Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, my colleague has pretty much covered this subject. Let me say to my colleague from Arizona that I understand he raised some concerns to which I think Senator Conrad has responded. I appreciate the manner in which Senator McCain has raised this issue. This is not an issue that is irrelevant to others. It is very important to others. It is important to our neighbors. It is important to the State of Minnesota. It is important to the neighboring country of Canada to the north. It is important to the American taxpayers. It is, obviously, important to my colleague from Arizona. I don't dismiss concerns people have raised about these issues. I want to say--as my colleague, Senator Conrad, said--that it is not our intention to build an outlet from the lake itself in a manner that injures anyone. We don't come to this project saying we would like to have a project for our State. This is not something we are anxious to do because we believe this project would be something that would be a feather in our cap. We come to this because we have a lake that has been chronically flooding for a long time. As was mentioned earlier, there are only two closed basins in this country. One is the Great Salt Lake and the other is Devils Lake. The upper basin of Devils Lake is the size of the State of Massachusetts. Water funnels down from that basin into Devils Lake. This picture doesn't do justice to the lake. But it does show what is happening here. What used to be a road and commerce and opportunity in this area of our State that is very important to us is now flooded--inundated-- with water. This extends over to an Indian reservation called the Spirit Lake Nation. I recall one day driving around with the tribal chairman of the Spirit Lake Nation with a man named Elmer White. Elmer is dead now. Elmer passed away a couple of years ago. He said: Our elders told us the water was coming. He said: All of these roads that are no longer passable and all of these roads that are now inundated with water, our elders told us this was going to happen. What happened is we stranded part of this Indian reservation. We have had to make substantial investments in roads in order to get people to hospitals. They have to move around and meander in strange ways on backroads. This flooding has been chronic and very difficult. Frankly, I don't expect anybody to understand lake flooding until they have seen it. My notion of a flood is almost always the notion of the Red River Valley flood or some other flood that I have seen on television someplace. There is a coursing and a gushing river--a virtual torrent and wall of water. It sweeps houses and trees and cattle downstream in a rush of water and in a roar of noise. Then, 12 hours later, or 24 hours later, or 48 hours later, the river is back in its banks, in all its calm. That is what river flooding is. That is what we think of with flooding. This lake has increased 26 feet in height in the last 9 years. It has gobbled up more and more land. One of the things we have to do to respond--not because we want to but because we must in order to protect others--is try to take some pressure off that lake and do it without hurting anyone else. If we don't take pressure off that lake with a measured outlet, what is going to happen is, if that water continues to rise, it goes over the divide naturally in an uncontrolled way and you have people living downstream--yes, in North Dakota our big population centers, but also up in Canada--and the worst quality water is going to make literally hundreds of thousands of people sick--North Dakotans, Minnesotans, and Canadians. That is what will happen in an uncontrolled release of water over the divide if we don't do something to reduce the risk. That is what this proposed outlet is about. I have a couple of final points. This outlet cannot be built unless it meets all environmental standards. Under the NEPA Act, the studies are ongoing. The studies must be done. Second, this cannot be built and we cannot do anything unless we pledge--as we have and unless our country determines as it has--that we will not violate the boundary waters treaty with Canada. We don't intend to take a problem that exists here and foist that problem on someone else; certainly not on our constituents living downstream, not on our neighbors, not on Minnesotans, and not on the Canadians. This is a project that is critically necessary to reduce risks. I understand my colleague from Arizona and the questions he has raised. We had a long meeting this morning. I hope we will be able to resolve all of these issues. But I believe this project is critically important to a whole lot of folks who have been victimized by chronic floods that came and stayed--by lake flooding that has been devastating to this region of the country. We must find a way to reduce the risk for the people who live in this region, for the American taxpayer-- especially for people who live downstream who would be the recipients and victims of an uncontrolled release of water if we don't do something to take the pressure off this lake. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. If I might ask a question, the discussion was quite interesting. I will be very brief. Our colleague said our position is to grow Government. I am wondering if growing Government would be something that occurs as a result of proposals that dramatically increase the Federal deficit. Is it the case that those who would propose and support policies that dramatically increase the deficit, such as a $1.7 trillion tax cut or $690 billion tax cut, all of which is borrowed, is it the case that would target the growth of the economy?

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

Mr. DORGAN. I just point out, if this were to injure downstream citizens in your State or ours, I would not support it. We do not intend to foist a problem that exists in this basin on any other constituency anywhere.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, this is a very disappointing debate. It seems to me, at least, in this Chamber these days, when the big interests have something they need to move through, it moves through like a greased pig, no problem at all. Today we are talking about family farmers. It is a little more difficult. It is interesting to me to see people who, last year, with 79 votes, many of them participating in the 79 votes to support nearly $6 billion in relief for family farmers--help for family farmers to offset the disasters they faced--now are saying somehow that is ill advised. They say the President wouldn't sign this. I will tell you this. The President cannot sign a bill he won't get. The quick way to decide the President won't get a bill is to decide he won't support the $6 billion that is needed. I have heard this ``half a loaf'' nonsense forever--a half a loaf is better. The fact is it is only a half a loaf when it comes to the little guy. I am talking about people who raise families and raise food out on the family farm. They live under the yard light, take all the risks and hope it rains, but not too much, hope the insects don't come, hope the crop disease doesn't come, hope it doesn't hail, and hope, if they get a crop, they are able to sell it at a decent price. They take all those risks, and then a disaster happens. Let me show this disaster. This chart shows widespread extreme drought in a significant part of our country. This poster shows two different scenes in my State. This farmer is standing on farmland, but of course you can't grow on farmland inundated with water. In the same State, this farmer stands on ranchland with not a bit of vegetation. It looks like a moonscape. Is this a disaster? Half a loaf? We can't afford to do what is necessary? Watch the talk here in this Chamber when it comes to tax cuts for those at the top of the income ladder. The sky is the limit. We don't have to offset that. Borrow the money. Give them more tax cuts. When it comes to the families out there trying to make a living, hit by a disaster they didn't cause, all of a sudden we hear all this refrain: What about an offset? What about an offset? I know where this comes from. It comes from the White House. The President doesn't want to sign this bill. He came to my State and said to family farmers: When you need me, I'll be there. We need him, and he is not there. I think we ought to send him a bill that doesn't represent the half a loaf. We have two choices today. One is the bill the Senate has already passed by 79 votes. If the same people who believed disaster relief was needed then still feel the same way about family farmers, then we will pass this amendment. But if you believe we really can't do that because we need to make room for tax cuts for upper income folks--which are not offset; we will borrow the money for that--if you feel that way, if that is the choice you want to make, then don't vote for this; vote for the Cochran amendment. But I tell you, it is disappointing. Good enough. You know. Throw somebody drowning under 20 feet of water 10 feet of rope and say: I am being a good Samaritan here. It is not being a good Samaritan, in my judgment, for the policy choice to say those economic All-Stars--who live on America's farms, who produce food for a hungry world--are not worthy, when it comes to disaster, to get the full measure of support from this country for what they do. The operative question is, Do we want family farmers in our future? Do we care about who farms? Some don't. Some say the agrifactories can produce milk--4,000 cows a day 3 times a day--farm the entire county, get $25 million from a farm bill that pays the big interests. It is not what I want to be doing. I want this Congress to recognize that when disaster strikes family farmers, we stand with family farmers. We want to help. Why? Because we want a future in which families can live on the land in this country and raise food for a hungry world. I just do not understand at all. There are people watching this debate today, who have just spent time with their bankers and their lenders, who are not going to be able to go into the field next spring, who are going to have to sell their livestock if we don't pass good disaster relief, if we don't pass the kind of disaster relief that is available in the amendment we have offered. They wait, wondering: Will I be able to continue to farm? They call our offices, and some weep, saying: We have done this all of our life. We are not frivolous in spending money. We have done the best job we can, and we are going broke through no fault of our own. The drought has devastated our family, devastated our farm, and we need help. In previous years, this country has said: In these circumstances, let us lend a helping hand. Let us extend our hand to say we care about you and we want you to remain on the family farm. The only way that is going to happen is if we pass the bill introduced by my colleague, Senator Daschle, and others of us, to make this disaster relief work for family farmers. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the security of our Nation's ports is of extreme importance to me, so I gladly will engage in a colloquy with the senior Senator from Washington. Being from a northern border state, like the senior Senator from Washington, I am particularly concerned about how others may try to use the border to circumvent our security. Furthermore, it is important that improving our security doesn't unnecessarily infringe upon commerce that travels over our northern border.