Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I mentioned yesterday that the two most powerful words in the Senate are ``I object.'' They have been used repeatedly in recent months, and especially in recent days, as we have tried toward the end of this Senate session to pass legislation that really does need doing. We are discovering that we have a number of people in the Senate who just don't want to move forward on some of these issues. I think the American people wonder, from time to time, whether this Government is very relevant in their lives. I think prior to September 11, 2001, people wondered. Then, when the terrorist attacks occurred, I think people understood that on homeland security and a range of other issues, they do rely on the Government to do certain things to protect them. We have come to a point now where there is so much unfinished business, so much left undone, as we near the end of this session of the Congress. I think the American people have a right to ask some pretty tough questions about who is doing what and who is objecting to what. Most families sit around the supper table--or the dinner table in some parts of the country--and talk about their lives. What they talk about are not statistics or abstractions; they talk about the things that are important in the lives of their families. They wonder, do we have good jobs? Do our jobs have good security? Are we paid a fair wage? Do grandpa and grandma have access to good health care? Do our kids go to good schools? Do we live in a safe neighborhood? These are the issues that people care about in our country, and families want something done about them. One of these critical issues is health care. We tried to pass a Patients' Bill of Rights in this Congress and could not get it done. The Patients' Bill of Rights is pretty simple, actually. It is, with the growth of the managed care industry, trying to give a voice to consumers so they have a say in their own health care. For example, a woman falls off a cliff in the Shenandoah Mountains and is taken into a hospital on a gurney, in a coma. She is very seriously injured, with broken bones and internal injuries. She ultimately recovers after a long convalescence. She is told by her managed care organization that they will not cover her emergency room treatment because she did not have prior approval to access the emergency room. Now, this woman was carried into the hospital on a gurney while in a coma, yet the managed care organization said she should have gotten prior approval for emergency room treatment. So we tried to pass a piece of legislation that gives patients a voice in their own care, legislation that says patients have a right to know all of their medical options for treatment, not just the cheapest; patients have a right to emergency care when they have an emergency; patients have a right to see the doctor they need for the medical help they require. Pretty straightforward. We could not get it through. We could not get it through a conference committee and to the President for signature. Why? Because too many people in the Congress said: Let us stand with the insurance companies and the managed care organizations on this subject. We also face urgent issues dealing with Medicare and Medicaid. Yesterday, we were on the floor of the Senate talking about that. Everybody in this Chamber knows we have to do something to provide fair Medicare reimbursement for physicians, hospitals, nursing homes, and other providers. We now come to the end of this legislative session, and we know the Medicaid reimbursement for our nursing homes on October 1 was cut. That cut is going to be accentuated with an even deeper cut in 2004, beyond the fiscal year 2003. We know we have to do something to deal with that situation. We know it has to be done, and yet some act as if there is no urgency at all, this will be just fine. It is not just fine to have a cut in the quality of care of nursing homes in this country. That is exactly what is going to happen. And it is not just fine if the Medicare reimbursement is not adequate to keep rural hospitals open and keep some of the hospitals in inner cities-- that are stretched so thin and whose reimbursement was cut so deeply during the Balanced Budget Act--open. It is not just fine to say: Let that go. We are talking about the quality of health care delivered in hospitals through Medicare, delivered in nursing homes through Medicaid. It is not fine with me when we try to fix this at the end of the session, not having received the cooperation to get it done during the session, and people stand up and say: I object. What is their plan? What do they propose? Just diminished health care, diminished quality of care in our hospitals and nursing homes? Is that something the American people believe they want? Is that something families say: We aspire to nursing homes that provide diminished care because we would not meet our obligation under Medicaid? We aspire to have hospitals close their doors because we will not own up to our requirements under Medicare? I do not think that is what the American people want or expect of this Congress. Senators Baucus and Grassley have introduced legislation, S. 3018. It is bipartisan. It addresses these issues--Medicaid, Medicare, hospitals, nursing homes, physician reimbursements. The provider reimbursement we know we have to do, and what happens? The two most powerful words in the Chamber once again: ``I object,'' they say. ``I object.'' It is the easiest act in the world to do, but we are faced with very significant challenges in health care, Medicaid, and Medicare, and everyone in this Chamber knows we have to fix it. Here we are on a Thursday at a time when the Congress should have been adjourned, trying to finish some of these last items, and we have people on the floor of the Senate singing the third verse of the same old tired tune: I object; I object. I have told my colleagues often about Mark Twain who, when asked if he would engage in a debate, very quickly said yes. ``But we have not told you the subject.'' He said: ``It doesn't matter, as long as I can take the negative side. The negative side will require no preparation.'' He is right. The question is: What are we building here? What are we doing here? What do we aspire for the American people to create here? A better country, a stronger country. We have spent a great deal of time talking about national security in this Chamber. That is deadly serious business. I would never suggest that ought to be a subject on which we should not spend a great deal of time. It is deadly serious business to talk about our Nation's national security. It is also important, in my judgment, to spend some time talking about this country's economic security because our capability to defend ourselves, our capability to spend the money to deal with national security challenges and issues relates directly to this country's economy, our ability to create an economic engine that produces growth and opportunity, that provides improvement for the lives of the American people, produces the tax revenues that allow us to have a standing army and have a military capability of dealing with national security issues. Yet we are in a situation these days where it is as if nobody wants to talk much about economic security. We cannot find the administration's team. We had an economic forum last Friday. We invited the Administration to participate. We said: Won't you come and sit with us and talk about the economy? Let's talk about what kind of challenges exist. There is no Republican or Democratic way to go broke. There is no Republican or Democratic way to lose a job. It is not partisan when one comes home and says: Honey, I have worked for this company for 18 years, but they told me today my job is over; it wasn't my fault; the company is cutting back because the economy is not good. There is no Republican or Democratic way to filter that through to your family for a man or a woman who has been in the workforce. There is no Republican or Democratic way for us to fix this either. We have to fix it by trying to get the best ideas of what both parties have to offer and by sitting down and talking about the issues. We have a fiscal policy which we put in place 18 months ago, before the recession, before the war on terror, before September 11, before the corporate scandals. That fiscal policy is not working. Huge projected budget surpluses have turned to very large projected budget deficits. More people are out of work. Confidence is down. People are worried about the future. Yet the economic team at the White House does not want to show up and talk about the economy. They will not come to an economic forum to talk about what is working and what is not, what is wrong and what is not, about how we fix this economy. They want to have nothing to do with that. I do not think we ought to be ignoring economic security issues. That is at the heart of what we ought to be talking about these days. We are trying very hard to say to our colleagues in the Senate on the Republican side: Join us; join us; forget the ``I object'' language; let's join together. How about saying: Include me. We would say: Absolutely. Yes, let's include everybody here. Let's get the best of what both have to offer this country. It appears to me the refrain now for the rest of the session is: I object. I object. I come from farm country, and our farmers have suffered a disastrous drought, not just in the southern part of my State but in a very wide region of this country. One of my colleagues made a point that I think is interesting: We ought to give droughts a name. We do not ever call them anything. At least with hurricanes we name them. Then pretty soon, Hurricane Andrew starts moving around and people talk about Hurricane Andrew. We need to start naming droughts as well. It is a natural disaster. It is something farmers cannot help. They did not create it. They cannot control it. Yet they plant the seeds in the spring and come out to harvest it, and it is a moonscape. There is nothing there. Nothing grew, and they lost everything they had because they put it all in the ground in the spring hoping they would harvest a crop in the fall, and there is no crop. That is a disaster. We passed a disaster bill with 79 votes in the Senate--79 votes, Republicans and Democrats. It is October 17 and no disaster bill. Why? The White House does not want one. The House of Representatives will not do one. According to today's news clips, a House Republican source said that Republican members seeking more money for drought relief, or for any number of projects, were simply told no and encouraged to be good Republicans and to wait until next year. They are taking the circus tent down. I do not know, if after 79 Senators have voted for drought relief, recognizing there is a very big problem, if somehow there is a curtain that prevents information from coming into the other body to tell the Speaker of the House we have a big problem in this country, if he somehow missed the evening news week after week, somehow missed the story that there was a protracted, devastating drought in this country--I do not know how we would tell him on October 17 if there is a problem. You had better believe there is a problem. Why no disaster relief after the Senate passed it on a bipartisan basis, 79 votes in favor of it? Why? Why no disaster relief? Because ``I object,'' they say; ``I object.'' They object at the White