that, there is a major debate on how much additional tax cuts there should be: Should the President get his program of additional tax cuts? There are not only tax cuts in what is called reconciliation, but tax cut proposals outside of reconciliation, which altogether total $1.3 trillion in additional tax cuts. The easiest lifting in American politics for any politician anywhere in America is to say: I support tax cuts. If in fact tax cuts produce new jobs, then sign me up. I propose we have a trillion dollars in tax cuts or, better yet, $2 trillion in tax cuts. But, of course, we know what we have ahead of us are very large Federal budget deficits. For Congress and the President, the question is, What is it that we don't want to do in our Government? Do we not want to have regulatory agencies that provide protection for American citizens and consumers? Do we not want to build roads? Do we not want to fund schools? Do we not want to fund the Customs Service, the Immigration Service, the Border Patrol, the Food and Drug Administration? What exactly is it that we should not be doing? Those are the important questions. Of course, there is waste in government. And we ought to cut spending where it is wasted. Let me give an example. Senator Wyden and I some while ago asked the Federal Bureau of Prisons, why are you advertising for a dance instructor? In fact, it was advertising for a dance instructor in the State of Texas. Why are you advertising for that for the Federal Bureau of Prisons? What do we need that for? What is the purpose of that? We have since discovered that the Federal Bureau of Prisons has had dance instructors at eight federal prisons. I don't understand that. Learning how to dance the salsa when you are in prison, is that necessary? In areas where there is waste, let's attack waste. Let me cite one other example. Senator Wyden and I mentioned this past week--and this is not direct spending on our budget--that the U.S. Postal System inspector general's office is wasting massive amounts of money. The inspector general's office has 700-some people in the Office of the Postal Department doing events supposed to promote teamwork, where employees wrap themselves in toilet paper. They wear animal costumes. They dress up and do role playing. It is the most Byzantine thing I have ever heard of. They spend millions of dollars on these events. That inspector general ought to lose their job. It is a waste of money. But there are government functions that are essential for our country. Like those nettlesome regulatory agencies that are supposed to protect us from the kind of grand theft that occurred on the west coast with Enron Corporation and others, where what they did was ratchet up the price of electricity. They were turning it, double, triple, 10 times, charging the consumers on the west coast a massive amount of money for electricity as they were manipulating the price. They were taking plants offline and manipulating the quantity of energy, and they were engaged in efforts that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Justice Department now apparently say are criminal. I believe they were criminal. I said so last year when I chaired hearings on Enron Corporation. What we have seen on the west coast, with respect to what was going on with the pricing of electricity, is grand theft. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is now beginning to take action, after the fact, after the west coast consumers were cheated, bilked to the tune of billions of dollars. So is that a part of government that we don't want to have around? We don't want the regulatory agencies looking over the shoulder of companies such as Enron that were manipulating price and supply in order to cheat consumers in an approach that now appears criminal? That is what FERC says. Do we want to reduce the number of regulators who protect consumers? What about Wall Street? We saw last week there was a $1.9 billion settlement because Wall Street firms were saying: Let's push this stock to the customers, despite the fact that internally these firms were saying: The stock is a dog; this stock is terrible. Yet what their salesmen in the field were being told by research analysts at these companies was: Push this stock along to an unsuspecting public. Do we want to cut the money for the Securities and Exchange Commission, and others that are supposed to be regulators protecting consumers, and say let the buyer beware? I don't think so. Fiscal policy has to be sensible and thoughtful. Tax cuts are fine. If you can afford tax cuts, that is fine. But when you face deficits as far as the eye can see, should this Government say: Let's send our sons and daughters to war and, by the way, we won't pay for it? And when you come back, what we will do is increase the Federal debt by $1 trillion and say, as soon as you take your uniform off, you have to help pay the debt, because we wouldn't pay it, or your children and grandchildren will have to pay it because we wouldn't? We are talking about implementing tax cuts that predominantly benefit the upper income people, to such an extent that if you were lucky enough to earn $1 million a year, you would get an $80,000 a year tax cut. Is that a priority? Warren Buffett, the second richest man in the world, said he didn't support it because he said it favors the rich. That is what the second richest man in the world said about the President's tax plan. Is that what we ought to embrace when we are deep in debt, and headed deeper in debt, and about to vote on a $1 trillion increase in the Federal debt? I do not think so. There are some activities in Government that are important. I mentioned schools and roads. There are activities we perform of which we are proud and of which we should be proud. I once visited a Communist country. It was a country with which we were doing business. I met with the American Chamber of Commerce in that Communist country. Do you know what their message was? Their message was this is a great market for us to tap, but the problem is we need more government in this country to do business. I said: What do you mean by that? They said: You cannot do business unless you have a judicial system that can sort out the disputes, unless you have a system of administrative practices in which you have referees and regulators. If you do not have that government, the mechanism that establishes the rules and makes sure the rules are followed, you cannot do business. You just cannot. I said this is really interesting because normally the Chamber of Commerce would not be calling for more government, but they are saying that in this Communist country, government is essential for us to do business. We ought to remember that in this country as well--whether it is the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, you name it--there are structures and processes that are important for the governance of this country, and to decide they do not matter is to suggest our system does not matter. It is to say, let the buyer beware. Let the Enrons run wild and overcharge consumers by billions, and it does not matter. That is not the kind of government I want. I want a government that allows the system to work, that helps establish fair rules and enforces them. I mentioned we have these proposals for tax cuts that are very large at a time when we have very large Federal budget deficits. There are things we can do. A, we can cut wasteful Federal spending, and B, we can go after the tens and tens of billions of dollars that are not paid to this country in taxes because the companies that make a lot of money selling products to the American consumers have decided they are going to locate in tax-haven countries but take advantage of the American marketplace to generate their profits. If it is the case that $50 billion or $70 billion would otherwise be owed to this country in taxes but are not paid because those companies have located in tax-haven countries, then this country should take a look at doing something about it and say to them: If you want to be an American citizen, part of the responsibility of citizenship is to help pay the bills in this country, to help pay for that which makes this country great--our schools, our roads, our infrastructure, everything that makes this a great place in which to live. I think that is an area we ought to be tackling and trying to solve some problems. I would hope perhaps rather than just talk about tax cuts for the upper-income people, we might talk about tax responsibility for some corporations that have decided they do not want to be a part of American citizenship anymore. My solution to all these companies that have decided they do not want to be an American citizen is, if you want to go to Bermuda, that is fine. If you get in trouble somewhere around the world and some government is about to expropriate your assets, who are you going to call? Call the Bermudan navy. I think they have 36 people in the Bermudan navy. Call them out. If you do not want to be an American citizen, then do not ask the American military forces to protect your investment around the world. That sort of behavior is not, in my judgment, something that is very patriotic, and it is something that requires, in my judgment, this Congress to do something about.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for as much time as I may consume.