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from Washington for raising this issue with me. Congress must be vigilant in making sure that all cargo entering this country via any method--sea, air, or rail--faces the same level of scrutiny. Should the perception develop that it is easier to move goods into the U.S. through Canada, not only would our Nation's ports be disadvantaged economically, but our country would face a greater security risk. As you point out, regulation on ship traffic is moving ahead. I understand that Customs Commissioner Bonner has directed that regulations regarding rail, air, and truck shipments be kept on track. I certainly will work with the distinguished Senator from Washington and the Customs Service to ensure that all cargo entering the United States receives equal scrutiny.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me make two additional points. One of them is a point I have made many times on the floor of the Senate, and that is the issue of container security. We are spending about $8 billion to do something called a national missile defense plan, so that if there is an intercontinental ballistic missile aimed at the United States, and shot at us by a terrorist somewhere in the world, we can send up another missile, and with our $8 billion, we will hit a bullet with a bullet. That is the proposition, in any event. It is very unlikely, of course, that a terrorist group is going to have access to an intercontinental ballistic missile, but we are spending $8 billion dealing with that and rogue states having access to those missiles. A more likely threat, according to most people, is not a 15,000-mile- an-hour missile aimed at our country with a nuclear warhead; a more likely threat is a container on a container ship, slowly but surely, at 2 miles an hour, pulling up to a dock in New York City or Los Angeles or San Diego or Seattle, with a container in the middle of all the containers on that ship containing a dirty bomb or a nuclear weapon. Mr. President, 5.7 million of those containers come into this country each and every year; 100,000 of them are inspected, 5.6 million are not. I happen to have toured a port a couple of times. I come from a State that is landlocked. I do not know much about ports, so I have done a couple tours. I have great admiration for Customs and others working on those docks, in those ports. During a tour, I recall asking them: What is in this container? They said: We don't know, but let us show you what we're doing with some containers. They took me to a garage-like structure and opened one container that had frozen broccoli from Poland. That was the first time I had seen frozen broccoli from Poland in 100-pound bags, destined, I suppose, for the restaurants across America. They pulled out a couple bags and opened them. Sure enough, it was frozen broccoli from Poland. I asked: How do you know what is in the middle bag in the middle of this container? They said: We don't. I asked: How many of these do you inspect? They said: Two percent of all containers we inspect. The fact is, we need to do better because our ports, our big cities are under threat of terrorist acts, where terrorists using a container, put in a container ship, could come into one of our ports with a weapon of mass destruction immersed in one of those containers. We have heard about the suspected terrorist who actually put himself in a container and put himself on a container ship, took with him some water, something to sleep on, a cot, a computer, wireless satellite telephones, and food, and then shipped himself to Toronto, Canada, probably with the intention of going from the Middle East to Canada and then sneaking into this country. But the point is, he was discovered. But he put himself in a container on a container ship with all the comforts of home, shipping himself to Canada. My point is, if we care about the security of this country and care about defeating terrorists, care about identifying and thwarting terrorist acts, then we have to care a great deal about port security. The fact is, we are not funding it. This bill that is before us has cut funding once again. People say we are adding funding. The fact is, we have cut the funding that the Customs Service says they need. It has just been cut. And we try to add it back, and we lose the vote. But, look, this isn't about spending; it is about protecting our country. We cannot turn a blind eye to port security and say that somehow we have done what is necessary to defend this country. I hope Governor Ridge comes in and understands that is a very difficult issue but one that we have to address in a very aggressive way. Finally, let me talk about northern border security, border security generally but northern border security specifically. With respect to our borders, it is true that a country cannot defend itself if it does not control its borders. It is the case, for example, that we have had 10 times as many Border Patrol agents on the southern border between the United States and Mexico as we have had on the northern border. We have done that for many years because of immigration and drug problems. The fact is, the danger today is more than just that. The danger today is the potential of terrorists sneaking into this country and committing an act of terrorism. We have 4 or 5,000 miles of border between the United States and Canada, a long border between two countries that get along well. Up in my part of the country where we have border stations in the northern part of North Dakota, those stations close in many cases at 10 at night. Up until a year or so ago, the only thing that existed, once those stations closed, was an orange cone in the middle of the road. The impolite people who snuck into this country could shred that cone at 60 miles an hour. The polite ones at least stopped to remove the cone and put it back in place. We have changed some of that but not enough. This is a long, porous border. If this country is going to provide the security it needs for the American people, then it has to have control of its borders. That means we have to fund the Customs Service, the Immigration Service, and the Border Patrol and have the coordination of those agencies that work together to do the job they know needs doing. I am pleased to support Governor Ridge. I have great confidence in him. He is a great public servant. I am proud to say yes when they call the vote. He needs the tools. This man needs the tools to do the job. You can't provide the kind of support we need for this country and the kind of investment we need to make sure we have security at our ports and airports, nuclear facilities, trains, and so on, you can't do that on the cheap. One day--I pray this will not happen--another terrorist act may occur and something that we have failed to do here, something that we know we should have done will be pointed out as a flaw in the system. They knew this could happen, but they didn't do anything about it. Let's make these investments now: Port security, watch lists, giving access to all of the law enforcement people, the names of terrorists and suspected terrorists, border security. Yes, at the southern border but also the northern border. Let's do these things together. We know right now that Osama bin Laden is somewhere in this world. At least we are told they think he is still alive. Osama has been forgotten by some. The fact is, Osama bin Laden is a dangerous guy. We don't know where he is. We don't know where Omar is. The terrorist al-Qaida cells are still a very serious problem. Homeland security is critically important. That is why I support this nomination. This nominee is a quality person who can do this job, but he can't do this job without the tools. We, the administration and the Congress, have to own up to that and make the investments necessary that will protect this country against the threat of terrorists. Just a couple of months ago, the head of the FBI said the danger of a terrorist attack is as high today or higher than it was September 10, the day before the devastating terrorist attacks. I am proud to vote for Governor Ridge. I wish him well. I want to help him. I hope this administration and this Congress will do what is right to make the investments necessary to protect our country. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, first let me say I am pleased to announce that I will vote for Governor Ridge, to confirm Governor Ridge for the position of Secretary of Homeland Security. I have known Governor Ridge for a long while. I served with him in the House of Representatives. I think he is a public servant with great skill and great dedication. I am very pleased to see him continue to offer himself for public service. I am very pleased to cast a vote in favor of his nomination. It is a good one. I commend President Bush for sending it to us. And I think he will be confirmed overwhelmingly by the Senate, if not unanimously. Let me, however, say there are several things I am concerned about with respect to homeland security. And it mirrors some of the suggestions offered by my colleague just moments ago. I want to say--as I indicate I am proud to vote for Governor Ridge-- there are three areas I hope very much we will make some significant improvements in and for. Let me describe them. First and foremost for me is information sharing. The task force headed by former Senators Warren Rudman and Gary Hart, on October 25, issued a report to this country. The report was titled ``America Still Unprepared--America Still in Danger.'' It was a bipartisan task force sponsored by the Council of Foreign Relations, which included former Secretaries of State George Shultz and Warren Christopher; retired ADM William Crowe, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and many others. They found that 1 year after the September 11 attacks, America remains dangerously unprepared for another terrorist attack. At the top of their concerns--the top of their list--was this: 650,000 local and state police officials continue to operate in a virtual intelligence vacuum, without access to a terrorist watch list provided by the U.S. Department of State that goes to immigration and consular officials. Let me say that again. The watch list--the list that the Department of State has, that has on it names of terrorists and suspected terrorists--that list is not available to State and local law enforcement officials across this country. And the Rudman-Hart report says you have 650,000 additional eyes and ears out there in law enforcement that ought to be able to access that report. To give you an example, 36 hours before September 11 and those devastating attacks, one of the hijackers, Ziad Jarrah, a 26-year-old Lebanese national, who was flying the airplane that crashed in Pennsylvania, was pulled over on Interstate 95 in the State of Maryland by a Maryland State Police trooper for driving 90 miles an hour. He was one of the key organizers of the al-Qaida terrorist cell formed in Germany 3 years ago. He shared a Hamburg apartment with Mohammed Atta. And he was at the controls of flight 93. When this hijacker was pulled over by a Maryland trooper, he was driving a rented car under his own name. This hijacker, it turns out, was not on the watch list. But if he had been--and