House; they object in the U.S. House; they object. There are so many issues that it is almost hard to know where to start. I want to describe one other issue, if I may. There is a young man named Jonathan Adelstein. Jonathan Adelstein is a nominee to the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC has a number of Republican seats and a number of Democratic seats. That is the way the seats are apportioned. This is a Democratic seat. It was vacated a year ago last month. For 13 months, this seat at the Federal Communications Commission has been open. Senator Daschle went to the White House, described the nominee. The White House announced its intent to nominate him on February 8. They sent it to the Senate in July. On July 16, the Commerce Committee held a hearing, reported out of the Commerce Committee in July. Now the FCC is poised to make very serious and difficult decisions on a wide range of issues that will have a profound impact on this country's telecommunications policies, especially on rural States. This seat is vacant. Know why? Because we have people that are singing the same song: I object. I object to bringing his nomination to the floor of the Senate, they say. There is a hold on this nomination, and that seat on the Federal Communications Commission that is so critical to the interests of rural States in this country is now vacant. If this Senate does not confirm this nomination before we adjourn sine die, then there is something fundamentally wrong with the way this body works. This is not a normal case of, for example, a judgeship that may or may not be controversial. The Federal Communications Commission has Republican seats and Democratic seats. The nominees on each side, if they are qualified--and Mr. Adelstein is eminently qualified--ought to be confirmed by the Senate. It is nonsense to hold up this nominee. The chairman of the FCC, Mr. Powell, and others are poised to make very big decisions. I worry very much there is no one inside that circle who has rural America, smaller States, rural States, family farms, and small towns as their interest. These decisions will have a profound impact on the future of my State and others, and yet this nomination is awaiting action by the Senate, held up by some unnamed Senator who says, in effect, in a cloakroom, behind the cloak of secrecy, ``I object.'' So much for the Federal Communications Commission nomination. This is another issue that Congress is being blocked from taking care of. A couple of days ago, my colleague from Nevada brought our attention to legislation the Senate has already passed and which is now in conference. He brought to the attention of the Senators the importance of something called concurrent receipt. Concurrent receipt sounds like a two-dollar word and probably does not affect anybody in this Chamber. It may not affect anybody listening to me at the moment. I do not know. But it is important because there is an obscure Federal law that says the following: If you served this country in the Armed Forces and retired, and you spent 20 years, for example, in uniform serving this country of ours and you earned a retirement, and along the way you may have fought in a battle somewhere and been severely wounded and are entitled to disability payments, this obscure Federal law says, oh, by the way, you cannot have both the retirement you earned and the disability payments you deserve as a result of your disability. You cannot have concurrent receipt of those two payments. One will offset the other and you will lose your retirement or you will lose your disability payment. I put a statement in the Record the other day about some North Dakota National Guardsmen. These are the kind of people who are being affected by this foolish provision in Federal law that we need to change, and which the Senate is on record of wanting to change. Sixty years ago, on October 10, 1942, two thousand men from North Dakota embarked for war. They were from the 164th Infantry Regiment of the National Guard. They were people from small towns and family farms. They came from almost every city, village, and county in our State. They were ordered to the West Coast the day after Pearl Harbor, and arrived in the South Pacific in the spring of 1942. On the island of Guadalcanal, these North Dakota National Guardsmen were called to action. The United States Marines had begun the first offensive action against Japan on Guadalcanal, and by autumn of that year it was a precarious deadlock. At that point, these National Guardsmen arrived October 13. By noon, they had their first casualty from a bombing run by Japanese planes. As Japanese ground patrols tested the U.S. positions, the 164th Infantry advanced. They were the first unit of the U.S. Army to go on the offensive against the Japanese in World War II. On October 24 and 25, there was an intense Japanese attack, the largest battle fought on Guadalcanal. The ``Citizen Soldiers,'' as they were called, were called forward to reinforce the Marines. Despite the blackness of night, these National Guardsmen traveled with their heavy packs, in the rain, over narrow trails slippery with mud, following their Marine escorts to the front line, holding on to the backpacks of the man in front of them to avoid being lost. Fighting side by side with the Marines, the 164th Infantry poured relentless fire through the night into continuous waves of oncoming Japanese. At dusk of the next day, the Japanese attacked again. The situation was so precarious, they said, that cooks, messengers, and clerks manned positions and waited for the worst. Even the musicians from the band were pressed into service as litter bearers. Every member of the 164th had a role in the fiercest battle of that campaign. At the end of that night, by dawn, it was clear the enemy had suffered a disastrous defeat. In front of the 164th Infantry were 1,700 dead Japanese. The North Dakota unit, meanwhile, suffered 26 killed and 52 wounded. The commanding officer of the Marines sent them a special message for coming to the aid of the United States Marines. LTC Robert Hall received the Navy Cross for his leadership of the battalion in this action. The men of that regiment won a Navy Cross, 5 Distinguished Service Crosses, 40 Silver Stars, more than 300 Purple Hearts, and many Soldier's Medals and Legions of Merit. Its boast was it would leave no one behind, and indeed it had no men missing in action, although they had lost many. These survivors are now old men in North Dakota, living again in our villages, small towns, and family farms. Some of them are being told that, if they were wounded in this battle of Guadalcanal and they continued their service in the United States military and have a retirement and a disability coming, they cannot receive both. They might have earned their retirement and they might have taken a devastating wound in their body that took years of convalescence, but they cannot receive disability and retirement. That is terribly unfair, in my judgment. The Senate is already on record trying to correct this, and we are now hearing once again that the refrain of ``I object'' exists in the conference on the Defense Authorization Bill that can fix the problem. I hope that the conference will overcome those objections and do the right thing. Finally, the issue of corporate responsibility. I began talking about the economy and economic security. Let me talk for a moment about corporate responsibility. We have a great deal of unfinished business with this issue. We passed a corporate responsibility bill in the Senate, and it is a good bill. It falls a little short of what is needed, but it is a good bill and a step in the right direction. It was fascinating to me to see what happened. We pushed the bill under the leadership of Senator Sarbanes. The Republicans pushed back and said: We do not want a bill. We do not want your bill. We do not want to do it your way. Finally, the President agreed, the Republicans agreed, and we passed the legislation. For 3 days before we passed that bill in the Senate, I was trying to offer an amendment and it was blocked by the Republicans. My amendment was very simple. It said if someone is running an American corporation and they are running that company into bankruptcy and are getting bonus payments and incentive pay as they run that company into the ground, we ought to be able to recapture that and require disgorgement of that money. A study was done and it shows of the 25 largest corporations that went into bankruptcy in the last several years, 208 executives took $3.3 billion out of those corporations as they went into bankruptcy. Let me say that again. Of the 25 largest bankruptcies, 208 executives took $3.3 billion in compensation as those companies were run into the ground. I don't need five reasons. There is not even one good reason we ought to allow one to keep bonus and incentive pay as they take a public corporation into the ground. There is no incentive for bonus that is justifiable for someone presiding over bankruptcy. We should have passed that amendment. We will someday. I will continue to offer it as part of our unfinished business. Another area of unfinished business is that we have a Securities and Exchange Commission without a leader who will lead. Mr. Pitt is the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time. Senator McCain was the first to call for his resignation this summer. Larry Cudlow, Republican television personality on the Cudlow Kramer show, has called for his resignation, others have followed. The fact is, at this point we don't need a kinder and gentler SEC. We don't need a Securities and Exchange Commission that will bend in the wind of the political system to determine who should head an accounting reform board the American people could look up to and trust. What we need is a Securities and Exchange Commission chairman who does not care about the politics, who only cares about being a fair, tough, aggressive regulator. We need a chairman who will make sure we do not have additional Enrons and Tycos, who ensures that we do not have additional circumstances where the people at the bottom lose their shirts, the employees lose their jobs, and the people at the top walk off with pockets of gold to live in gated communities and count their money while everyone else is left in the wreckage. We need a head of the SEC who can inspire confidence in the American people that effective regulation will prevent accounting firms, law firms, or corporations from cooking the books and enriching the people at the top at the same time they are costing the people at the bottom their jobs and costing investors their life savings. I chaired hearings on the Enron issue in the Senate. One of my constituents in North Dakota is far removed from Houston, TX, but he worked for Enron, for a pipeline company. He wrote a letter and said: Mr. Senator, I had my life savings in my 401(k) plan invested in Enron. I am the first to admit it was pretty dumb to do it, but I did it because I worked for this company for many years and believed in the company. Mr. Lay and other executives told us employees that if we invested in their company, our futures would be better and brighter. They told us that it was a future of growth. And I did. I put my 401(k) into Enron stocks. It was my life savings for me and my family. I had $330,000 in my 401(k). It is now worth $1,700. His question for me was: What do I do to provide for my family's security and retirement?

