Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Prevacid. It is used for ulcers.

Mr. DORGAN. Tamoxifen is a good example because it is priced at 10 times the Canadian price for those in this country who need it to deal with breast cancer. It is a good example. This is a chart that shows other drugs, which I have not listed. It shows the substantial changes in prices between the United States and Canada. Let me make a couple additional points. I do not come here suggesting that the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry or the manufacturers themselves are bad. I do not suggest they are bad companies. In many cases, they do good work. They produce lifesaving miracle drugs. I might say, they could from time to time give more credit to the American taxpayer for some of that because a substantial amount of research also goes on through the National Institutes of Health that is federally funded, the benefits of which then are used by the pharmaceutical manufacturers. It is not my intention to tarnish those manufacturers as somehow unworthy companies. It is my point to say that the pricing strategy employed by those manufacturers is wrong and it penalizes the American consumer. They say: We must have this kind of pricing practice and pricing strategy by which the American consumer pays the highest prices by far because that is the way we get the money to do research and development. It is interesting that a report I read says they do slightly more research and development in Europe than they do in the United States: 37 percent in Europe; 36 percent in the United States. And still in virtually every country in Europe, they charge a much lower price for the identical prescription drug they sell in the United States. It is not the case that this is all about research and development. The legislation we have introduced, the Prescription Drug Price Parity for Americans Act, would allow U.S. consumers to benefit from the international price competition for prescription medicines. We have changed this approach from the previous legislation that was enacted by the Congress because we make this apply only to the country of Canada. We would like licensed and registered pharmacists and distributors to be able to reimport into this country prescription drugs that are approved by the FDA. We are limiting that to Canada only. We will allow in this legislation pharmacists and distributors to access FDA-approved drugs from Canada and bring them into this country and pass the savings along to the American consumer. This bill would become effective immediately. We have, as I said, passed this legislation before. It has not been implemented by two administrations because some have raised the question that this would pose risks for the consumer. However, we have included provisions in this legislation on page 9 addressing suspension of importation which will minimize those risks. While I talk about that for a moment, let me describe why I think those risks are very minimal. Of course, we now have risks with respect to the shipment of prescription drugs across borders. We ship a substantial amount of United States manufactured drugs to Canada. In fact, the Congressional Research Service has a report quoting an information officer from Canada who says that most of the pharmaceuticals marketed and distributed in Canada originate from U.S. manufacturers. The question we should ask, it seems to me, as policymakers, is, Why should an American citizen have to go to Canada to get a fair price on a prescription drug made in the United States? It is a rhetorical question but I suspect one without an answer in this Chamber. In any event, a substantial amount of the prescription drugs sold in Canada are prescription drugs originating in the United States, and there is now a law on the books that says the United States consumer, through their pharmacists or through their licensed distributors, may not access those drugs even if they are less costly in Canada. In my judgment, that makes no sense at all. Included in the legislation we have introduced is a provision that would allow the Secretary of Health and Human Services to suspend reimportation. Let me read the language we are including in the second- degree amendment: The Secretary shall require that importations of a specific prescription drug or importations by a specific importer under subsection (b) be immediately suspended on discovery of a pattern of importation of the prescription drugs or by the importer that is counterfeit or in violation of any requirement under this section or poses an additional risk to the public health until an investigation is completed and the Secretary determines that the public is adequately protected from counterfeit and violative prescription drugs being imported under subsection (b). David Kessler, former head of the FDA, had this to say in a letter to us: The Senate bill which allows only the importation of FDA- approved drugs, manufactured in approved FDA facilities, for which the chain of custody has been maintained, addresses my fundamental concerns. This is a larger description of his letter: Let me address your specific questions. I believe U.S. licensed pharmacists and wholesalers who know how drugs need to be stored and handled and would be importing them under the strict oversight of the FDA are well positioned to safely import quality products rather than having American consumers do this on their own. The Congressional Research Service report I referred to a few moments ago is a report that I had asked they complete in which they should evaluate the chain of custody in Canada so we would understand whether there is a chain of custody issue. If we manufacture a prescription drug, for example, in the United States and send it to end up on the shelf of a drugstore in Winnipeg, Canada, is there a chain of custody problem that would allow someone to say: You cannot have a pharmacist go to Winnipeg and buy that drug because that is inherently unsafe? The answer is no, that is just sheer nonsense that there is any kind of a problem with that. The CRS report says both countries have similar requirements and processes for reviewing and approving pharmaceuticals, including compliance with good manufacturing practices. We have similar rules for requiring labeling. The Canadian Federal Government inspects drug manufacturing facilities. Pharmacists and drug wholesalers have to be licensed. There is no chain of custody question. I understand one thing about this. If I were a pharmaceutical manufacturer, I would want to kill this legislation. Why? Because the pharmaceutical industry confronts price controls in some other countries, and they do not like them. Those price controls allow them to charge their costs and add a profit to it, and that is the price they are able to exact. There are no price controls in this country. So the pharmaceutical manufacturers make the point that, if you can reimport prescription drugs from somewhere else such as Canada, you are reimporting price controls from Canada. We have price controls in this country really. It is just that the prescription drug manufacturers control the price, and they control the price by charging the U.S. consumer the highest prices in the world. Medicine after medicine, we find the U.S. consumers paying the highest prices in the world. Lifesaving prescription drugs save no lives if you cannot afford to purchase them. Show me something else in the daily lives of the American people, or especially of senior citizens, that they need--that they don't have a choice on--that is increasing at 16, 17, 18 percent a year. Can anyone come up with anything that relates to those kinds of relentless increases? I do not think anyone can. I want us to continue an aggressive search for miracle drugs and lifesaving medicines. That is why many of us in this Chamber have agreed to double the amount of funding at the National Institutes of Health. This is the fifth and final year to do that. We have gone from $12 billion to $24 billion. That was bipartisan. We did it. I want the drug manufacturers as well to also engage in robust research and development. I support research and development tax credits for that purpose, from which they benefit. But I do not want the pharmaceutical manufacturers to say to the American people: We have a scheme by which we will impose upon you the highest prices of any group of people in the world for our prescription drugs. We will have multitiered price policies, and you, American citizens, shall pay the highest. We want you to pay 10 times the cost for tamoxifen that our friends in Winnipeg, Canada, are charged. We want you to pay substantially higher prices for Zocor, Lipitor, Premarin, and Celebrex. It is simply not fair. The point of this amendment is not to try to force anyone to go to Canada to buy prescription drugs. It is to try to force a repricing of prescription drugs in this country, for if our registered pharmacists and licensed distributors can access an FDA-approved drug in Canada and bring it back and pass the savings along, it will certainly force a repricing of prescription drugs in this country. That is my goal. That is our goal. So what we have today is an amendment that will allow the reimportation, under very strict circumstances, of FDA approved prescription drugs from Canada to the United States only by licensed distributors and licensed pharmacists, and that will put downward pressure on prescription drug prices. What we also have in this Chamber, I think, are those who want to kill this because the pharmaceutical industry does not like it. I understand that. If I were the pharmaceutical industry, I would not like it either. They have the best deal in the world in the United States, but it is unfair to American consumers. It is unfair to those in this country who need prescription drugs, who need lifesaving drugs, who need these miracle drugs, and cannot afford them. So even while we put a prescription drug benefit in the Medicare plan, which I fully support, we must pass the underlying generic amendment, which also has the effect of putting downward pressure on prices. We must pass this amendment, the reimportation amendment, which gives very careful consideration to the safety issues that others have raised, and we should not fear, and we should not shrink from, the pharmaceutical manufacturers' attacks that somehow this is bad public policy. It is good public policy. They just do not like it. It is good public policy for the American consumer, and it is safe for the American consumer as well. My hope is that my colleagues will support this amendment and I strongly urge them to do so.

