Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, let me conclude by saying, I understand the angst and the concern expressed by my colleague. After September 11, a day that this country experienced a terrible, terrible tragedy--we have come together and we have worked together to try to protect our homeland. But there have also been, in this period, instances where we have gone overboard. We should not sacrifice privacy rights in the name of homeland security. We need to find an appropriate balance between the two. There is much we can do, and much we should do, and much we will do, in my judgment, to improve law enforcement capabilities, but we can do that without injuring the American people, without diminishing the right to privacy. I understand the point that the Senator from West Virginia makes. But my point is, if someone is creating an office with the expectation that Congress will amend the 1974 Privacy Act so that the Federal Government can track where you shopped, where you spent money, where you traveled, what airline you ride on, how much you owe, what kinds of grades you received--if someone thinks that the Congress is going to allow that to happen, that someone is sadly mistaken. I do not think Congress is going to allow that to happen. I am not going to allow that to happen. My colleague from Florida spoke on the floor earlier today and it prompted me to want to come to say, as one Member of the Senate, I think there will be many of us who come to the floor of the Senate and say, this isn't something that will be allowed. This is not something that Congress will entertain in any serious way. The right to privacy is critical. It is important. And we must respect it. So I spoke about two things: One is the need for law enforcement officials around the country to access the State Department terrorist watch list. That is important, and it is necessary. I also spoke about the prospect of gathering raw data about everybody in the country, about everything they do, to identify ``suspicious'' behavior. That is dangerous, and we ought not to consider it. Madam President, others want to speak. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Well, I happen to----

Mr. DORGAN. I am happy to yield.

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I understand the concern expressed by my colleague. Let me say, there is a great disinfectant in this country, and that disinfectant is sunlight. If we can shed some light on these kinds of proposals, I do not think there is any question the American people will demand--will demand--of this Congress to preserve the basic rights, and especially the basic right to privacy that exists and that they expect to continue in the life of this country. So I understand the point that the Senator from West Virginia makes, but I believe the more we disclose the efforts of those who would suggest that it is all right to snoop about everybody and everything that goes on in this country, the more we will expose, in my judgment, the great, great concern and anger of the American people to demand their right to privacy and demand that we not amend the 1974 Privacy Act in order to accommodate this kind of activity.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I will, of course, yield.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the comment that not always right but never in doubt may well apply to every Senator. I must say to my colleague from Texas that I intend for a few moments on Monday to say a word about the Senator from Texas, and my colleagues from South Carolina and North Carolina, and others who are leaving the Senate. I don't know if Senator Byrd indicated that he wished there were more such as the Senator from Texas, and he is, indeed, an extraordinarily bright and talented Senator. There are times at midnight when he is objecting to all kinds of provisions that I suspect the Senator from West Virginia and a few others would not wish that we had 25 more exactly in the same mood at midnight on important pieces of legislation. But he and so many others contribute in very significant ways to this body. This body produces for the American people best when it achieves the best ideas that everyone has to offer. There are times when we end up with the worst rather than the best. I have always thought that politics and our political system is not who is the worst; it is who is the best, who has the best ideas, and who can best manifest those ideas in public debate to achieve a result for this country. Regrettably, too much of American politics--especially if you are coming off recent campaigns--is not at all about who is the best but rather who is the worst. That, in my judgment, becomes an anvil on the body politic. John F. Kennedy used to say with some beautiful prose that mother kind of hopes her child might grow up to be President, as long as they don't have to become active in politics. But, of course, politics is the way we make decisions in America. I am enormously proud of this political system of the participation by Republicans, Democrats, Conservatives, Liberals, Independents, and moderates. I think all bring a great deal to the public debate and discussion, and strengthen our country. Having said that, on Monday I will say a few words about our colleagues who will be leaving us--Senator Cleland, Senator Carnahan, and others who have been mentioned on the Republican side. I believe that it is a great privilege to serve with each and every one of them, even though we from time to time have our differences. It is a remarkable privilege to be here and to serve with them. I wish to make a point about homeland security that is not a part of this bill but I think a part of something that is very important. To underscore how important it is, I would note that we have been told by the head of the CIA that the threat of attack by al-Qaida and other terrorists now is as high as it was the day before September 11. On October 25 of this year, a task force headed by former Senators Warren Rudman and Gary Hart issued a report on America's homeland security. That report was entitled ``America Still Unprepared, America Still In Danger.'' It was a bipartisan task force sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, which included former Secretaries of State, Warren Christopher, George Shultz, ADM William Crow, Retired, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They found that 1 year after the September 11 attacks America remains dangerously unprepared for another terrorist attack. I specifically wish to talk about one of their concerns raised in this report that I read, which gave me great personal concern. In the report, the task force concluded that the 650,000 local and State law enforcement officials around the country ``continue to operate in a virtual intelligence vacuum without access to the terrorist watch list provided by the U.S. Department of State to Immigration and consular officials.'' Our government has a watchlist to identify foreign nationals suspected of ties to terrorist organizations. That watch list is at the State Department. It is provided to the Immigration Department and to consular officials. It sets out the names of people whom we ought to watch because they