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

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.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the two most powerful words in the Senate are ``I object.'' The Senator from Oklahoma has demonstrated the power of that by just objecting to the request by the Senator from Montana to bring up the Medicare provider reimbursement legislation. Some seem to believe there is no urgency about this issue. The Senator from Montana has described bipartisan legislation that I support very strongly and that I think it is urgent we pass. This is bipartisan legislation addressing an urgent, serious, and difficult problem. Let me describe it from the standpoints of two different types of health care providers. First of all, with respect to nursing homes, on October 1, long-term care facilities experienced a cliff, or a sharp drop, in their Medicare reimbursement. As of October 1, skilled nursing homes face a 10- percent, or $1.7 billion, reduction in their payment rates for the current fiscal year, and a 19-percent cut in 2004 unless Congress acts to respond to it. We can talk about numbers, this can all be about finances, but my colleagues know what it really is about. It is about the quality of care for people in our nursing homes. If the decision is made not to reverse these cuts for long-term care, the quality of care is going to be diminished for those folks who are in nursing homes. I suppose one of the saddest days of my life was when I took my father to a nursing home some months after my mother had been killed. I will never forget the moment we decided he had to go to a nursing home and then when I took him there. He did not want to go. The time he spent in that nursing home meant I spent a lot of time there as well, and I came to understand what long-term care was all about and what the quality of care for our senior citizens was about. I have deep admiration for the people who ran that nursing home. I do not know what my father would have done without the care he received in that facility. In my State, we rank right near the top in this country with respect to the number of nursing home beds per resident in the State are concerned. Yet, on October 1, at a time when nursing homes are already struggling and do not have the money they need, we find this cliff exists where they get a reduction in reimbursement--and a pretty substantial one at that. Now we are nearing the last few days of this session and my colleague Mr. Baucus brings to the floor legislation that I think makes great sense. It is bipartisan. The chairman and the ranking member of the Finance Committee are sponsors of this legislation. They say we need to get this done, it is urgent, but we have people who stand up and say, I object. There are a thousand reasons to object, but there is only one good reason to do what we need to do here to protect the quality of care for vulnerable seniors in nursing homes, and that is because it is our responsibility. I have talked about nursing homes and how important they are. The same is true with hospitals. For hospitals in my State, and I suspect the States of Montana, Iowa, and many other States, the level of Medicare reimbursement is going to determine whether we have hospitals that are available to people who need acute care, who need emergency care, in the future. Now, we have the opportunity to do something to provide decent payment to these hospitals. Under the 1997 Balanced Budget Act, everyone in this Chamber understands we cut too deeply. We understand that. The fact is, we have hospitals and nursing homes on the brink of going out of business or cutting back services. Rural hospitals, just about all of the hospitals in my State, are disadvantaged by lower reimbursement rates. In my State, and many others, rural and small urban hospitals receive a standard payment that is woefully inadequate. We have to fix that. When you take a look at the standardized payment for hospital payments, you realize the standardized payment is not standard at all. This legislation fixes that concern. I know it is the eleventh hour. The fact is that Senator Baucus and Senator Grassley have offered a piece of legislation that everyone in this Chamber knows must be done. Yet we have people walking around as if to say this is not an urgent problem. Check yourself into a nursing home and tell me it is not an urgent problem. Check into a rural hospital and check the financial records as you walk through the front door and tell me it is not an urgent problem. We spend a lot of time in the Senate during the year on things not so serious. But there is a serious problem with Medicare reimbursement. We often treat the light too seriously and the serious too lightly. This is serious. We have a responsibility now to deal with this issue. I hope the Senator from Montana will come to the floor every single day we are in session and make the same unanimous consent request until at some point we will not see people standing up to object. I hope he will come tomorrow and I hope next week. At some point we will see this Senate and the other body on the other side of this Capitol say: Yes, let's do this. We have a responsibility to get this done for nursing homes, for hospitals, and for other providers. I did not mention physician reimbursement. I will mention that when I talk tomorrow about this subject. I appreciate the leadership of the Senator from Montana and the leadership of Senator Grassley. This legislation is the right thing for right now. Not next year, not the year after, but right now. It will have an impact on the quality of care for the American people in hospitals and nursing homes across this country. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, today along with Senators Roberts, Conrad, Crapo, Craig, Burns, Johnson, Allard, Brownback, and Campbell I am introducing legislation to clarify Congressional intent regarding minor oilseed and pulse crop loan rates in the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act, FSRIA, of 2002. This is a redraft of legislation introduced last July. In June, the United States Department of Agriculture incorrectly interpreted the intent of the new farm bill when the Farm Service Agency arbitrarily announced a wide range of minor oilseed loan rates. For some minor oilseed crops, the loan rate increased substantially, while for others, the rates plunged. A few months later, in early September, the Farm Service Agency continued to err when it announced the loan rates for dry peas, lentils and small chickpeas that completely ignored the instructions laid down by the Statement of Managers that accompanied the conference report of the new farm bill. Not once during the farm bill debate was there ever discussion of splitting apart minor oilseed loan rates. In fact, the minor oilseed industry and farmers alike anticipated a county-level increase in loan rates from $9.30 to 9.60/cwt. The announcement by the Farm Service Agency caught virtually everyone in the agriculture community by surprise. This legislation is intended to correct this misinterpretation of the new farm bill, and to prevent what will certainly be extreme acreage shifts among these crops in the coming years should these rates be allowed to stand. These acreage shifts will destroy segments of the minor oilseed and pulse crop industry that have been painstakingly developed over a number of years. For instance, already, users of the oil derived from oil sunflowers anticipate supply shortages next year and have indicated they may remove sunflower oil from their product mix. Conversely, incentives caused by the much higher confectionery sunflower loan rate could deluge USDA with massive loan forfeitures of low quality confectionery sunflowers if farmers simply grow for the loan rate rather than a quality crop that has a market. The legislation amends the new farm bill by simply and redundantly listing each minor oilseed crop after the stated loan rate. The legislation reinstates the cramby and sesame seed loan rates that were eliminated by USDA. The legislation also puts into bill language the instructions that were spelled out in the Statement of Managers regarding a single loan rate for all sunflowers and the quality grades for the loan rates for dry peas, lentils and small chickpeas. This legislation should not be needed. USDA could easily repeal the current announcement of minor oilseed and pulse crop loan rates in favor of rates consistent with this legislation and the new farm bill, as I and my colleagues have asked in recent meetings and letters on this issue. I request unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, today along with Senators Roberts, Conrad, Crapo, Craig, Burns, Johnson, Allard, Brownback, and