there is no reason to think he would not have been, given today's circumstances--that Maryland trooper would have had no idea and no access to the information that he had just pulled over someone who was a known terrorist, a suspected terrorist. If this afternoon, in Fargo, ND, a city police officer or a county sheriff or a highway patrolman pulls over an automobile, and it is filled with four people who snuck across the United States-Canadian border in some remote area of our country, and those four people are on the terrorist watch list, a list compiled by the State Department, that city police officer or county sheriff will have no access to that information. They can call in and get the NCIC and find out who has been convicted of a felony and who has outstanding warrants, but they are not able to get to the names on the State Department's watch list of who the terrorists are, the known terrorists and suspected terrorists. That is unforgivable, in my judgment. Let me read a detailed excerpt from the Hart-Rudman report: With just fifty-six field offices around the nation, the burden of identifying and intercepting terrorists in our midst is a task well beyond the scope of the FBI. This burden could and should be shared with 650,000 local, county, and state law enforcement officers, but they clearly cannot lend a hand in [the] counterterrorism information void [that now exists because] when it comes to combating terrorism, the police officers on the beat are effectively operating deaf, dumb, and blind. Why? Because we have a list with the names of terrorists on it, and the names of suspected terrorists on it, and the police officers and the county sheriffs and the highway patrolmen have no access to that list and are not allowed to have access to that list. That is wrong. Let me continue quoting from the Hart-Rudman report: Terrorist watch lists provided by the U.S. Department of State to [the U.S.] immigration [folks] and consular officials are still out of bounds for state and local police. In the interim period as information sharing issues get worked out, known terrorists will be free to move about to plan and execute their attacks. Even when they are stopped by local police officers, and even when their names are run against the NCIC, those local law enforcement officials have no ability, no capability, to run those names against the watch list that contains the names of terrorists and suspected terrorists. This needs to get fixed. I hope Governor Ridge makes this a first priority. This was the top recommendation of this blue ribbon commission that says America is unprepared. This was their top recommendation. And months after it was issued, to the best I can understand, very little is happening in the administration to resolve this. I believe very strongly it needs to be resolved, and soon. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I came to the floor because I want to talk about an amendment that will be offered tomorrow dealing with disaster aid for farmers, but I can't help but comment just a moment on some of the discussion I heard on the floor as I entered the Chamber, and also just prior to that, the notion there is one side of this Chamber that somehow is for big government and there is the other side that is protecting the American people against big government. My colleague from Delaware said it appropriately. If you take a look at the amendments that have been offered and debated, the amendments, for example, by my colleague, Senator Byrd, are talking about additional investments in homeland security. Does anyone really think it is just building big government to care about investments in homeland security? Do you know, for example, that there are 5.7 million containers that come into America's ports every single year and only 100,000 of them are inspected and 5.6 million containers are not inspected? Do you think maybe we ought to do better than that? Do you think there is a potential threat by terrorists dealing with our ports and harbors and the containers that are coming in from all parts of the world? If you do, do you really want to stand up and say what my colleague is trying to do is just big government? Or maybe you want to stand up and say this is an important investment in the security of this country. Maybe you want to stop the kind of demagoguery that exists around this town at almost every turn on almost every subject. Isn't there a reason to have a thoughtful debate about what kind of security the American people expect and deserve, responding to the terrorist threat around the world? I think it ought to be thoughtful rather than thoughtless, and too much of the dialog I find, regrettably, is thoughtless. We have heard, of course, the same dissenting voices. When the proposal was to create a Medicare program, the dissenting voices were to say: Oh, no, we can't do that. Create a Social Security Program to help seniors? No, we can't do that. It's a good thing this Chamber wasn't filled with people with that attitude when President Eisenhower proposed we build the interstate highway system or that wouldn't have gotten built. I won't go on. I will just say I don't think anyone in here pines for ``big government.'' But I think we want a better country. And some of us very strongly believe that to have a better country is to decide to invest in America's kids, to improve education, to make our neighborhoods safe, to create the kind of circumstances in which we have economic growth and opportunity, and people have decent jobs--jobs that pay well, jobs that have security. All of these represent what will make this a better country--not a bigger government, a better country. I think we would be well advised to redraw a few of these charts that we see brought to the floor of the Senate and talk about what is important to the future of America instead of trading slogans back and forth. But that is not why I came to the floor. I want to talk just for a moment about the issue of disaster aid for family farmers. Last week a cattle rancher from western North Dakota called and said: I don't want any political discussion or political talk. What I need to know is, will there be some assistance for those of us who have been hit by disaster? Because I just spent 2 hours at my local bank. The fact is, if there is not disaster aid made available by the Congress to help those of us who got hit by a natural disaster--a drought that has been devastating for them--then I am not going to be able to continue. There will not be any credit for the coming year and I am not going to be able to continue on my ranch. There are thousands, tens of thousands of people all across this country in exactly the same situation, wondering if, during this disaster, this devastating drought that has been likened in some parts of our country to the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s--a devastating drought that is not the fault of farmers and ranchers but that has crippled their ability to make a living, devastated their livestock herds and meant that seeds they planted in the spring could not possibly produce the harvest in the fall--wondering whether, as has always been the case, whether Congress will do in this disaster what it has done in previous disasters, and that is say to those farm families: We would like to extend a helping hand. We do that in virtually every other circumstance. When there is a hurricane in one of our southern States, when there is a fire or a flood or an earthquake, our country is quick to send teams of people and say: Let us help you. This is a natural disaster. It is not of your making and we understand the need for our country to reach out and extend a hand and say let us help you. I have always been pleased to say let me be a part of that. I want to help the people who have been hit hard by these devastating natural disasters. So my vote has always been yes. My colleagues, fortunately, have always said the same when it comes to disasters that hit the family farm. The question is whether we will provide enough help to allow them to continue on that family farm or ranch. We are going to offer, tomorrow morning, I believe--at least it will be tomorrow, I hope it will be the first amendment up--Senator Daschle, myself, Senator Baucus, and others will offer a farm disaster package here on the floor of the Senate and that package will be similar to that which has been offered in the Senate previously and passed by the Senate previously, $5.9 to $6 billion. It received a very wide margin here in the Senate. The vote was bipartisan. It was declared emergency spending, as has always been the case with respect to disaster relief. And it was blocked. It was blocked by the House; blocked by the White House. But nonetheless, blocked. We passed disaster relief on three occasions in the last Congress, only to see it blocked, and we were unable, then, to get this disaster relief made available to family farmers across the country. So, we will try again tomorrow, urging that the Congress pass disaster relief. We could and should be able to do that in the Senate. I am reading there are some others with a disaster proposal that is less than half of what should be available and also providing that those who had no disaster will get payments. Last week's construct was a bit different from this week's. But what I read is we will still see, under the proposal offered by the majority, a disaster relief proposal that will spread money to those in rural America, notwithstanding who might or might not have been hit with a disaster. It is our proposition that only those who have need--incidentally, it is a wide group of family farmers and ranchers across this country who have been hit by this devastating drought--it is only those, in my judgment, who should receive the benefit of the disaster program. We passed a new farm program last year that would provide better price supports and that would guard against falling prices. But this isn't about price support. This is about disaster. In my part of the country, a fair portion of the crops--particularly in southern North Dakota--never got out of the ground. In parts of North Dakota and in parts of much larger areas of the country, if you saw a picture of the ground that you would have taken during what would have been harvesttime, you would see something that looked very much like a moonscape. The seeds were in the ground but the seeds did not come up. That farmer and his or her spouse would have lost everything. Many of them right now are visiting with their bankers to determine whether they will be able to continue on the farm or ranch. I hope this Congress is ready to say, as it did last year in the Senate, that we believe we ought to provide a disaster package to family farmers who suffered this drought disaster. There are many strikes that are against farmers and ranchers--some perpetrated by the Congress and some by others, one of which is trade, for example. I will not spend much time talking about that. But our farmers have been beset these years by low prices, by bad trade deals, and by a range of disasters--in some cases too much moisture, and in other cases too dry, but the result is the same. In both cases, their livestock herds are decimated. They are unable to raise a crop. My hope is that by tomorrow we will have sufficient numbers in the Senate, as we have had on previous occasions in the last year and a half, who