are known terrorists. They are people who associate with terrorists; they are a terrorist threat to this country. Guess what. That watch list is unavailable to state and local law enforcement officials around this country. Thirty-six hours before the September 11 attack, one of the hijackers was pulled over by a Maryland State police trooper for driving 90 miles an hour on Interstate 95. The hijacker's name was Ziad Jarrah. He was a 26-year-old Lebanese national. He was one of the key organizers of the al-Qaida terrorist cell formed in Germany 3 years ago. He shared an apartment with Mohammed Atta. And he was at the controls of flight 93 when it crashed in a rural area of Pennsylvania. When that hijacker--or at that point the potential hijacker--was pulled over by the Maryland trooper, he was driving a car rented under his own name. There are a couple of things with respect to this issue that are interesting. No. 1, his name was not on the watch list. No. 2, had it been on the watch list, it wouldn't have mattered because a highway patrolman or a city police officer has no access to that watch list. The officer can run the name of an individual through the NCIC computer and find out if that individual has an outstanding warrant, or if there are law enforcement warnings about him but the officer has no way of knowing if the individual is on the State Department terrorism watch list. The State Department watch list has the names of 80,000 terrorists or suspected terrorists on it. And 2,000 names are being added each and every month. The watch list is drawn from a good many area intelligence agencies. And as we speak, there is no way for law enforcement authorities to access the database. Let me read in detail an 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 Federal Bureau of Investigation. 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 a counterterrorism information void. When it comes to combating terrorism, the police officers on the beat are effectively operating deaf, dumb, and blind. Terrorist watch lists provided by the U.S. Department of State to immigration 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 attack.' This comes from the report of former Senators Hart and Rudman, entitled ``America Still Unprepared, America Still In Danger.'' I asked my staff--after I read this in the Report--to contact the task force. The task force, through my staff, has told me that they are not aware of any administration initiative to fix the problem. This, despite the fact that this is a top recommendation of a blue-ribbon task force. So I asked the Congressional Research Service to contact the White House Office of Homeland Security, the Department of State, and the Department of Justice. They have done this in recent days. My understanding is that after I made these inquiries the White House convened a meeting with State and Justice officials, and they are now apparently looking into ways to integrate the State Department terrorist watch list--called the ``Tipoff'' database--with the National Crime Information Center, which is accessible by State and local law enforcement authorities. This effort must be expedited. Let me quote from the article in the Washington Post of just yesterday: U.S. intelligence officials, increasingly confident that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is the speaker on a new audiotape released this week, said yesterday that the message was part of a disturbing pattern indicating that terrorist groups may be planning a new wave of attacks on Western targets. Even before the purported bin Laden tape surfaced on the al-Jazeera satellite network on Tuesday, the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency had detected a significant spike in intelligence ``chatter'' over the previous 10 days that strongly indicated new assaults are being planned, officials in U.S. intelligence agencies said. That is from the Washington Post. They continue to say: The amount of alarming information was approaching the volume seen in the weeks before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in Washington and New York, and again in the middle of last month following a wave of attacks on overseas targets, some sources said. The point is this: Homeland security and homeland protection rests, yes, with our intelligence-gathering agencies, yes, with the FBI, the CIA, and all of the officials who are working very hard, spending a lot of hours doing the best job they can to make it work. But beyond that, it also rests with cooperation with all of the local responders, especially local law enforcement officials across this country. There are 650,000 of them. If, today, a terrorist drives through a rural county in North Dakota this afternoon, or a rural county in Vermont, or Kentucky, or in the middle of New York City, and is picked up for a traffic violation, and is a known terrorist on a watch list--guess what-- that highway patrolman, that city police officer is going to run that terrorist's name through the database at the NCIC, and they are going to get no warning that what they have on their hands is a terrorist in the car in front of them. There would be no warning at all because they cannot access the watch list. If we have a watch list in which we have identified the names of terrorists and suspected terrorists, it makes no sense at all to withhold that information from law enforcement officers, who every single day climb out of bed and go protect this country on America's streets, on our highways. They are our eyes and ears. They are also watching out for the security of this country. They ought to have access to that watch list. Again, let me say, this was the No. 1 recommendation in the report offered by former Senator Rudman and former Senator Hart. The report, which I would urge everyone to read, is entitled: ``America Still Unprepared--America Still in Danger.'' These are former Secretaries of State, former Senators, Republicans, Democrats, evaluating what needs to be done to protect this country for this country's security. I want to go back to read just a portion of the report. The task force had this to say: 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. The burden could and should be shared with 650,000 local, county, and state law enforcement officers, but they clearly cannot lend a hand in a counterterrorism information void. Yesterday, I was on the phone with a community in North Dakota, and the county sheriff was there in the room, and we talked by conference phone. We talked about this issue. He is not too far from the Canadian border. If one of his deputies or that county's sheriff stops a car on a rural highway, and it turns out to be a terrorist driving a rented car, he is not going to know because he does not have access to the watch list, he does not have access to the information. The FBI will not know, the CIA will not know, no one will know that terrorist was driving a car on that rural road because the person who apprehended him--the county sheriff, the city police officer--had no access to the information the State Department has, the consular officials have, the CIA has. It is not that the information does not exist, it is that it is not shared with local law enforcement