Campbell I am introducing legislation to clarify Congressional intent regarding minor oilseed and pulse crop loan rates in the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act, FSRIA, of 2002. This is a redraft of legislation introduced last July. In June, the United States Department of Agriculture incorrectly interpreted the intent of the new farm bill when the Farm Service Agency arbitrarily announced a wide range of minor oilseed loan rates. For some minor oilseed crops, the loan rate increased substantially, while for others, the rates plunged. A few months later, in early September, the Farm Service Agency continued to err when it announced the loan rates for dry peas, lentils and small chickpeas that completely ignored the instructions laid down by the Statement of Managers that accompanied the conference report of the new farm bill. Not once during the farm bill debate was there ever discussion of splitting apart minor oilseed loan rates. In fact, the minor oilseed industry and farmers alike anticipated a county-level increase in loan rates from $9.30 to 9.60/cwt. The announcement by the Farm Service Agency caught virtually everyone in the agriculture community by surprise. This legislation is intended to correct this misinterpretation of the new farm bill, and to prevent what will certainly be extreme acreage shifts among these crops in the coming years should these rates be allowed to stand. These acreage shifts will destroy segments of the minor oilseed and pulse crop industry that have been painstakingly developed over a number of years. For instance, already, users of the oil derived from oil sunflowers anticipate supply shortages next year and have indicated they may remove sunflower oil from their product mix. Conversely, incentives caused by the much higher confectionery sunflower loan rate could deluge USDA with massive loan forfeitures of low quality confectionery sunflowers if farmers simply grow for the loan rate rather than a quality crop that has a market. The legislation amends the new farm bill by simply and redundantly listing each minor oilseed crop after the stated loan rate. The legislation reinstates the cramby and sesame seed loan rates that were eliminated by USDA. The legislation also puts into bill language the instructions that were spelled out in the Statement of Managers regarding a single loan rate for all sunflowers and the quality grades for the loan rates for dry peas, lentils and small chickpeas. This legislation should not be needed. USDA could easily repeal the current announcement of minor oilseed and pulse crop loan rates in favor of rates consistent with this legislation and the new farm bill, as I and my colleagues have asked in recent meetings and letters on this issue. I request unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I have decided that I will cast a vote tonight to authorize the President to use force if necessary to find and destroy any weapons of mass destruction under the control of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Some of my colleagues have expressed the ease with which they will vote to authorize the use of force. For me it has been very difficult. When we cast a vote that could send our sons and daughters to war, it is deadly serious business. It requires us to ask tough questions and demand good answers. And while I will vote to authorize the President to use force if necessary, I do so with reservation because I believe very strongly that force should be an option that is used only as a last resort, after all other diplomatic and peaceful means have been exhausted. And, if force is necessary , it ought to be carried out with a coalition of countries in whose interest it is to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. I want to stress that I would never have voted for the resolution in the form that the White House originally asked Congress to approve. That proposal asked Congress to give the President a blank check to use force, with or without the backing of other nations, not just to disarm Iraq, but also to deal with unspecified threats to American interests anywhere in the region. However, the Joint Resolution that Congress will vote on tonight is fundamentally different from the one the President sent to us. It was narrowed substantially in scope through bipartisan negotiations. First, this resolution focuses specifically on the threat posed by Iraq, instead of giving the President broad and unfocused authorization to take action in the region, as the Administration originally sought. Second, the resolution expresses the conviction that President Bush should continue to work through the United Nations to secure Iraq's compliance with U.N. resolutions. Third, this resolution makes it clear that the President must exhaust diplomatic and peaceful efforts before he can use force against Iraq. And fourth, this resolution protects the balance of power by requiring the President to comply with the War Powers Act. I believe it is the right course to go to the United Nations, extract from the Security Council the tough new resolution requested by the President, and then coercively enforce that resolution with a coalition of countries who will not only bear the burden of fighting along side us if it is required, but who will also bear the expensive burden of occupation, peace keeping and nation building following any military action. My fervent hope is that the Joint Resolution we pass tonight authorizing the President to use force if necessary to disarm Iraq will spur the United Nations Security Council to take similar action. And I hope that the action of Congress and the United Nations together will convince Saddam Hussein to allow complete and unfettered inspections and to cooperate in the elimination of any weapons of mass destruction that he still possesses. With a backdrop of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States and the clear and present danger to our country of future terrorist attacks, coupled with the evidence that Saddam Hussein is aggressively trying to acquire nuclear weapons, I finally concluded that, if we err in this matter, we must err on the side of our national security interests. The stakes are too high, and the consequences too deadly to do otherwise. The final point I will make about this resolution is that our confrontation with Iraq is dramatically different from our confrontation with any other ``rogue'' country. Saddam Hussein has consistently defied the terms of surrender to which he agreed at the end of the Gulf War in 1991. We know that he lied about his weapons of mass destruction and hid them from United Nations inspectors. We know that he secretly continued to produce chemical and biological agents. We know that he is still trying to acquire nuclear weapons. I've been to the Incerlik Air Base in Turkey where American fighter pilots fly air cover over the Northern Iraq no-fly zone. I know firsthand that Iraq continues to fire on our pilots who are just doing what Saddam Hussein promised to allow under the terms of the Gulf War surrender. I know there are some who say, ``well, let's not be so hasty. There's another way, let's explore other options.'' But the fact is we have worked for 10 years without success to force Iraq to comply with the terms of its surrender following the Gulf War. So, to those who say let's give them more time, I say this situation is unique. Iraq has had a decade to comply, and the tyrant who runs it has demonstrated that he has no intention of complying without the threat of the use of force. I will vote for this resolution because I think that it is important that we unite behind our President to deal with the clear and present danger that Iraq poses to our national security. But I want to point out a few concerns about aspects of this administration's foreign policy which I consider to be very troubling. Recently the Bush administration released a new 33-page National Security Policy document that has alarmed even our closest allies because it declares that it is America's new policy to maintain overwhelming military might and to use preemptive force whenever and wherever it suits our national interests. Few would deny that the United States has the right to go after terrorists or rogue states preemptively if we are in serious danger of being attacked by a weapon of mass destruction. So what in the world was the administration thinking when it decided to release this document at the same time that our diplomats around the world are seeking the support of the international community for action against Saddam Hussein? In my judgment, this is an example of the Bush administration's approach to foreign policy that has largely abandoned the successful strategies