will stand up for family farmers and ranchers and decide they, too, will support, as they have in the past, disaster relief. My hope is that by this time tomorrow we will have had the debate, finished the debate, and had a favorable vote. Senator Daschle and I, and Senator Baucus and others, have spoken on the floor previously. Senator Baucus put this in the stimulus plan last year and Senator Daschle was in the Chamber leading the effort. We have had plenty of debate on it. It ought not be a mystery for any Member in this Senate about what is happening in rural America. No one, in my judgment, need ask the question, including the President of the United States--who, incidentally, went to South Dakota so often last year that he should have rented an apartment in South Dakota, and he came to North Dakota. And within the last couple of years, he has said, oh, by the way, you family farmers, when you need me, I will be with you. We needed him and he wasn't with us--last year and now this year. We asked this President to join us. We asked the Speaker of the House to join us and help us pass disaster relief at this point. That is why beginning tomorrow Senator Daschle, myself, and others will be pushing for an amendment on this omnibus bill. I know there will be those who will come to the floor--and perhaps one of my colleagues who spoke earlier today--and say, well, what they are talking about is big government. What we are talking about is trying to stimulate the economy and help those in the country who need some help. One quick way to stimulate the economy in rural America is to help those farmers and ranchers with some disaster relief, as we have always done in the past. That disaster relief finds its way into the mainstream. It supports jobs and main streets and businesses in all of our communities in rural America. It is not just about family farmers. It is about the world economy. It is about stimulating our economy. There is no more quick way to do that than to include in any stimulus package--in this case to include in the omnibus bill--a piece of legislation that does what Congress should have done a year ago but failed to do because the Speaker of the House and the President blocked it; that is, pass a decent disaster relief bill in the neighborhood of $6 billion on an emergency basis that no longer leaves America's food producers in doubt; that says to those families who are struggling on the farms that we are with you, we care about you, but when you suffer disaster this country is going to extend its hand to you. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. This across-the-board cut is not a good idea. We need to make the right investments in the right agencies, to protect the American people, especially with respect to homeland security. These across-the-board cuts are not the right thing to do. Everyone knows that. My colleague talked about the number of veterans that will be affected with respect to the diminished veterans health care, as well as the FBI. My colleague from Alaska, for whom I have great respect, said we will increase that budget. That is true. But if this is a cut, it is a cut. It is a cut below the anticipated level of spending in these areas. It has been said this morning that part of the reason for this is to give farmers some help. Providing some money to help farmers who have experienced disaster is very important. But we did that last year by a wide bipartisan vote in the Senate and proposed a $5.9 billion program on an emergency basis. What is being proposed today, apparently--I read in the paper--is a $3.1 billion proposition that will send drought aid to farmers who never had a drought. I don't understand that. What are we thinking about? Let's pass the disaster aid we passed last year for family farmers on an emergency basis, and then let's deal with the spending needs we have in this country. Yes, for the FBI, for the Customs Service, for all of these agencies, especially those engaged in homeland security. Yesterday my colleague from West Virginia talked about the importance of homeland security. I understand what is going on. I understand the President has said, here is a marker; you have to meet that marker. So he wants to cut spending in the FBI, the Customs, Veterans, Health and so on, in order to meet his marker. But on the other hand, he says while we are short of money and cannot fund what we intended for these funds, let's have a tax cut of $675 billion over 10 years. I don't understand the priority here. Either we have a homeland security issue we need to respond to or we do not. My colleague from West Virginia said earlier today the head of the FBI told us we are in as much jeopardy today as we were the day before September 11 with respect to the potential threat from terrorists. If that is the case, how can anyone say we cannot fully fund the needs we anticipated earlier with respect to the FBI, the Customs Service, and others? I understand what is going on. I understand someone had to bring to the floor the President's marker with respect to spending, but it is not right to do this across-the-board cut in order to meet that artificial level, especially at a time when the President says there is plenty of money for a $675 billion tax cut over the next 10 years. In terms of priorities, that is the wrong priority for this country.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, today, I am submitting a Sense of the Senate Resolution that expresses my concerns about the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act. I supported this law when it was passed by the Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support, and I still support it. In general, I think it is very appropriate and important for us as a Nation to demand very high standards of performance from our schools and to identify those schools that should be doing better and give them the assistance they need to improve. Having said that, I do have concerns that a lack of adequate funding and a potential lack of flexibility in the implementation of this new law could set out public schools up for failure, and that is wrong. All of us have an obligation, as parents, educators, concerned citizens, and policymakers, to get the implementation of this law right. Nationwide, about 25 percent of public schools are rural. In North Dakota, fully 89 percent of our public school districts are rural. The No Child Left Behind Act imposes many new requirements that will be challenging for all States and schools to meet. However, rural school districts face unique challenges that are compounded by the small size, remoteness, and lack of resources facing many rural schools. Rural educators in my State have pointed out a number of unique concerns facing them. For example, many rural school districts in North Dakota have very small numbers of students. The poor performance of just a few students on the tests required by the No Child Left Behind Act could result in a school being identified as needing improvement, even when most of the students are performing very well. In addition, some of the options created under the No Child Left Behind Act for students attending schools identified for improvement simply may not be available in rural areas. For instance, most of the school districts in my State only include one school, so another public school choice is not an option. Likewise, the distance to the next nearest school district may be impractical or the cost of transportation may be prohibitively expensive. Similar concerns exist with the availability of supplemental tutoring services. Many rural schools already have shortages of teachers in key subject areas, even though rural instructors frequently tech in multiple subject areas. Some of the experienced teachers and paraprofessionals in rural schools may not meet the new ``highly qualified'' requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act, and it will be very difficult for rural school districts to complete with large school districts in recruiting and retaining quality teachers. I believe the No Child Left Behind Law provides States with the flexibility that is needed to address these and other concerns, if the Department of Education allows States to use that flexibility and the States take advantage of it. As President Bush himself said last week, ``One size doesn't fit all when it comes to public education.'' Of course, the other ingredient that is needed is funding. Even with the necessary flexibility, if schools do not have the resources to make needed reforms, they will not be able to improve. When the Congress and the President last year reached bipartisan agreement on the No Child Left Behind Act, we agreed on the levels of funding that would be necessary to meet the new expectations and requirements. That law authorizes $31 billion for the No Child Left Behind Act in fiscal year 2003, a $9 billion increase over the fiscal year 2002 level. Unfortuantely, barely a month after this legislation was signed into law, the President sent to Congress a budget that no only did not fully fund the increases in the No Child Left Behind Act, it actually cut funding by $90 million. One cut of particular concern to me is the President's proposal to eliminate funding for the Rural Education Achievement Program, REAP, which was funded in fiscal year 2002 at $162.5 million. REAP funding is particularly important because it is targeted at small, rural districts that do not receive large enough amounts of money through the individual federal formula ``title programs'' to make substantive changes or investments. In addition, because small rural districts often lack the administrative staff to apply for competitive grants from the State and Federal level, they receive a smaller proportion of federal dollars then their suburban or urban counterparts. For many rural school districts, REAP will mean an additional $20,000 to $60,000 in new funding that will help them to meet the challenges of implementing the No Child Left Behind Act. While this may not seem like much funding to an urban or suburban district, to a small rural district it makes a real impact. As Congress completes work on the fiscal year 2003 Education appropriations bill, I hope we will provide the $31 billion authorized in No Child Left Behind. I understand that Senator Harkin plans to offer an amendment to bring the funding level up to the authorized amount. Given that the No Child Left Behind Act was passed by the Senate by an 87-10 vote, I would hope and expect that Senator Harkin's amendment would receive similarly strong bipartisan support. However, my Sense of the Senate resolution also calls on President Bush to request the authorized level of funding of $34 billion in his fiscal year 2004 budget he will send to Congress next month, and it calls on Congress to appropriate that level of funding in fiscal year 2004. If full funding is not provided in fiscal year 2004, my resolution expresses the ``Sense of the Senate'' that enforcement of the No Child Left Behind Act should be suspended. A moratorium on enforcement is not my preference. Our children would be much better off if Congress and the President simply lived up to their commitment to provide the level of funding and flexibility needed to implement this law correctly. That should be our goal. However, without this funding, we are simply imposing an enormous ``unfunded mandate'' on states and local school districts. The reality is that the budget crises facing just about every state and local government make it virtually impossible for states and local governments to make up for the lack of resources from the federal government. Fundamentally, this can be a good law, and I think it would be a shame, and irresponsible to our children, if it cannot be implemented properly because Congress did not provide the resources it said it would.