officers across this country for the purpose of securing this country's homeland. So this was the task force's top recommendation. This was not No. 5 or No. 10, it was the top recommendation of this group, a group that included several former Secretaries of State under Republican and Democratic administrations, Republican and Democratic former Senators, and others. So I implore the President and the folks who are apparently now working on this to do everything they can in this regard. When a trooper stops someone for speeding tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, or the day after that, and the individual that was pulled over is a terrorist, I want that trooper to realize who he has in that car--for the trooper's protection, and for the protection of this country. Let me talk briefly about one other piece of homeland security, and we addressed part of it yesterday. I have told my colleagues previously, I was recently at a port in Seattle. I don't know much about ports because I come from a landlocked State. I don't come from a State near an ocean. So I went down to see how the ports worked. They showed me all these ships that come in with all these containers. I asked: What is in all these containers? They said: We have all these bills of lading and invoices, so we know what is in them. I asked: Can I see? And they showed me some containers they were opening. They showed me a container from Poland that had frozen broccoli in it in 100-pound bags. They pulled out a bag of frozen broccoli and cut it open. Sure enough, it was frozen broccoli. I asked: What is in the middle of the container? I know what is in this bag. And they said: Well, we just know what's on the invoice. We are spending $7 to $8 billion to see if we can stop an incoming missile because we are very afraid a terrorist group might get hold of an ICBM. But it is more likely a terrorist group might put a weapon of mass destruction in a container on a container ship that comes in at 3 miles an hour pulling up to a dock in New York City or Los Angeles. We have 5.7 million containers every year coming into our ports. So 5.7 million containers every single year; 100,000 are inspected, 5.6 million are not. Is that a matter of homeland security? You bet your life it is. A fellow in the Middle East--many of you read about this fellow-- decided he was going to ship himself to Toronto and then come into this country. He had a GPS, a computer, a toilet, fresh water, a cot, all in a container loaded on a container ship, shipping himself to Toronto, Canada, with the intention, apparently, of coming into this country. Do we need to be concerned about these things? You better believe it. And many of these issues, even if we passed a homeland security bill, will not be resolved. The first issue I mentioned today is not resolved, and will not be resolved with the passage Monday of this bill: The fact that 650,000 local law enforcement authorities have no ability to access a watch list to determine who is a terrorist and who isn't. And 5.6 million uninspected containers coming into our ports will not be inspected next Tuesday when the homeland security bill is passed. So my point is, there is much left to be done for those of us--and I am sure that is all of us--who care deeply about homeland security in this country. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, it is a very special moment on the floor of the Senate to hear my colleague from Texas defend special provisions being put in legislation--actually to hear him describe the negotiations at the end of the process that result in these special provisions. Because he has been a tireless opponent of provisions that are put in pieces of legislation that in most cases or many cases have nothing to do with the underlying bill. So it is a real treat today to hear my colleague from Texas justify and support and ask Members of the Senate to support these special provisions that were put in the homeland security bill which, in most cases, had nothing at all to do with homeland security. I must say, with respect to the issues of childhood vaccines liability protection, manufacturer liability protection, transportation security--I would wonder whether these have had hearings. Because we so often hear our colleagues, especially my colleague from Texas, say: You know, someone has put a provision in the bill. There has been no hearing on the bill. I am wondering whether these provisions have had hearings and discussion, and if there were negotiations, as was represented earlier by my colleague, were the parents of autistic children part of the negotiations? Where were the negotiations? Was it late at night? Early in the morning? Was it at the White House, as Congressman Armey would have us believe? I don't know the answer to that. But my hope is our colleagues will vote to strip these provisions from the bill. Homeland security, that is what this legislation is about. Frankly, the way this legislation has been created, it was not under normal circumstances, where you have committee exploration in some detail and some depth of all of these provisions. What has happened is at the eleventh hour a piece of legislation is written and it is placed on desks. It has a rubber band around it. It is four-hundred-and-some pages and I know of very few Members of the Senate who would have read all of it at this point. But having heard my colleague from Texas, for whom I have great fondness, describe his support for special provisions, especially at the end of his career here in the Senate, I must say that this is a very unusual moment. We will, of course, miss him for a lot of reasons. Among other things, I will miss him because at the end of most bills, he will be the one counted on to stand up and say: I object to these special provisions. But he seems to have hit a speed bump here at the end of the road, on special provisions. I hope my colleagues will decide they want to vote to strip these provisions out of this bill.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I merely wish to inquire of the Senator from Texas: He indicated in the process of completing legislation, sometimes at midnight there is a negotiation that goes on and things happen. I am wondering if the Senator from Texas can tell us where the negotiation occurred that put in the homeland security bill the special piece for the pharmaceutical industry that shows up now, today, that says there will be special liability protections for the pharmaceutical industry. And the majority leader of the House, Mr. Armey, says: Well, I put it in, but it wasn't my idea; it was the White House. I am asking, was there a negotiation someplace, sometime, between some people, of which I am unaware? Because I have heard of no such negotiation by which that provision should have ended up in this bill. I inquire of the Senator from Texas where this negotiation occurred. Who was involved in it? Who made the decision that a special protection for the pharmaceutical industry that just spent $16 million in the last election ought to be stuck in this bill? Who was involved in it?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I wish to inquire of the Senator from Texas where this negotiation took place?