we've employed for decades to weld together alliances and coalitions of our allies to tackle the threats and challenges of an unstable world. Another issue that relates to this debate is America's role in the international effort to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons. One of the centerpieces of the debate about the danger Iraq poses for the rest of the world is that Saddam Hussein might soon possess a nuclear weapon. I acknowledge the danger that would pose for the region and the rest of the world, but I want to ask those who are experiencing seizures over that prospect: where is their concern about the larger danger posed by the spread of nuclear weapons to other countries and to terrorists? Year after year, and time after time those who now appear most alarmed about the prospect that Iraq would possess even one nuclear weapon, are the same people who are unwilling to exert U.S. leadership in the international effort to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons. For example, President Bush has appointed John Bolton to be the Assistant Secretary of State responsible for arms control even though Bolton's stated position is that he doesn't believe in arms control. This administration, and its supporters in Congress, have demonstrated a lack of interest in making any effort to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. They oppose the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty even though a blue-ribbon panel of the National Academies of Science recently concluded that the treaty would significantly enhance U.S. security by slowing the spread of nuclear weapons. And this administration and its supporters want to deploy a new generation of ``designer'' nuclear weapons that could be used like conventional weapons. Nothing would do more to undermine international efforts to stigmatize countries that aspire to become nuclear powers. Perhaps now the prospect of a country like Iraq acquiring one nuclear weapon will convince the Bush administration that safeguarding the nuclear weapons that exist around the world, reducing nuclear stockpiles, and stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons to other countries and to terrorists must be among this country's top priorities. There are somewhere in the neighborhood of 25,000-30,000 nuclear weapons in the world today. A fair number of them are not very well controlled, particularly in Russia, which has thousands of nuclear weapons in storage facilities that fall far short of American security standards. Russia also has enough highly enriched uranium and weapons-grade plutonium for 80,000 nuclear weapons. Much of it is poorly protected against theft or diversion. One nuclear weapon in the wrong hands will make the devastating tragedy of 9/11 seem like a small incident by comparison. That is why this issue is so critical, and it is why I raise it now to point out the inconsistency of those who are pushing so hard to use force against Iraq but who are so unwilling to exhibit any muscle in dealing with the broader and potentially more devastating problem of the proliferation of nuclear weapons. So I will vote for this Joint Resolution because I am convinced it is time for the United States to assume leadership in the effort to disarm Saddam Hussein and make Iraq live up to the commitments it made after the Gulf War. But I hope that President Bush will help prevent further Iraqs by stepping forward and exerting US leadership in the international effort to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, it was 60 years ago that 2,000 men from North Dakota's 164th Infantry Regiment performed heroically in a savage battle in the South Pacific. It marked the first time the U.S. Army launched an offensive operation in that war and stands today as a critical juncture in World War II. Coming from almost every city and village in North Dakota, the members of the 164th Infantry were North Dakota's National Guard and traced their unit's heritage to the Indian wars on the American frontier. Its history was one of distinction, most notably marked by a spectacular ten Medals of Honor its men won in the Philippines in 1899. Called to active duty early in 1941, the North Dakotans were ordered to the West Coast the day after Pearl Harbor, and landed in the South Pacific in the spring of 1942. Meanwhile, on the island of Guadalcanal, U.S. Marines had begun America's first offensive action against Japan. By autumn, it was a precarious deadlock and the 164th Infantry was sent in October 13. By noon it had its first casualty. Corporal Kenneth Foubert of Company M of Grand Forks, North Dakota, was killed in a bombing run by Japanese planes. As Japanese ground patrols tested U.S. positions, the 164th Infantry advanced, the first unit of the Army to go on the offensive in WWII. An intense Japanese attack, the largest battle fought on Guadalcanal, occurred October 24-25. In ``Citizens as Soldiers,'' a history of the North Dakota National Guard, authors Jerry Cooper and Glenn Smith tell how a battalion of the 164th Infantry was sent to reinforce the Marines. Despite the blackness of night, made darker by a heavy tropical rain, the 164th Infantry, over narrow trails slippery with mud, followed its Marine escorts to the front line, holding on to the backpacks of the man in front of them to avoid being lost. Fighting side by side with the Marines, the 164th Infantry poured relentless fire through the night into continuous waves of oncoming Japanese. At dusk of the next day, the Japanese attacked again. The situation was precarious and cooks, messengers, and clerks manned positions and waited for the worst. Even the musicians of the North Dakota band were pressed into service as litter bearers. Every member of the 164th had a role in that battle, the fiercest of the campaign. At one outpost, 18 Marines, many seriously wounded, were surrounded. The 164th Infantry's Sgt. Kevin McCarthy of Jamestown, ND, used a small, lightly armored, open topped vehicle to make repeated trips to the desperate men and, under heavy fire, rescued them all. For his bravery, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. By dawn, it was clear the enemy had suffered a disastrous defeat. In front of the 164th Infantry were 1,700 dead Japanese. The North Dakota unit, meanwhile, suffered only 26 killed and 52 wounded. Impressed, the Marines' commanding general sent the North Dakotans a message that said the Marines ``salute you for a most wonderful piece of work. We are honored to serve with such a unit. Our hat is off to you.'' Lt. Col. Robert Hall of Jamestown, ND, received the Navy Cross for his leadership of the battalion during this crucial action. The fight for Guadalcanal continued into November when the 164th was assigned to drive Japanese defenders off a series of ridges. From November 20-27, the battle raged. It was the bloodiest week of the entire war for the unit. More than 100 men were killed and some 200 wounded. Not until February did the Japanese finally flee the island. It was none too soon. Guadalcanal had taken its toll. The 164th was no longer combat effective. It was down to less than two-thirds its authorized number. Most men had lost 20 pounds or more. They suffered from malaria, heat exhaustion, exotic tropical diseases. All told, the unit buried 147 men on the island, had 309 wounded, and another 133 casualties from shock, trauma, and neurosis. It was little wonder that the Americans called the island ``green hell'' and Japanese referred to it as the ``island of death.'' The regiment received a Presidential Unit Citation for its outstanding contributions and personal plaudits from General George Marshall, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Admiral William Halsey, commander of the South Pacific forces. For Guadalcanal, men of the regiment won a Navy Cross, five Distinguished Service Crosses, 40 Silver Stars, more than 300 Purple Hearts, and many Soldier's Medals and Legions of Merit. One of its proud boasts was that it would leave no one behind and, indeed, it had no men missing in action. The survivors are now old men. They have had America's hat tipped to them before, but they deserve it again, one more time before they leave us to rejoin their comrades, brave young men who left North Dakota on troop trains in the bitter February cold so long ago to answer their Nation's call.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator from Nevada yield for 2 brief questions?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am mindful there are others waiting to speak. But when I learned Senator Reid was going to speak today, I was going to ask him a couple of questions on this issue. I will just be 2 to 3 minutes, if I can ask the indulgence of my colleagues.