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, there has been a generous amount of discussion this morning about the plan to put the economy back on track. I have been interested in listening to it. Some of it is interesting, some informative, some entertaining, some fiction, some right at the bull's-eye of the target. So it is interesting to try to sort it all out. Let me give some of my perspective on it, if I might. First, we had a colleague on the floor saying today, quite properly: The Federal Government does not create jobs. So if someone is saying somehow the Federal Government can create jobs, they are misinformed. It is not the Federal Government that creates jobs. Well, that is true. It is the case that the Federal Government is not going to create 100,000 jobs next month. In a growing economy, jobs will be created by entrepreneurs, by people with capital, who take risks, who hire people, who rent the space, have the idea, create the product, and go market it. That is who creates the jobs. There is no question about that. But it is also the case that the Federal Government creates the conditions under which an entrepreneur, someone with an idea, someone with the notion to build a manufacturing plant somewhere, can succeed. Because if we do not have a fiscal policy that helps create economic growth and expansion and opportunity, there will not be new opportunities for the people with the ideas on what we ought to do to expand and build. I find it interesting that the only discussion we ever hear about on the floor of the Senate is the good deeds of those who invest the capital in this country. My hat is off to them. This country cannot work without investment. This economic engine cannot work without capitalism and risk takers. No question about that. But understand something else. This economy does not work without the American worker either. And that element of what makes this economy work ought not to be ignored on the floor of the Senate, as it is every single time some of my colleagues come to talk about the magic ingredients that make this economic engine the wonder of the world. There is a hero of mine who I have spoken about on the floor of the Senate once previously. A few years ago, a man named Robert Naegele sold his business in Minnesota. Mr. Naegele was President of a business that created rollerblades. All of us know what rollerblades are these days. They are in-line skates. When many of us were little children, and we rollerskated, there were four little wheels on the bottom of four shoes and we just had a devil of a time standing up, in most cases. But in recent years, those four little wheels were replaced by in-line wheels on something called rollerblades created by the Rollerblades Company. I happen to rollerblade. I have a pair of rollerblades, and I like to rollerblade with my son and daughter. They are a whole lot better at it than I am. I like rollerblades, so I know about rollerblades. The man who was President of that company decided to sell that company. When he sold that company, he made millions and millions and millions of dollars because that company had been enormously successful. I want to tell you what he did. Without telling anyone, the employees of that company, come Christmas time, began to get Christmas cards from Robert Naegele and his wife, and with each Christmas card was a check. One employee who worked there 11 years got a check for $21,000. Robert Naegele and his wife said--and they had 280 employees in that company--with a note, along with a Christmas card: I sold this company, and I made a lot of money. But I want you to understand that the company would not have been a great company, and would not possibly have grown to what it was, without your dedication and hard work. I want to give you something back for what you did for the company. And there it was: For an employee who had been there 11 years, there was a check for $21,000. And they said: Oh, by the way, I have already prepaid the income taxes on it for you. When I read about that in the newspaper, I called Mr. Naegele, and I said: What a wonderful thing for you to do. He said: No, it was not wonderful. It was an understanding I had that, yes, I contributed to the success of that company, but that company would not have been a company without the men and women who worked on the line and who made that company successful as well. I tell that story only to make sure everyone in this Chamber understands this is not a one-way street, this notion of what makes an American economic engine unique and what makes it work. It is not just those who invest the capital. It is those who invest the capital, yes, but not just them. It is the labor force that is remarkable in this world. To believe that workers are expendable tools, like a pair of pliers or a screwdriver you throw away when you don't need them, is, in my judgment, to begin dismantling this economic engine of ours. There are some companies that have done that, at their risk and at their peril. My only point is that it takes all of us to make this work. It takes good government policy. It takes entrepreneurs, risk takers and investors. It takes skilled laborers, managers and engineers. It takes all of us to make this American economy work. I get a little tired sometimes of hearing people say: No, no. There is only one element that makes it work; that is the people at the top who make the investments. They say: So, therefore, when we talk about tax cuts, let's reward those at the top. Let's just pour it into the top, and somehow--in the classic notion of tired politics--it will trickle down and help everyone. I had a fellow from North Dakota once who wrote to me and said: I read about all this trickle-down stuff. He said: I haven't even gotten damp yet, and I have been waiting a long time. The fact is, this is not just trickle down or percolate up; it is thinking smart about what makes this economy work. But most of what I hear on the floor of the Senate about these issues is pretty tiring. Most of it implies there is a ship of state, and in this ship of state there is an engine room, and in the engine room there are dials and knobs, gauges and levers. And if we can just adjust them all just right, through our infinite wisdom--the wisdom of Mr. Greenspan and the Congress and the Treasury Secretary--somehow the ship of state will just move right on forward. The fact is, those gauges, dials, knobs, and levers in the engine room of this ship have very little to do with what happens to this economy. Almost exclusively, what happens to the American economy has to do with the confidence of the American people. Do they think tomorrow is going to be better? Are they confident about the future? Because if they are, they will do things that manifest that confidence. They will build a house, buy a car, take a trip, make a purchase--the kinds of things that cause the expansion-side of the business cycle. If they are not confident, they do exactly the opposite. They defer the purchase, don't take that trip, don't buy the car, don't buy the house, and the economy contracts. This is all about confidence. The question I have is this: What kind of confidence can the American people have in this economy if all we do on the floor of the Senate, and if all we do from the megaphone at the White House, is say: Do you know what our fiscal policy is? More and more and more tax cuts, notwithstanding deficits, because we don't care about deficits. One year and three-quarters ago, we had a debate on the floor of this Senate. And the President said: Let's cut taxes $1.7 trillion because we have surpluses as far as the eye can see. And this is money that belongs to the people. Let them keep it. Some of us said: Yes, let's have a tax cut, but let's be a little more conservative. What if something happens? What if the economy runs into a ditch? What if something unusual happens and these surpluses don't develop? The President had his way. We passed the tax cut, and within a matter of months, in March 2001, the recession began. On September 11, we had a devastating terror attack which cut a hole in the belly of the economy. Then we began a war on terrorism which cost a lot of money. Then we have the Iraq problem which costs a lot of money and probably will cost a great deal more. Then we had corporate scandals, maybe unprecedented in the history of this country, that shook the confidence of the American people. The huge budget surpluses have turned into large budget deficits, and very quickly. What is the solution to that? What is the solution to restore the confidence of the American people in their future? More tax cuts, the President says; more tax cuts, some of my colleagues say. Who will get those tax cuts? Well, the President. According to something in the Washington Post yesterday, the people have computed the President will get a $44,500 tax cut per year. What will the corporal get who is going to central Asia today? What about the private loading up on a C-5 being sent overseas? How much will they get? The fact is, we have an economy in trouble. The solution for the trouble this economy is in is not to exacerbate the Federal budget deficit and drive it sky high. The easiest thing in the world is to come to the floor and say: I am for tax cuts. Let me say, before anybody else does, if you are for tax cuts, my preference would be that no one would have to bear the burden of a tax. Wouldn't that be wonderful? You can't ``out tax cut'' me. That is my preference. I support no taxes, except I believe there are certain things we ought to do for people in this country. For kids, some young kid going into a Head Start program today has a name. It is John or Carolyn or Robert or Martha. That young little kid comes from a family in a difficult situation. So we put together a Head Start program to nurture and enrich and help that young child. Is that worth doing? You are darn right it is. It is investing in that kid. It is worth doing for that child. It saves us money. If I believe we should do that--and I do--then I say we will have to levy a tax to pay for that. When we decide we will have to increase defense spending by $45 billion in this fiscal year, as the President recommended and as Congress agreed, I say we have to pay for that. Or should we perhaps have our children pay for it and say: Not us, we don't want to pay for it; we do want to spend it, but we don't want to pay for it? We send qualified teachers into the classroom and say: We want you to implement a new program called Leave No Child Behind, but we don't want to pay for it. We want to impose this new program which we promised to pay for, but instead, we want tax cuts and refuse to pay for the program. My point is, we have to make choices. My choice is that, yes, we should have a tax cut. It ought to be a short-term, 1-year stimulus to try to put the economy back on track. I don't believe we ought to at this point make the same mistake we did in the last Congress and say, let's