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, if the Senator from West Virginia continues to have time--

Mr. DORGAN. I would like to make an inquiry similar to the inquiry made by my colleague from Maryland. There is an article in this morning's newspaper which contains some information which is very surprising to me, which was referenced briefly yesterday on the Senate floor, relative to the homeland security bill. This homeland security bill has a provision in it which says: Riding along on legislation to create a new federal Department of Homeland Security is a White House-backed provision that could head off dozens of potential lawsuits against . . . pharmaceutical [companies]. It goes on to further explain what this is. It says: Richard Diamond, a spokesperson for the retiring majority leader in the other body, Richard Armey: . . . said the provision was inserted because ``it was something the White House wanted. It wasn't [Armey's] idea.'' This is a circumstance where a homeland security bill contains a provision dealing with protection for pharmaceutical companies. The pharmaceutical companies, according to a Wall Street Journal article, spent $16 million.

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I wonder if the Senator from West Virginia will yield further for a question.

Mr. DORGAN. They spent $16 million in the recent election. Much of it went through organizations such as Seniors United and others set up to move this money out under the guise of an organization called Seniors United in order to defeat Democratic lawmakers and support Republican lawmakers. The point is, this provision now is slipped into a homeland security bill. It has nothing to do with homeland security. Yet it is a provision that likely will be very beneficial to the pharmaceutical industry that spent $16 million in the last election.

Mr. DORGAN. If I may inquire further, has the Senator from West Virginia or have other Senators heard from the President or the White House by what justification would they insert--again, the White House apparently wanted it; that is what the majority leader of the House says--a special provision benefiting one industry in something called homeland security. Has anyone heard an explanation of that?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senator have 10 additional minutes.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I rise in support of H.R. 3833, the Dot Kids Implementation and Efficiency Act of 2002. Earlier this year Senator Ensign and I introduced the companion legislation, S. 2537, in the Senate and today I am pleased to offer an amendment in the nature of a substitute along with my colleagues Senators Ensign, Hollings, and Allen. As anyone who has surfed online knows, the development of the Internet has been a mixed blessing. On the one hand the Internet has brought enormous benefits to adults and children alike as it gives us new options for reading the news, researching school papers, shopping, conducting business, and communicating with each other. But, on the other hand, the Internet also poses great risks to our children because there is no perfect way to protect them from the mountains of material that is inappropriate for their eyes. Just after we had introduced this bill in the Senate a seventh grade girl at Erik Ramstad Middle School in North Dakota reported she had been solicited for a sexual encounter online. In a school assembly the same day 30 other students revealed that they have been threatened online. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has charted 5,700 reported cases of online enticement in the past four years, and those are only cases that were intercepted by parents. And while there is not yet any way to compile Federal, State, and local cases involving sex, children, and the Internet, experts estimate that there are 4,000- 5,000 each year. The most recent study available ``Online Victimization: A Report on the Nation's Youth'' found that ``almost one out of five young people who use the Internet regularly were exposed to unwanted sexual solicitations or approaches'' and ``twenty-five percent had been exposed to unwanted online pornography'' in the previous year. This is a frightening situation. Computers have become an open door for predators into the homes of children. It is necessary to create a safe haven online for children to surf. Today we have before us a bill called the Dot Kids Implementation and Efficiency Act that will help this situation by creating a safe haven on the Internet for kids. Introduced in the Senate by myself and Senator Ensign, after it was successfully shepherded through the House by Representatives Shimkus, Upton, and Markey, the idea behind the ``dot kids'' domain is very simple--to create a space on the web that can be a cyber-sanctuary for kids. A place where parents and kids can be confident that every site on the ``dot-kids'' domain contains materials that are suitable for children under the age of thirteen. The bill calls for the creation of a sub-domain under our Nation's country code ``.us'' called ``.kids.us'' which will only host content that is age appropriate for children. A number of safeguards were also put in this bill. ``Dot-kids-dot-us'' will be monitored for content and safety; and should objectionable material appear, it will be taken down immediately. One of those safeguards is a restriction on peer-to-peer communication unless the entity hosting the site certifies that it will be done safely. And further, hyperlinks, which would take