Mr. DORGAN. I wanted to say to the Senator from Nevada, he has raised a very important issue at this point. Twenty-three of us in the Senate sent a letter to the authorizing committee on this subject, saying those soldiers who have earned a retirement should receive it, and those same soldiers who are entitled to a disability payment should receive that as well. It is that simple. Senator Reid of Nevada has made the case. It is just a very simple issue of equity. What I wanted to do is point out that NBC News did a story recently. I don't know whether the Senator mentioned this on the floor of the Senate. Hank Nix, from Ozark, AL, 52 years ago was shot in the chest. He took a bullet leading his platoon. He earned a Silver Star. He is now talking about having to move from their home because of what is called a broken promise. The Government is reducing his retirement pay because he is not allowed to collect both his disability--he is 100 percent disabled, he took a bullet in the chest leading his platoon in the Korean war, but he is not allowed to collect the retirement he earned and a disability payment he is due. Why? Because there is a quirk in the law that applies only to disabled soldiers and no other Federal worker. About half a million soldiers are in this circumstance. It is, in my judgment, totally unforgivable that we don't fix this. It has been around for a long while. Many of us have talked about it on the floor of the Senate. I know the Senator from Virginia is in support of fixing it, as are, I think, most of our colleagues. I appreciate the fact that the Senator from Nevada brought this to the floor today because this is critically important. If we are going to get it fixed, now is the time to get it fixed. A military career is filled with hardships, family separations, and sacrifices, and all too often being put in harm's way. There are promises made to those folks who wear America's uniform, and then we are not keeping the promise with respect to this issue. Finally, let me say this: I have, as many of my colleagues have since September 11, 2002, visited military bases in Central Asia, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. You can see the pride in the eyes of those soldiers--men and women--who are fighting terrorism on behalf of our country. You know and they know we have an obligation to keep our promise to our veterans. George Washington said it 200 years ago. I will not repeat the quote that has been repeated many times on the floor of this Senate. But when we send young men and women to war to defend freedom, we have an obligation to keep our promises to them. One of those promises is to say: If you earn a retirement, we will pay you that retirement. If you are disabled because of your service to our country, you are entitled to that disability payment. It is just that simple. I appreciate the Senator from Nevada bringing it to the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. The President threatened a veto today--or the White House did, apparently. They said they cannot afford this. We can't afford not to do this. You just have to keep the promises here. I am talking about our country. We must keep our promise to veterans. I hope he will not veto. If he does, it will be overridden, I believe, by a very large margin here in the Senate. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, it has been interesting, today, to listen to some of the discussion on the floor of the Senate about the economy. The reason it has been interesting is there is not a great deal of discussion these days about the economy. Most of the discussion here in Congress especially, and on the front pages of America's newspapers, has been about the subject of Iraq and national security. That is important. There is no question about that. The issues of service, duty, honor, patriotism, national security--all of those issues are deadly serious business for our country. When we talk about sending America's sons and daughters to war, that is deadly serious business, and the Constitution has something to say about it. The Constitution provides that the Congress shall make that decision. Let me just say, on these issues--I am going to speak about the economy, but I have been troubled lately by some of the things I have read about national security, especially about a new doctrine that is being developed, or has been developed, and announced by some, talking about preemptive strikes--that our country has a right to preemptively strike a potential adversary. That has never been this country's approach to dealing with international affairs. I think about this notion of preemptive strikes, and I think about how we might feel, as a country, if some other countries in the world said to us: Oh, by the way, we have a new policy. Our policy is: preemptive strikes on neighboring countries that we worry might very well threaten our national security interests. We need to have a long, thoughtful, and sober discussion about that kind of policy change. And I expect we will do that. First, however, we will debate a resolution on Iraq here in the Senate beginning this week. Again, as I indicated, that is a very serious business. My hope is that our country will speak with one voice on these issues, we will work through it, and then speak with one voice. And my hope is that voice will be a voice that says: It is best always, to the extent we can, especially dealing with a problem like this, to confront the country of Iraq with, if necessary, coercive and by-force inspections in Iraq, to rid that country of any weapons of mass destruction they have, and do so with coalition partners, other countries around the world, that are willing to, and that should, assume that burden with us. But that is for another time, and I will speak another day on that subject.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me talk, just for a moment, about the economy. I have listened to some of the discussion, and I know there is a tendency to talk about the economy and to talk about, the other side is to blame. It is always the other side that is to blame. It does not matter which side you are on, you are just pointing in the opposite direction. And I suppose there is some blame that can be availed to virtually everyone in Government for our problems with respect to the American economy. I worry, however, there is not very much attention being paid to the economy. Today's speeches in the Senate represent a departure because in most cases nobody wants to talk about the economy these days. We have very serious, relentless, difficult problems in the American economy. Just take a look at what is going on in the economy. More people are out of work. More people are losing their jobs. More people are losing money in their 401(k) accounts. The stock market is behaving like a yo-yo. The big budget surpluses that we were told last year would last forever--most of us did not believe that, but that is what we were told: These budget surpluses will last for as long as you can count, so plan on the next 10 years of having consistent surpluses, and let's spend it now in the form of tax cuts--well, those surpluses have now turned into deficits, and big deficits. Big surpluses have turned into big deficits. On top of all that, we have corporate scandals that have developed and been unearthed in recent months in this country that shake the confidence of the American people in this economy of ours. I will talk just a bit more about that in a while. But I am not here to say the President is solely to blame for what is going on. I do wish he would provide more leadership at this moment and say, yes, the economy is in trouble, instead of having Larry Lindsey trot out here and say: The fundamentals are sound. Let's hang in here. Don't worry about it. This economy is in significant difficulty. I think it is time for us to recognize that. It is time for us to have an economic summit with the President, invite the best minds in this country to come together, have the executive branch, the President, and the legislative branch sit down together and evaluate: What do we do about a fiscal policy that does not add up? It is true, as my friend from Wyoming just said, we do not have a budget this year. Why don't we have a budget? We have a fiscal policy that does not add up. There isn't anybody in this Chamber who can make sense of this fiscal policy, and they know it. It does not add up. This fiscal policy was a policy developed a year and a half ago, in which we were told: We will have surpluses as far as the eye can see, so let's have a $1.7 trillion tax cut over 10 years, and then hold our hands over our eyes and think things will turn out just fine. Well, they have not turned out just fine. I think it is incumbent on us, on behalf of the interests of the American people, to sit at the same table and decide we are all constituents of the same interest, and that interest is the long-term economic progress and opportunity here in the United States. We need an economy that grows. There is no social program we have worked on in this country--none--that is as important as a good job that pays well. There is no program we work on that is as important to the American people as a good job that pays well because that makes virtually everything else possible. If we do not have an economy that grows and expands and provides opportunity, then we have some significant future trouble. Let me talk, just a little, about what it means when our economy isn't doing well. I spent time this morning at a hearing. The airline industry came in. We had a hearing in the Commerce Committee. The airline industry lost $7 billion last year--$7 billion. We have carriers that have filed for bankruptcy; more probably will. And they say: Look, we have a huge problem. Fewer people are flying. Some worry about safety. Some are concerned about the hassle factor at airports. The economy is in trouble, so fewer people get on airplanes. So you have an industry in trouble. That is just one industry. And that was just this morning. Nonetheless, it is indicative of what is happening in our economy. And the result is, when you have a soft economy, and the kind of trouble we are heading towards, and that we have already experienced, it means things, such as health care--the kind of health care that families need and expect--is not affordable, not available. It means we do not deal with the education problems we are supposed to be dealing with. Leave No Child Behind--that was a slogan last year, and a piece of legislation passed last year. But then the proposal comes out of the budget, and it leaves all kinds of kids behind because the money does not exist to do it because the fiscal policy is out of whack. We have talked about the corporate scandals that undermine confidence in this economy, and