have a $670 billion tax cut over 10 years, the bulk of which will go to people at the top of the income ladder. When my colleague says, all of these senior citizens are really going to do well because they get all these dividends--nonsense. You know what is happening with dividends. Very few people have much in dividends except the people at the very top of the income ladder. In fact, most dividends are not double taxed. A substantial amount of retained earnings is never paid out in dividends. A substantial portion of that which is paid out in dividends to older folks goes into a 401(k) plan. There is no tax on those dividends. It seems to me if we will do what we ought to do on fiscal policy, let's answer the question, What will give people confidence about the future? What kinds of policies can we embark upon? Not Republican or Democratic policies; I don't think either side has a lock on wisdom. What can we do that says to the American people: We are serious about a couple things: One, we are serious about paying for that which we intend to spend for health care, education, defense, homeland security, and more; we are serious about deciding who will pay for that which we are to spend; second, we are serious about policies that will stimulate the economic growth of this country, to say to people, we believe in the future and you should, too? We want you to understand that the policies we put in place will be judged by everyone--by the stock market, the bond market, the people who are going to invest, people who run businesses on Main Street. We are not going to throw a bunch of money at it and say, we don't care about the deficit. We are going to have tax cuts, and we will do it in a 1-year economic growth plan, and we will do it in a way that makes the most sense. If it were up to me, we would do a rebate to people who pay income taxes and payroll taxes. And, incidentally, that is one other issue. Everyone who comes to the floor and has a burr under their saddle about this issue says: The only taxes people pay are income taxes. At least that is the only tax they will talk about. That is rubbish. The fact is, a whole lot of folks pay more in payroll taxes than they do in income taxes. Everybody who has a job, from the minimum wage up, pays a payroll tax. You can't get out of it. You have to pay a payroll tax. Three-quarters of working families pay more in payroll taxes than they do in income taxes. Whenever someone talks about tax relief, they only want to talk about taxpayers, meaning those who pay income taxes. What about talking about all taxpayers? My belief is we ought to provide a tax rebate. I would propose $500 for individuals, $1,000 for couples. I would also propose something that stimulates the investment side, an investment tax credit targeted to capital goods and equipment. I would do this on a 1-year basis to help put the economy back on track. And then if it grows, if it creates the new jobs and produces the new revenue, we can provide additional tax cuts. But you cannot provide tax cuts with borrowed money. You cannot inspire confidence in the American people if you are saying to them: We will borrow additional money in order to provide these additional tax cuts, and we will borrow the money so that your children pay the burden of it, and we will provide the tax cuts, the bulk of which will go to the top end of the income level. That simply makes no sense. There has been a lot of discussion about class warfare. Frankly, I don't think class warfare is something that is worth our time. I don't think it is reasonable to do it. But class warfare can be committed in several different ways. If I say, I would like to provide a tax cut only to those Americans who earn more than $1 million a year--I don't believe this, but let me propose it hypothetically--because, frankly, it is my impression, speaking in the vernacular, that those are the people who contribute most to our country and, therefore, let's only provide tax cuts to people earning over $1 million a year, I happen to think that is a proposal that just reeks of class warfare. So who commits class warfare? The people who come out here and say to me: You say that tax cuts should only go to people who make more than $1 million a year because you believe they are the real producers in our country. Are you nuts? They would say: Are you nuts? What about the working people out here who deserve tax cuts as well? So when they come out and criticize that, are they committed to class warfare? Is that what it is about? That is what is happening. Someone proposes a tax cut that is fundamentally unfair, and then, the minute you complain about it, they say: Class warfare. Shame on you. The fact is, we have plenty of wisdom, plenty of knowledge in this Chamber from all corners to put together a sensible, thoughtful plan that would give the American people hope that we know what we are doing. The easiest approach by far, the simplest approach by far, which is fundamentally wrong, is to stand up in every corner of the Chamber and say, the deficit be damned. It doesn't mean a thing. Our policy is singular. It is to provide more and more and more tax cuts. And then what we will do is cut domestic discretionary programs on education, health care, Head Start, kindergarten, kids, and so on. And when somebody comes to the floor and says, maybe we should just make the priorities a bit different and continue to invest in these kids who walk into Head Start centers because it is a great thing to do, then someone can come to the floor and say: Big spenders. We want to give the money back, and you want to spend it. I had the CEO of one of the country's largest companies come to see me last week. He came to me about something completely unrelated to fiscal policy, but as he was leaving, he said: One more thing I want to mention. Mr. Senator, I don't need a tax cut. I make a great deal of money. If I get a tax cut, I don't have the foggiest idea what I would spend it on. I guess I would just save it. He said, ``You should know that I am not asking for a tax cut from you and I don't need one.'' I said, ``You will go down in the annals of history in my service in Congress as one of the few people who has ever told me you don't need a tax cut. Good for you.'' I think most Americans would love to have the burden of taxes removed from their shoulders. If there is a sensible way to do it, let's do it. But let us not decide to borrow money and saddle our children with increased debt in order to give a tax cut to that executive who told me he didn't want one and didn't need one. So what I would like to see us do is take a look at the President's plan. He wants to have a 10-year, $670 billion tax cut on the heels of a $1.7 trillion tax cut, while now staring deficits right square in the face for years and years to come. I would like us to say, look, this doesn't make sense. As one of the senior White House people was quoted in the Washington Post saying, this is a political document. What I would like to say to the President and to Mr. Rove and others is this is about people getting laid off, people going home at night saying I have lost my job, telling their family they don't have a job any longer. How do you put the economy back on track to create new jobs? This is about restoring and creating confidence in the American people about the future. The way we will do that, in my judgment, is not to have one side or the other say it is my way or the highway. I think the way to do that is to have the thoughtful people in the Chamber sit down together and decide the principles by which we ought to embark on this journey. One, let's not blow a hole in the Federal deficit. That ought to be a principle. Two, it ought to work to try to expand the economy and create more confidence in the American people. Three, it ought to be fair. Four, it ought to be temporary. We ought not to make the mistake we made in the last Congress of laying something in law, in the process here that lasts 10 years, when we know if we were confronting the choice we confronted a year and three quarters ago, knowing we are going to have a recession, the September 11 terrorist attack, a war on terror, unprecedented corporate scandals, and a technology bubble burst--and, by the way, do you want to continue to do this, because if you do, surpluses will turn to deficits, we know the Senate would not make the same decision they made then. Let us not make the same mistake. My feeling is let's have a tax cut to try to put the economy back on track, but let's make it temporary and get the best of the ideas that exist here. Let's do it not with a mind to what the good politics might be, but with the mind of what is the sound economic principle by which we try to jump-start this economy. One final point. It is interesting to me that we have people trying to say, well, I don't know, Jimmy Carter is at fault, or Bill Clinton, or Calvin Coolidge, or whoever is at fault for whatever they are talking about. In fact, we have a business cycle and it has contractions and expansions. Those movements are influenced by what people perceive to be their sound or unsound fiscal policy. The plain fact is, you cannot, in my judgment, come to this town and say here is my plan and here is what it will produce, and then when it doesn't produce it, say, by the way, I had nothing to do with it. We can do better than that--Republicans and Democrats contributing the best that is available on both sides. We can, in a principled way, with temporary relief, put the economy back on track. I think ultimately by doing that, we can relieve the burden on the taxpayers' shoulders. But, unfortunately, what is being proposed these days is something that will add the burden on our children of additional taxes in the years ahead, who will be required to pay off the deficits as a result of a fiscal policy that doesn't work. So I think we are making some progress, because for months everybody was saying the economy is doing fine, thank you. But we understand it is not. The question is, what do we do together to make this work? We will have that debate in an extended way in the months ahead. I know my colleague--I should say a word about Senator Grassley, who is on the floor. He and I perhaps agree on some things and disagree on others. I must say we have worked on a lot of things together, especially in agriculture. When I say we ought to get the best everybody has in the Senate, I have great respect for Senator Grassley's abilities in these areas. While we may disagree and a debate might break out, look, the American people are best served by debate. In the Washington Post one day, a fellow was talking about a dispute between Republicans and Democrats and he lamented. He said this thing has degenerated into a debate about principle. I thought, well, I sure hope so. I hope that is the case. That is why I came here. So there is room for us to have disagreements from time to time. But let me say that, as we do, I have great respect for those who have strong feelings on the other side, and through aggressive debate we will produce something I think wholesome and healthy for the American economy and the American people. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, are we in a period of morning business?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 25 minutes.