children out of the safe ``dot-kids'' domain are expressly prohibited to help insure that parents can be confident that when their children visit sites in ``dot-kids'' they will stay within the dot-kids domain. Last October the Department of Commerce awarded the contract to handle the management and commercialization of the ``dot-us'' domain. And while this bill is careful to not change the terms of the existing contract it would condition the next contract on the creation of the ``dot-kids-dot-us'' domain. So, under this bill, participation in ``dot-kids'' would be completely voluntary. Not only will whomever accepts the next contract know what they will be getting into, parents will choose to use it, and website operators will choose to be located within it. The only requirement will be that site operators on the ``dot-kids'' domain agree to keep their sites full of material that is suitable for minors. Personally, I think the idea of using our country's Top-Level- Domain to create a cyber-sanctuary for children makes a great deal of sense and I want to thank all of my colleagues and the many stakeholders who have been involved in this legislation for all their hard work and cooperation in making this bill a reality today. I urge my colleagues to support the Dot Kids Implementation and Efficiency Act.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, life gives no joy like that it takes away. As always, the poet said it best. All of us in the Senate were suddenly and tragically reminded of that on a Friday morning 2\1/2\ weeks ago--a cold, gray, dreary October day. I was in a van driving between Fargo and Grand Forks, ND, when I received a call saying that an airplane had crashed in northern Minnesota and that Senator Paul Wellstone, his wife Sheila, staff, and others were on the plane. To say that I and others have been deeply saddened, in fact devastated, by the loss of one of our colleagues is perhaps to even understate it. Paul Wellstone and Sheila Wellstone died as they campaigned throughout Minnesota for another term in the Senate. It was a tough campaign, a close campaign, a hard-fought campaign. And yet Paul Wellstone never complained about that. He seemed to relish it. One of the last things he told me on the floor of the Senate several weeks ago about this campaign was, with a sparkle in his eye: We are going to win this campaign. He said: Byron, I have 4,000 volunteers-- 4,000 volunteers--who are going to be working election day in Minnesota for me, getting people to the polls, driving people, calling people. That was so typical of Paul Wellstone. It was always about citizen action, about people rising to the passion of an idea. That was typical Paul Wellstone. Paul and Sheila Wellstone were wonderful friends to many of us in the Senate, and our thoughts and prayers go to the family, the families of the pilots who lost their lives, the families of Paul's daughter and the three staff people who were on the plane as well. As my colleague from Minnesota, Senator Dayton, said in what I thought was a wonderful tribute to his friend and colleague, all of us would be remiss if we did not say to Paul's staff: Paul would want first and foremost for us to recognize you today. Paul attracted to his service in the Senate men and women with the burning in their soul to do good things, who cared about fairness and justice and who cared about public service. All of us who work here know Paul Wellstone had a wonderful staff, and they have been through some very difficult times, about as difficult as it can get for a Senate staff. Our thoughts and prayers go out to them and for strength as well. Today let me for a moment remember Paul and Sheila for their service to our country. This is a rather small community in the Senate--men and women who love this country, fellow travelers who want to make democracy work. What the American people see are some pitched battles during the day and the early evening hours in the middle of a debate in which there are different philosophies and ideas that clash on the Senate floor. What they do not see is we are colleagues and friends, first and foremost. I think the entire Senate membership would say: We have, indeed, lost a couple of good friends, Paul and Sheila Wellstone. Our country has lost two tireless fighters for justice. The Senate has lost its strongest voice for those who do not have it so good in this country. And American politics has lost the true champion for the little guy. If ever a man and wife were a team, it was Paul and Sheila Wellstone. They did everything together. Sheila's public service, as Paul would be the first to tell you, was every bit as important as his. That public service was marked by a green bus, and that green bus meant in Minnesota and our part of the country citizen action, people empowerment, and something that was on the move, a mission, a campaign on the move. It is true, as my colleague said, Paul was different. He would not have been caught dead in Ferragamo shoes, even if he wanted them, and he did not. He was not a man to wear Brooks Brothers suits. He was short of stature and tall of ambition with a power and passion of ideas, as my colleague from Nevada just described, that would at the end stage of any debate leave him sitting at that chair with two more amendments to offer--the hour was late and patience was short. Imploring him made no difference. You could say: Paul, Paul, we are just out of time; can you just not offer one of these amendments? The answer was always the same: Absolutely not. I am here