we passed a piece of legislation dealing with it. But it is just one piece of legislation, and it falls short of what is necessary. Also, if you are not disgusted about these corporate scandals, then there is something fundamentally wrong. Tyco Corporation. The CEO of Tyco has since been arrested. He has a $6,000 gold and burgundy, floral patterned shower curtain, paid for by his company--a $6,000 shower curtain. Did anybody in this Chamber ever see a $6,000 shower curtain? How about a $17,000 toilet kit, a traveling toilet kit, or a $445 pin cushion; has anybody ever seen that in their life? There are stories about Tyco having paid $15,000 in corporate money for an umbrella stand. People ask: How could you spend $15,000 for an umbrella stand? The decorator said this was an 1840s antique stand in the shape of a 3-foot high poodle. That is how you spend that kind of money for an umbrella stand. Staying with Tyco one more time: A birthday party paid for with corporate funds, it cost $1 million. They are fleecing investors. The guests come into the pool area--this is related by the person who arranged the birthday party. They actually transported people to Europe for the birthday party of the wife of the CEO of the corporation using corporate funds. The band was playing. There was a big ice sculpture of David, lots of shellfish and caviar at his feet; a waiter pouring Stoli vodka into the statue's back so that it came out his private parts into a crystal glass. I don't know. I grew up in a small town. Maybe it is just me that doesn't understand this, or maybe this is nuts. Maybe it is just nuts. But there is story after story after story of avarice and greed in board rooms, in executive suites. Here is a story about the Securities and Exchange Commission. It says the SEC now says it is unlikely they will pursue Enron's board of directors. The board of directors of Enron had a professor do a study of what was going on inside the company. The board of directors' own study said what was happening inside Enron ``is appalling.'' Here is the SEC saying: We are not going to worry about these board of directors of Enron. We are not doing an inquiry into their responsibility. That is a low priority. A former SEC chief accountant says this: If you don't go after this board, you are telling the public you ain't ever going after any board. What is the SEC doing? Are they not reading this stuff? Are they just missing what is going on in this country? What about the corporate responsibility bill we passed some while ago? I tried to offer an amendment. A couple people here blocked it for 3 days so the bill passed without it. Let me describe it and why there is unfinished business dealing with the economy with respect to corporate scandals. Of the 25 largest bankruptcies in America, 208 corporate executives took out $3.3 billion prior to the bankruptcies. As the corporations were run into the ground, the people at the top filled their pockets with gold, and the investors lost their shirts. We couldn't do a thing about it because I couldn't offer the amendment. There was unfinished business, and we should address it here in this Congress. Here is a story about the Treasury Department, the IRS. It says they are seeking now quick settlements in pending tax shelter probes. The IRS is seeking quick settlements in many of its tax shelter cases raising questions about how effective its crackdown on tax avoidance schemes will be. What does this mean? It means that Treasury has been concerned--and I have been, certainly--about these aggressive tax schemes to avoid paying taxes. Instead of going after them, what are they going to do? They will do quick settlements. They are going to move to settle these cases very quickly. And what is that going to do to discourage additional aggressive tax schemes? Nothing, unfortunately. We have serious problems. I am talking about corporate responsibility, but I talked about our fiscal policy that doesn't add up. I know we could just stand here and point fingers back and forth. That doesn't make any sense. We all serve the same interests. Ogden Nash wrote a poem talking about a guy who drank too much and a woman who nagged. She scolds because he drinks, she thinks. He drinks because she scolds, he thinks. And neither will admit what is true: He is a drunk; she is a shrew. Well, the fact is, we both have some responsibility on this area of the American economy and what to do about it. I say to the President-- not in the way of pointing fingers--we have to start dealing with this. We can't ignore it. We can't pretend a fiscal policy that added up to, or we thought added up 18 months ago, is a fiscal policy that works today. We have been through a recession. Now we are in a weak economy. Big budget surpluses have now become big budget deficits. We were hit with terrible terrorist attacks on 9/11. We went through corporate scandals which undermined confidence in the American economy. Let's not pretend that things are fine. They are not fine. A week from this Friday, we will do an economic forum in the Russell Building Caucus Room. I am hoping we can get a debate going. I will invite both sides. We will do it through the Democratic Policy Committee. I want to hear from every side. If somebody thinks this fiscal policy is great, good, come and defend it. I happen to think we need some significant changes. I will be there to talk about it. But let's get some people together to talk about what is happening and think through what we can do about it. There is an old saying when everybody in the room is thinking the same thing, nobody is thinking very much. That is true here. It is true at the White House. If they think this economy is great, they are wrong. They are not thinking very much. We need a fiscal policy that relates to these days. When we were attacked on September 11, the President said we will embark on a war on terrorism. I supported that. Then he said we need $45 billion more for defense this year. I supported that. We need nearly $30 billion more for homeland security this year. I supported that. The question is, Where is the money coming from? Who is going to pay for it, when and how? My point is we had better decide, the President and the Congress, to pay attention to this economy and fix the problems that exist and do it now. We don't have a choice. Our responsibility is to fix what is wrong. This deals with virtually everything we have talked about all of this year: Health care, education, pensions, corporate governance, all of it. My colleague said we haven't even passed a budget. He is right about that. It is because none of it adds up. Everybody knows it doesn't add up. John Adams used to write letters to Abigail. In the book McCullough wrote about John Adams, he chronicled the discussions John had with Abigail in those letters. He would ask his wife: Where is the leadership? Where will the leadership come from as we try to put this country together? There is only us: Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Mason, Franklin, myself. Of course, ``only us'' in restrospect is some of the greatest talent ever gathered in the history of the earth. They put a country together. But it is fair to ask again now, especially given the problems and challenges we face, where is the leadership? I hope next Friday we can begin a discussion and a debate that leads to an economic summit in which we try to put together an economic policy that moves the country forward. Ignoring the problems is not in our best interest. It is not going to solve the country's problems. We face some significant challenges in national security dealing with the war on terrorism, dealing with Iraq, and a range of other issues. I respect that. But that ought not allow us to take a pass on the economy. It ought not allow the President to not want to talk about the economy. We have very serious problems with the economy, and it is long past time that we get about the business of working together to solve them. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield for a question, is it not the case last week after several weeks where we had this impasse with the White House on this issue--the bipartisan proposal that tries to be the centrist proposal--it was once again blocked? The White House said, No, we are not interested in doing that either. It is either our way or no way. If it is not our way, we intend to go to fundraiser after fundraiser and criticize. I have great respect for the President. I have supported him on many things. Especially in a political season with all of this discussion existing in this country about changing the tone, I am just not very happy seeing three to five fundraisers a day and using the opportunity to say, By the way, the Senate can't get this bill done. What is the bill? The bill is to create a Cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security proposition which the White House opposed for 9 straight months. In fact, the ranking Member--I say to the Senator from Connecticut-- voted against the proposal, and then, 2 weeks later, found out he was in favor of the proposal. He used a whimsical quote about being in favor of something which he voted against because the White House pivoted and said, No, we support it, but based on the notion of what we believe must happen. And, if that is not satisfactory to the Congress, we are going to go criticize the Congress rather than reach a compromise. Once again, I would like to see a change in tone, but I haven't seen it, at least in recent weeks.