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I rise to support the amendment offered by the distinguished chairman, perhaps ranking member, depending on the time of the month in January of this year, of the Senate Appropriations Committee. He has led the fight in the Senate on these issues dealing with homeland security, an extremely important subject for this Senate. I wish to talk about why his amendment is a very important choice for us to make. This is, after all, about making choices. It is not a case that there is not the money to do one thing or the other; it is a matter of making the choices of what the right things are for this country's future. Emerson once said that common sense is genius dressed in work clothes. Common sense with respect to homeland security to me is to understand that post-9/11, we are in an urgent situation to protect our country at home. We are prosecuting the war against terrorists here and abroad, and we have an urgent requirement to protect our homeland. The head of the CIA just a couple months ago said to the Nation that we are as vulnerable today to a terrorist attack as we were on September 10, the day before that devastating terrorist attack on our Nation. The head of the CIA said: We are as vulnerable today as we were the day before that devastating attack. If that is the case, then the question is, What more do we need to do and how soon must we do it to give a measure of assurance to the American people that we are doing everything possible to thwart those terrorists who would attack our country? I wish to talk about a couple areas of homeland security that my colleague, Senator Byrd, has spoken about previously and spoke about again this evening, and addresses in his amendment. I wish to talk about the security of our country's ports. I come from a State that does not have any ports. North Dakota is not surrounded by oceans, so we do not have ports. I did recently tour one of our large ports in this country. That follows on the heels of a tour I did several years previous. I was curious as to what kind of security exists in America's ports. I know we get 5.7 million containers coming into this country every year stacked on container ships. These 5.7 million containers pull up to a dock at 2 miles an hour, then are offloaded on to 18-wheel trucks, and they motor off to the rest of the country. I also know of the 5.7 million containers that come into our country every year, 100,000 of them are inspected, 5.6 million are not. One asks the question: We spend a lot of money and time talking about an antiballistic missile program or a missile defense system to protect against an incoming ballistic missile or a ballistic missile traveling 10 or 15,000 miles an hour. So we spend $8 billion creating a ballistic missile defense system. How much money do we spend protecting against the threat of a ship with a container carrying a weapon of mass destruction coming to a dock at 2 miles an hour at one of America's major ports in America's major cities? The answer is we do not spend nearly enough. I recently, with the Customs Service and others, toured one of our country's major ports. This is a port that gets a great deal of freight and commerce from Asia. I was very impressed with the men and women who worked there. I was very impressed with what they do there. I took a look at their x-ray technology in which they x-ray containers that are on an 18-wheel truck, having been taken from the deck of a ship. This technology is remarkable. What they are doing at the Customs Service is extraordinary, but they are desperately short of funds. They are incapable, in my judgment, of assuring the American people that of these 5.7 million containers reaching America's ports, they are able to inspect a sufficient number to give us a measure of confidence that terrorists will not use these containers with which to attack our country. We might all remember the story about a fellow who was a suspected terrorist who actually put himself in one of those large containers. In that container, he included a heater, a cot, water supply, a GPS system, a computer--he had all the comforts of home locked with him in a container, shipping himself from the Middle East to Canada, presumably then to go from Canada into the United States. If someone decides to ship a weapon of mass destruction in a container aimed at this country with only 2 percent of the containers being inspected at our docks, how confident are we that we have the homeland security and homeland protection we need and deserve at this point? Senator Byrd includes in this amendment the resources that are necessary to add to that measure of confidence, to create more inspections, to provide more security at America's ports, and that is important. He also in this amendment deals with the issue of border security. I do represent a State that has a long and common border with the country of Canada. Just a couple of months ago, there were concerns across our country about five men, suspected terrorists, who apparently entered the U.S. through Canada. We did not know who they were. We did not know where they entered our country. We did not know what they planned to do. But there was a national manhunt for five men from those parts of the world from which terrorists have originated who entered our country, and we were searching for these individuals. Apparently they were never found. The point is, they were supposed to have entered our country through Canada. How would one do that? Along the border between the United States and Canada, we have a great many ports of entry where we have very little security, as a matter of fact. Prior to our Appropriations Committee adding some money in the last year and a half, at many ports of entry in North Dakota, when the ports of entry closed because they are open only a certain portion of the day, at the end of the day, at 9 o'clock or 10 o'clock at night, they put up an orange rubber cone, and that was the security to keep terrorists out of this country or to keep out those who are not supposed to enter this country. The polite ones who enter this country illegally say they would get out of the car, remove the cone, drive into this country, and replace the orange cone. Those not so polite would shred that cone at 60 or 70 miles an hour, with nothing to stop them. We changed some of that at ports of entry, but we have a 4,000-mile border. There is not a ghost of a chance that the Border Patrol and others who are required to provide the security on this country's northern border can possibly do all that is necessary to keep terrorists from entering our country. Despite that, we have the Immigration Service, the Customs Service, the Border Patrol, and others doing heroic work, but they need more resources. They are short of money. And that also is included in Senator Byrd's proposal. Last July in Congress, we on the Appropriations Committee passed by a wide margin a supplemental appropriations bill that included $2.5 billion for homeland defense, port security, as I mentioned, the security of nuclear plants in our country, airport security, cyber security, and training for police and fire personnel, the first responders for any terrorist attack. Yet the President decided he would not use that $2.5 billion. He blocked it, and this amendment restores much of those funds. I know earlier today we had people come to the Chamber and talk about those who want to spend money. There are those who say this is all about spending money. This is a rather small amount compared to what we did for Defense, for example, in this year. The President asked for and we agreed to increase Defense spending nearly $45 billion in this year. We face some very significant challenges in Iraq, North Korea, terrorists. We call on young men and women in this country to put on their uniform and, in a moment's notice, be called up, put on a ship or airplane and shipped to the farthest points of the world to protect our country. We increased that spending in a very significant way. Just a year ago--in fact, a year ago this week--I was in central Asia. I was in Afghanistan and Uzbekistan and toured those areas where our young men and women--American soldiers--were defending our liberty and freedom. I do not think anyone will ever want to shortchange them in what we do to spend money to protect them, and I commend Senator Byrd, Senator Stevens, and Senator Inouye for their leadership in making certain we make that investment. But it is not only with respect to this Nation's defense that we must make investment. We also must make those investments in our homeland security. If we fail to do that, there will be a time, after some additional national tragedy as a result of a terrorist attack, when we will ask the question: Why did we not plug that hole? Why did we not add those resources? Why did we not have those additional inspections? We can avoid all of that if we simply make wise and prudent investments in homeland security in this legislation. I prefer we not be required to spend any money on homeland security. I prefer we live in a world in which there is not a terrorist threat, in which those who have evil in their hearts, such as Saddam Hussein and others, would not exist and we would live in peace and harmony and not have to worry about protecting our homeland. But the attacks of 9/11, which killed thousands of innocent Americans, by those holed up in caves in the mountains of Afghanistan plotting the murder of innocent people tell us we can never again be sure that that kind of world will exist. We must understand that terrorists want to do damage to this country and kill innocent Americans. As a result, we simply must have adequate homeland security and adequate protection. That is all this amendment offered by Senator Byrd does. We will have an opportunity to discuss other issues with respect to the omnibus bill. Although I have been talking about homeland security, I fully agree with Senator Stevens and Senator Byrd that we should handle these appropriations bills this way. It is the only way we can solve this issue of getting the eleven bills done, getting to a conference, getting them to the President, and getting them signed. So there is no disagreement about that. Senator Byrd and Senator Stevens are absolutely correct. This is what we should do. We should do it this month and get these priorities funded. But as I say that, the question is: What priorities? What choices? I have not yet seen the entire amendment or the entire omnibus bill that has been offered. I expect I will be able to review some of it this evening and perhaps tomorrow. But this is significant legislation. I know what part of it is. Chairing one of the subcommittees on appropriations, I know what is in that subcommittee. With Senator Campbell and me working closely together, I know what is in that particular part, but the rest of it I am not aware of, and I think most Members would not be aware of the specific provisions. We need to work together in the coming days to make sure the choices we make in terms of priorities are the right choices. I will have a lot to say on a couple of other issues, but I want to specifically say to Senator Byrd, I think this amendment makes eminent good sense. It is an important amendment, an urgent amendment, and represents one of our first priorities: Making the right investment for homeland security. There is a part in this omnibus bill that deals with disaster legislation, drought relief, for farmers. I