to offer this amendment. This amendment is important. I came here to do that work and there are people who depend on me to offer this amendment--people whose lives were changed because of this amendment. It was always with Paul: No. And we always turned away understanding the passion that burned in his soul to do the right thing, to do the thing he felt was important for our country. Paul was different in a much more significant way as well. In today's modern politics, it is so often the case that politicians with a sophisticated network of pollsters and advisers are able to evaluate exactly which way the wind is blowing, to be able to set their sail to get maximum capability from that wind. It is a constant job of tacking for some into or with that wind to find out exactly where the maximum wind will be. Paul was not interested in sailing or winds. Paul was only interested in the rudder. He set the rudder and he did not care where the wind was: This is the direction I am going and it does not matter whether it is a favorable wind or an unfavorable wind. This is where we are headed and this is why--very unusual in modern politics but also very refreshing. I found it interesting that those newspapers that were not very good to his ideas in life, in death gave Paul great credit for raising ideas, for standing by his principles, for never wavering and never causing for a moment any constituent anyplace to wonder where he stood. You knew where Paul Wellstone stood. There are two things, of a great many, that stand out in my mind. One day I sent around a memorandum to Senators saying we were going to visit a youth detention center in Maryland and I wanted to know if anyone wanted to come along. Paul Wellstone called me and said: I would like to come. The two of us, with some staff, went out to a youth detention center and spent the entire morning sitting in that youth detention center talking to kids, kids who had committed murder, kids who were drug addicted, kids who had been in the worst kind of trouble one could possibly imagine. Driving back to Capitol Hill after this visit, I once again got another glimpse of Paul Wellstone's soul. He said: If someone had cared about those kids early in their lives they would not be there today. Someone needed to help those kids at the right moment, and we can do that in the Senate. To Paul, that visit was, how can we reach out to help people who need help at a time when they desperately need that help? In the last couple of months, Paul came up to me while we were in the well of the Senate, and he said: I was campaigning in Minnesota and I went to an independent auto repair shop, and the major automobile manufacturers would not give the computer codes to these independent auto repair shops. These small independents are telling me they cannot work on the new cars. They do not have the computer cards for the carburetors and all those things they have to have to work on those cars. He said: That is unfair, and it is going to drive those folks out of business. This is going to kill the little guy. He asked if I would hold a hearing on this in my Consumer Subcommittee. I said of course I will. We put together some information on it. The day of the hearing came and Senator Wellstone was to be the lead-off witness. That was not enough for Senator Wellstone. As was his want, in the way he did politics, the hearing room was packed. It was full of mechanics and independent repair shop owners from all across this country. I guess that hearing room holds probably 100 people, and there were 150 people there. Paul had brought his people, the independent repair shop folks, to that hearing room as a demonstration of this problem, to say this problem ought to be fixed. Paul was the lead-off witness and as was typical with him, with great passion he made the case about the unfairness to the little guy, about the independent repair shops trying to make a living, and how what is happening is unfair to them. About 3 weeks ago, right before we completed our work and left for the election, Paul came up to me on the floor of the Senate during a vote. He was holding a sheet of paper. He was flashing this paper and saying: We won. His point was that the automobile manufacturers had reached an agreement with the independent repair shops, and that problem had gotten solved. For Paul, it was about the little guy versus the big guy, about those who did not have the power and those who did. It was always that he wanted to stand on the side of those who did not have the power, those who needed help. That was so much of Paul Wellstone's life. There is much to say, and my colleagues, I am sure, will say it when we talk about his service to our country. It is sufficient now to say that one of our Senate desks is empty. The Senate has lost a wonderful friend. I conclude by quoting Thomas Moore, if I might, and relate it to Paul's service: Let fate do her worst; there are relics of joy, Bright dreams of the past, which she cannot destroy; Which come in the nighttime of sorrow and care, And bring back the features that joy used to wear. Long; long be my heart with such memories fill'd! Like the vase, in which roses have once been distill'd You may break, you may shatter the vase, if you will, But the scent of the roses will hang 'round it still. Paul Wellstone is no longer in the Senate, his desk is empty, but the passion of his ideas most surely will remain for years and years to come. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, are we in morning business at the present time?