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I have been hearing in recent days that, once again, the President is on the campaign trail across the country. Sometimes he does two, three, four, and five fundraisers a day. At most of these fundraisers, the President criticizes the Senate for not passing the homeland security bill exactly the way he would like it. I thought I might make a couple of comments about that. First, we in the Senate are in the process of debating the homeland security bill. I hope the President will ultimately be willing to compromise with us on some key issues. I believe we will pass a homeland security bill, and I believe it will be soon if we get some willingness to compromise on the part of the White House. We will also, at the President's request, take up a resolution dealing with the question of Iraq and the use of force and the United Nations. It is our intention on the majority side to have a good, aggressive debate on these issues, but at the same time work with the President and accommodate the President as much as possible. But I want to make a few points that I think are important. Foremost among these is that I don't think it is appropriate for the President to be going around the country, doing multiple fundraisers every day and suggesting that the Senate or some Members of the Senate do not seem to care about national security. I think that is terribly inappropriate. It is not inappropriate at all for the President to campaign. He certainly will and should do that, but I don't think he ought to use these campaign opportunities to do what he has been doing. I understand he has raised something like $130 million. He is a prodigious fundraiser, and he has every right to do that. But it is unfortunate that a President who has spoken of a desire to change the tone of political discourse in Washington, DC, is rushing around the country doing fundraisers and pointing the finger at the Democrats in the Senate, saying they don't care about the security of this country. The fact of the matter is that Democrats proposed the creation of a Department of Homeland Security just one month after the terrorist attacks on September 11 of last year. Lest we forget, Senator Lieberman--the prime sponsor--introduced in the Senate a bill to create a homeland security Cabinet agency exactly 30 days after the September 11 attacks. The President opposed it. The White House opposed it. They said they didn't want it. They objected. Month after month after month, the White House opposed the creation of a Cabinet level agency dealing with Homeland Security. In fact, when the legislation was marked up in the full committee chaired by Senator Lieberman, the Republicans largely voted against it in the full committee because the White House opposed it, the President opposed it, the President didn't want it. And then on June 6, a full 9 months after the September 11 attacks, the President did a 180 degree reversal and said: Now we want a new Department. And, by the way, we not only want this new Department, but we want the following provisions to apply to the 170,000 workers of the new Department, and we are not willing to compromise. We demand that it be done the way we intend it to be done. That was the message from the White House. First, for 9 months they didn't want an agency. Now they not only want an agency, but they say we must have it their way and will not compromise. And then, in the middle of the Senate debate, the President goes on the campaign trail, and suggests that Democrats don't care about national security. That is nonsense. The President said he wants to come to town to change the tone. There is precious little evidence of that in recent weeks, I would say. But I do think it is time to change the tone. The right thing for the President and the Congress to do is to work together to reach a fair compromise and to find a way to do this in a thoughtful way. Changing the tone means you sit down together and try to get the best of what both sides have to offer. That is all we ask at this point. We have been on this legislation for some 4 weeks. There is no reason we cannot have thoughtful and satisfactory compromises so we can pass a Department, a Cabinet level agency on homeland security, through this Senate, go to conference, and get a bill to the Senate he can sign. There is no reason we cannot do that and do that soon. I believe that is the goal of Senator Lieberman. I know it is the goal of Senator Daschle. I just visited with him. We want this to happen. I said the other day that I would never, ever, under any set of circumstances, question whether anyone in this Chamber supports this country's national security. Everyone does--liberal, conservative, Republican, Democrat; we all strongly support the security of the United States. We may come at it from different angles or different approaches and have different ideas, but I believe everyone really has the best interests of this country at heart. I believe that of the President as well. I think it is now time for the President to sit down with us and reach agreements and reach some compromises and get this piece of legislation moving. And I think it is time, long past the time, for the President to stop going out on the fundraising trail and using this issue in a divisive and inappropriate way. We need to get this right. This debate isn't about politics. This is about effectively protecting the interests of this country. And we are all in this together.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, are we in morning business?

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

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am a cosponsor of the DeWine amendment to the Interior appropriations bill and am pleased to rise in support of it. The Next Generation Lighting Initiative is a research initiative designed to promote new, alternative, highly efficient technology for lighting to save energy and money, and reduce emissions. It would leapfrog over current technology. We use essentially the same light bulbs that Thomas Edison invented over 90 years ago. If successful, the Next Generation Lighting Initiative would make available new solid- state lighting that would be ten times more efficient than today's incandescent light bulbs. The concept is similar to fuel cells that also would leapfrog to a technology of the future and reduce our dependence on the traditional internal combustion engine. I joined 22 other Senators in signing a letter to Appropriations Chairman Byrd and Ranking Member Burns to support $30 million in increased funding for this new lighting technology research initiative. The current Interior appropriations bill provides $4 million for this Initiative. The amendment being offered today would increase this funding to $10 million. While a sizable increase, this $10 million would still be only 33 percent of what we had initially sought. Specifically, the increased funding is needed to overcome pre- competitive research hurdles associated with white light illumination from solid-state devices. It is important to fund new, clean energy technologies to provide sustainable economic development for the future. Lighting consumes about 20 percent of the energy generated in the United States. Over the next 20 years, this new next generation lighting technology could reduce global electricity usage for lighting by 50 percent and reduce total global electricity consumption by 10 percent. Many groups and Members support increased funding for this important initiative. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues from Ohio and New Mexico for their work on this effort, and the chairman of the Appropriations Committee for his assistance and for his good work on this bill.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I talked about the issue of security and I said it is deadly serious business, national security, homeland security. But there is another area very important for the country. That is economic security. We are spending virtually no time on that. We ought to. The American people deserve to have a Congress that, yes, is concerned about national security, concerned about homeland security, but that is willing to tackle during tough economic times the economic security issues as well. This Congress has not been willing to do that. Let me end as I began, because this is important. I will never minimize the importance of the security issues. In my judgment, the President and the Congress need to act and speak as one when we talk about the security of this country. No one will never, ever hear me say any Member in this Chamber does not believe in the security of this country or does not act to support the security of this country. I will never say that. I don't want to hear the President say it. I don't want to hear anyone else say it. I believe every Republican, Democrat, conservative and liberal, believes in their heart that whatever they are doing represents the security interests of this country. They love this country and believe in the country, and that goes for everyone serving this country. I don't want anyone to suggest in any way under any context there are those who believe in security more than others. We all love this country. We all want to do what is right and best for this country. I will strongly support the security of this country. It is national security. It is homeland security. It is economic security. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. There is an urgent need to get this bill completed. The Interior bill, as well, has been on the floor. For those who are listening to this discussion, we are working on two issues simultaneously. They call it dual tracking. We have homeland security and the Interior appropriations bill. Both have been on the floor for weeks. With respect to the Interior bill, the 79 votes cast for the issue of providing disaster aid for family farmers demonstrates the strong support of this Senate for doing that. Yet it is part of an Interior bill that is being held up. There is an urgent need to get this done. We have family farmers, and the families are sitting around their supper tables talking about their hopes and dreams, whether they are going to have to have an auction sale. Will they be able to make it? Or get through the winter? Or raise cattle in the spring? Or plant seed in the spring? They do not know. If we provide disaster help, they will. If we do not, many will not make it. I have been pleased, and will always be pleased as a Member of this body, to support, in every circumstance, those around this country who suffer disasters. When Florida is hit by a devastating hurricane, or California by a devastating earthquake, or a dozen other natural disasters I could name, I am the first to say we ought to help. I always want to vote for it. I always want our country to say to those people affected by the disasters, you are not alone; the rest of the country is with you. That is why I was so pleased with what the Senate did, by 79 votes, saying we need a disaster bill to deal with the devastating drought. In some areas it is as bad as it has been since the 1930s. In answer to the question, there is urgent business in the Interior bill. We ought to get it done. Those who are blocking it ought to stop blocking it.

Mr. DORGAN. There is no evidence of that in the last 3 or 4 weeks. If ever you have seen an example of slow walking, this has been it. We can, should, and will pass a homeland security bill. We are going to need help to do it. Those who say they want to pass this bill but have their heels dug in and are preventing action by the Senate, in my judgment, are delaying the inevitable. We will pass homeland security because we should. We have an amendment on which we ought to vote. We do not need 40 speakers after 4 weeks. Have a vote on the amendment. That is the way to deal with this. I understand there are people who oppose the amendment. The opposition comes from people who either want it their way or they do not want it at all. They think, If we cannot get our way, we do not want legislation to move.