do not know this for sure, but my understanding is the money for that actually comes out of the agricultural spending base, which in my judgment should not happen. Second, it is only about half the size of what is needed. By a very wide margin, we passed last year a $5.9 billion disaster relief bill for drought relief for a major part of the country's agricultural producers. That is about what we need. In my judgment, we are going to have to amend this provision. My understanding also is that in order to get part of this money, there is an across-the-board reduction, and I believe there are certain areas where we cannot do across-the-board reductions. Having said all of that, we need to debate those amendment by amendment. This first amendment is an important amendment. As Senator Byrd said, and let me hasten to say as well because I serve on this committee, the leadership of Senator Stevens is exemplary. I am proud to be on this committee, whether under his leadership or Senator Byrd's. Our differences in choices with respect to both the White House and those who support this amendment are not meant to be disrespectful but are an assertive difference, representing what we believe to be an urgent priority. There is no greater priority than to make sure we have done what we can do to thwart the efforts of terrorists to attack this country, and in a number of areas we are markedly and substantially deficient in homeland security investment. We have known that for some long while. This is the time to correct it. It is not spending, it is an investment, just as it is an investment in this country when we make the kind of appropriations we need to make for defense. We have done that. Now we need to make the same judgment with respect to homeland security. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, perhaps before I do, I should indicate I am a little bit perplexed about the debate going on here on the floor of the Senate on the funding or the reorganization resolution dealing with the 108th Congress, and especially the Senate. It seems to me the question of how much money shall be allocated to committees to run the operations of the Senate around here ought not be difficult to resolve. In the last Congress we had 51 Democrats, 49 Republicans, and we had an even split with a slight differential for administration. Now we have 51 Republicans and 49 Democrats. It seems to me we ought to have exactly the same split as we did in the last Congress, just in reverse. I don't understand why the majority now will not do for the minority as we did last year when we were in the majority for the Republican side. It doesn't make any sense to me. This ought not be rocket science trying to put this together. It is about fairness. We ought to have exactly the same circumstance we gave to the Republicans in the last Congress. It is unseemly to me we are having this lengthy debate about it. We have foreign policy questions and challenges in Iraq and Korea and elsewhere. We have very significant challenges with respect to the economy in this country. Now we are being told by the majority: Unless you agree to conditions we would have considered unfair--speaking now for them--in the last Congress, we will not move forward on a resolution that funds the committees of this Congress. Our side simply says: Why don't you do for us what we did for you? Is that unfair? I wouldn't think so. Do unto others? Do we understand about this? All we are asking is we have the same kind of agreement we had in the last Congress. For whom is that unfair? Who decides that is unfair? It was fair in the last Congress for the Republicans who were in the minority. It was fair to them because we made sure it was. Now they are saying they need more than that now they are in the majority. They will not give us the same deal we gave them. We have a lot of problems and a lot of challenges. It seems to me the new majority leader would be well advised to come to the floor and provide the same kind of agreement we had in the last Congress. That is all we are asking. If it was fair for them when we did it to them--and it was--then it ought to be fair for us, and we ought to suggest that is the resolution to bring to the floor of the Senate. I know there is a lot of genuflecting around here about this. There is a lot of background noise about it. The fact is, we ought to get this done, get it done fairly as we did a year and a half ago, and then move on to the other business of the Senate.

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the point I was making was that roughly a year and three-quarters ago when the very large tax cut was proposed by the administration and embraced by Congress, it was anticipated that we would have surpluses forever. It was anticipated that these wonderful surpluses were really good economic news and they would last not only for a decade but much more. Then, in a very short period of time, we had the following. We had an understanding that the country went into a recession. In March of 2001, we were told that the country went into a recession. Then, on September 11, we had a devastating terrorist attack in this country that blew a hole in the belly of this economy, along with the recession. Then we had the war on terrorism that ensued. Then we had corporate scandals. I think they were the most significant and perhaps the worst corporate scandals in this country's history. All of these things converged at the same intersection, undermining the confidence the American people had in this country's economy. The warning, some of us suggested, should have been heeded because there are economic expansion periods and contraction periods. The fact is that we went into an economic contraction, and those anticipated surpluses are now gone, replaced by very large projected budget deficits. I know there are some who come to the floor and say the deficit last year was $159 billion. It is not. The deficit last year was really $318 billion. The only way someone can say $159 billion is if they take the money out of the Social Security trust fund and use it for operating the budget and then show a lower budget deficit. That is what they do when they come to the floor of the Senate. Fast forward to January 2003. The President says: Yes, now our economy is in some trouble. I have a proposal. The proposal is a $670 billion tax cut over the next 10 years. I don't know where he gets the money for that. You borrow it from the kids, I guess. But the fact is we are fighting a war against terrorism which required us to increase defense spending by $45 billion last year alone and increases in homeland security to the tune of $25 billion to $30 billion. Is there anyone suggesting that anybody is paying for any of this? No. The President is suggesting, as the tonic for America, large tax cuts. These tax cuts would go on for 10 years and will be paid for by our children in the form of additional borrowing that they will be responsible for in order to give the highest income earners in the country--particularly those who have very large dividends--big tax cuts. I come from a small town. I went to a small school and had a high school class of nine. They only teach arithmetic one way in this country. None of this adds up. It just does not add up. So I think we ought to start over. Do we need to do something to stimulate this economy? The answer is yes. Should we put this country deeper in debt? Should we drink more of the tonic that helped us get into this trouble? The answer is no. What we ought to do is be thoughtful. What we ought to do is join in bipartisan agreements to say: Let's stimulate the economy, in this year, to give it some lift, put it back on track, to produce more jobs and more opportunity. We will not do that by borrowing $675 billion in the coming 10 years, adding it to the Federal debt, saddling our children with that additional responsibility. We will do that if we are thoughtful, by providing, for example, a rebate to the American taxpayers on a one- time basis, perhaps an investment tax credit, on a short-term basis, for business investments in capital equipment and capital goods. We will do that if we make the right choices. But I tell you, the wrong choice is to go back to the old formula that was foisted on this country over a year and a half ago by those who said: Don't worry. Don't worry. Times are good, and they will last forever. They did not. And now our responsibility, in my judgment, is to put this back on track with a plan that will work, one that is thoughtful, and one that respects the need to come up with the money to pay for these initiatives of ours, and, as Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, to give us the privilege, as Americans, to meet our responsibilities, yes, during times of national crisis. So I say to President Bush, and to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, I really believe we need to do something, but we need to do the right thing, most importantly. I hope, as we begin to debate this issue of an economic stimulus, of putting the economy back on track, we can find a thoughtful, aggressive way to do that without breaking the bank and without saddling our children with more debt. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN. I think people watch these proceedings and think it is all very silly that the Senate cannot agree on an organizing resolution. I am trying to understand, if I can, some of the statements that have been made. My colleague from Kentucky said that last summer, for example, when the Senate went from Republican to Democratic control as a result of one Senator shifting from the Republican caucus to an Independent caucus and caucusing with the Democrats, he said the gavels were turned over immediately. As I heard that, it occurred to me that was not the case at all. History is history, and revisionist history is fun, but it is not accurate. Isn't it the case that last summer, for example, when the Republicans were in control and then one Senator moved to caucus with Democrats and the Democrats actually took control of the Senate, for 3 weeks the gavels were not turned over to the chairmen? I am not suggesting there is any justification for anything by making that point. My point is, when people come to the Chamber to talk about this, let's talk about what really happened, and if we can, let's talk about what is happening now for the moment. Isn't it the case that the reason the Senate is hung up is because the majority leader is saying: We have 51 percent of the votes in the Senate, and we want two-thirds of the money to run the place? Isn't that exactly what is hanging this up?

Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield further?

Mr. DORGAN. So they go home and say, I lost my job. This economy is not working. This economy is contracting, not expanding. Should we do something about that? Sure, we ought to be working on that. We have homeland security issues. We have appropriations bills. We have a lot of work to do, so let's resolve this. The simplest possible way to resolve it is for the majority leader to understand he ought to use the same formula for this Congress as the Democrats used when they were in control in the last Congress. It seems to me that is the fair way to do it, and it seems to me it ought to be done this afternoon. Most people would look at this and say this is silly, just do this and get it done now.