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. It is pretty clear that at these corporations, Tyco or others, the folks at the top took very good care of themselves. As the folks at the bottom were losing their investments or jobs, the folks at the top were counting their money. That is what makes me so angry about all of this. Let me come back to where I started. I started talking about our agenda at the end of this session, and what we ought to have completed but is not yet done. When families began talking about their lot in life, they talk about simple things important to the lives of their families. Do I have good health care? Do grandpa and grandma have access to a good doctor? Do I live in a safe neighborhood? Do I have a decent job? Does my job pay well? Does it have security? Those are the things important in people's lives. I talked about what we have tried to do in this session of Congress, only to confront a mountain of objection from those who don't want to get it done. To so many things, ``I object,'' they say. These are people who never want to do anything the first time. I talked about the Patients' Bill of Rights which we never got done this Congress. We had a big debate and got it through the Senate and yet it is still not done. Why? Because ``I object,'' they say. Those who stand on behalf of the insurance industry and the managed care organizations are saying, ``I object.'' I held a hearing in the State of Nevada with Senator Reid. I will never, ever, forget that hearing, and nor will he, I expect. This is about managed care and why it is desperately necessary to get a Patients' Bill of Rights done. A woman stood at this hearing and she had brought to the hearing a color picture of her son that she had turned into a very large poster. Her son's name was Chris. He was 16 years old. As she began to speak at this hearing, she held that picture of Chris above her head. She said: My son was 16 years old when he was diagnosed with cancer. She said: My son was denied the treatment he needed when he needed it to give him a shot at winning this battle with cancer. She said: Before my son died, he looked up at me from his bed and said, ``Mom, how can they do this to me? How can they do this to a kid?'' She was crying and crying as she spoke about her son. Her point was very simple. No 16-year-old boy in this country, ever, under any circumstances, ought to have to fight cancer and their managed care organization at the same time. That, by God, is an unfair fight. Everybody in this country knows it. We ought to do something about it. Do you think this is something that happens in just one circumstance? It is not. I have had hearings in New York, in Nevada, in Minnesota, in Chicago, and at every hearing we hear exactly the same thing. Men, women, and children are told: You go ahead and fight your disease. But then they must fight the managed care organization to get payment for the treatment. Or maybe they must fight to get the treatment that they won't get unless they win a fight with the managed care organization, a fight that too many people, too often, lose. It is not a fair fight. It is why we have decided to simply say that there are basic rights people ought to have when they deal with their managed care organizations. Every patient has a right to know all of their options for medical treatment--not just the cheapest. It is very simple. My point is that we have a lot of unfinished business. The Patients' Bill of Rights is just one thing we haven't gotten done. I have described four or five more things today. I regret that we are here at the end of this session, talking about the unfinished business. But the fact is, we have people in this Chamber who have become professional objectors. I object, I object, they say. It doesn't matter what the subject is--I object. This country has a very serious problem with its economy. As I said earlier, it is appropriate for us to have been talking about national security because that is a deadly serious issue. But it is also imperative we talk about economic security because that is an issue that is important in the life of every family and every American person as well. I would say to the President: You have had substantial cooperation from those of us in this caucus, here in this Chamber, on national security issues. Give us a little cooperation as well on economic security issues. Bring Air Force One back here to Washington, DC. Don't spend the next 3 weeks out on the road campaigning. Spend a little time here with us, talking about economic security, and fixing what is wrong with this economy. Eighteen months ago when the President proposed his fiscal policy, we were told that we were going to have budget surpluses as far as the eye could see. No problem, they said, we are going to have budget surpluses forever. Some of us felt that maybe it was our role to be a bit conservative then, and ask: What if something happens? Can you really see 6 months out, or 12 months or 2 years or 3 years out? Can you really see that far ahead and anticipate what might be? What if something happens? We think it is pretty unwise to commit ourselves to a fiscal policy that says let's have a $1.7 trillion tax cut over 10 years, anticipating everything is going to be really strong and positive for our economy. What happened is 5 months later we discovered we were in a recession. We discovered that terrorists hit New York City and the Pentagon, hijacking four airplanes. We discovered we are at war against terrorism. We discovered the most outrageous set of corporate scandals in this country's history. All these things converged at the same intersection, at the same time, all undermining the confidence of the American people in the future of this economy. You can say what you want about this economy. It is not an economy where there are dials and gauges and levers in the engine room of this ship of state, where all we have do is walk down there and adjust them to make the ship move right along without a problem. That is not the way the economy works. I know there are people in the Fed, in monetary policy, and people in fiscal policy, who really have an inflated sense of self-importance about their role in the economy. This economy is only about and all about people's confidence. People are either confident about the future or they are not. If they are confident about the future, our economy expands because they do the things that manifest that confidence: They buy cars, houses, take trips, they do the things that expand the economy. If they lack confidence, they do exactly the opposite and that causes contraction. The American people are very concerned about this economy. It would serve this country well, in my judgment, if the President would join us, all of us, and sit down and talk seriously about what we need to do to put this economy back on track, make this economy strong again, make this economy grow again and produce jobs and expand once again, and turn these budget deficits into budget surpluses and invest in the things that provide better lives for the American people: Health care, education--the things we know work to improve life for the American people. That is what we ask of this President. Let me conclude by saying there is not a Republican or Democratic way to fix all of this. There is only the opportunity for people to sit down and reason together and compromise and find the best of a series of good ideas. But you cannot do that when there is a one-lyric song or one-chorus song here in this Chamber that says to everything, every proposal, every suggestion: I object, I object, I object. That does not serve this country's interest at this point in time. This October 17, this country faces real challenges. It is time for all of us to take a deep breath, to ask the President to take a little time off the campaign trail to join us, and to work together to see if there is not a better way to deal with national security, improving the economy, and addressing the concerns of people across the country. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. Lay left with somewhere close to $300 million. All the folks at the top were very generous to themselves.

Mr. DORGAN. I am happy to yield.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, earlier today I spoke briefly about the nomination of Mr. Adelstein to serve as a member of the Federal Communications Commission. I know that the two Senate leaders are working on nominations to see if they could clear some today. I don't know the final result of that, but it now appears as if that will not be the case. I want to speak not about all of the nominations that are awaiting confirmation by the Senate but only about this nomination. This nomination doesn't have so much to do with the person I am speaking of, Jonathan Adelstein, as it has to do with the position at the Federal Communications Commission, a vacant spot that has been there over a year. That particular nomination is critically important especially to rural States and rural areas. We have a Federal Communications Commission that is on the edge of making critically important decisions about the future of telecommunications. These decisions will have a profound impact on a significant part of our country. Chairman Powell and others, I fear, are going to take action in a wide range of areas that will have a significant impact on rural America. Mr. Copps is one commissioner fighting valiantly. His is a refreshing voice that stands up for the interests of rural America. But we now have this vacancy at the FCC for 13 months. Mr. Jonathan Adelstein is a superbly qualified candidate who should have been there long ago and has been held up at a number of intersections with this process. On September 7, Gloria Tristani resigned the FCC. This is a Democratic seat. There are Republican and Democratic appointments. This is a Democratic appointment. It took forever for the White House to get his nomination to the Senate. The Commerce Committee on which I serve approved it and reported it out on July 23. So 13 months after the vacancy was available, and 4 months after the Commerce Committee took action on Jonathan Adelstein's nomination, that position is still vacant. We have one commissioner's slot down at the FCC that is unfilled. The voice of Mr. Adelstein could join that of Mr. Copps in speaking up, standing up, and fighting for rural interests for those millions of Americans who live in more sparsely populated States and for whom telecommunications policy will be the difference of being on the right or wrong side of the digital divide, will mean whether you have economic opportunity and economic growth or not. These policies are critically important for all Americans but especially for Americans who live in my part of the country and in a rural State. Think back to the 1930s, when we had a country in which if you lived out on the farm, you had no electricity. No one was going to bring electricity to the farm until public policy said, through the REA program, we will electrify America's farms. We will have a Federal program and public policy that says we will move electricity to all the small towns and family farms in our country. We did that, and we unleashed productivity never before imagined. Some who are in a regulatory body today have the mindset that if the market system doesn't provide for it, it shall not be available. They would never have had an REA program. We would still be having America's farms without electricity. We would not have made the progress we did. But we have people in these regulatory agencies who have this mindset. They worship at the altar of the market system. Listen, the market system is a wonderful thing. I am all for it, but it needs effective regulation. Effective regulation by the FCC in telecommunications policy is critical to our future. The market system is a system that says to us that someone who portrays a judge on television--I will not name the judges. There are three or four of them. I will name one--Judge Judy--makes $7 million a year, I read in the paper. That is the market system. The Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court makes $180,000 a year. That is the market system. A schoolteacher might make $30,000 or $40,000, and a shortstop for the Texas Rangers may make $250 million over 10 years. The market system. The market system is wonderful. I have studied economics, taught it, and been able to overcome it, however, and still lead a good life. I believe in the market system. I think it is a wonderful thing. But it needs effective regulation, and it needs policymakers and regulatory authorities and regulatory bodies that have some common sense. I worry about the FCC and the decisions they are about to make. At the FCC, we need a full complement of commissioners, and we need this slot filled--not tomorrow, not next week, not next year. We need this slot filled now. We must find a way to overcome this logjam on nominations. I am only speaking of this one because it is really important in terms of telecommunication policy and future opportunities and economic growth in rural States. In the coming days and weeks, as we reconvene following the election--which I understand will now be the week of November 12--my hope is we can find a way to clear these nominations. I know Senator Daschle understands that and has tried to do that. The Senate should do this, clear this nomination and other nominations that have been waiting on the calendar for some long while. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.