Mr. DORGAN. That is correct.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, how much time remains for both sides.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I yield 8 minutes to the Senator from Massachusetts.

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, how much time remains?

Mr. DORGAN. Do we know with respect to those who are yielding time to the opponents of this legislation, or at least yielding time on behalf of Senator Gregg, whether they will be using their time at this point?

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, as the Senator who offered the amendment, I reserve some time to close debate. I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Michigan.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. No. Let me just say that I heard the explanation the Senator gave, and I heard the explanation also by Senator Kennedy on the floor that, in fact, we have people who do not want to bring this bill to the floor of the Senate. They never wanted it on the floor of the Senate. They described a ``good'' bill in the House which was passed by the House. It is referred to as a credible bill. A senior with $1,000 in annual drug costs would still pay 81 percent out-of-pocket costs under a bill passed by the House. Is that a good bill? I don't think so. A senior citizen with $2,000 in yearly drug expenditures would still pay 65 percent of the cost out of their pockets. Is that a good bill? I don't think so. A senior citizen with $3,000 in annual drug costs pays 77 percent of the money out of their pocket. That is not a drug benefit that makes sense. My only point is to say there is no reason to delay. Let us just proceed with the legislation, understanding that we are going to do a bill that deals with prescription drug benefits and Medicare. Let us proceed with the amendment process. If there are representations that need to be honored, let them be honored. I think everyone understands that the chairman of the committee who brought this bill to the floor is an excellent legislator, and he works with everyone in this Chamber. I am certain that before the final consideration of this bill, the concerns that were expressed and the representations that were made in that committee, if they have not been fully met at this point, they will be met. My only point is that was a long, tortured explanation of why to delay this bill. They do not need to delay this bill. The fact is, we all understand what needs to be done. We ought to get about the business of doing it now--not later, not tomorrow, and not the day after tomorrow. It is true, as the Senator from New Hampshire said, that not too many decades ago most health care was treated under a knife. If you had a big problem, you went and had surgery. It is also true that now we have miracle, lifesaving drugs that have been created in this country, in large part by public research at the National Institutes of Health, by research funded all across America, and also by private research by pharmaceutical manufacturing companies, which, incidentally, we provide a tax credit for that research. I support that tax credit. But the fact is, we have produced miracle, lifesaving drugs and those prescription drugs are now available to people who have problems with their health. The difficulty, however, is that you can only see a miracle happen with miracle drugs, or you can only save a life with lifesaving drugs if the person who needs them can afford them. We have so many people living so much longer these days who reach their retirement years and declining income years who can't afford these lifesaving drugs. That is the reason we ought to put a prescription drug benefit in the Medicare Program. My colleague who just spoke said: Who is going to pay for this? I found that interesting because we never heard any of those questions when recently we had a bill on the floor of the Senate and we were talking about repeal of the estate tax for the highest income earners in America. One of my colleagues said: Well, at least let us just repeal it for everybody under $100 million. And only people with more than $100 million will have to pay any estate tax at all. But that wasn't good enough. They voted against that. Who is going to pay for the estate tax of people whose estates are higher than $100 million? Did anybody ask that question? No. They only ask the cost when it comes to trying to provide some help for senior citizens--those who live on $400, $500, or $600 a month who are 80 years old, have heart disease and diabetes, and who have to take several different kinds of prescription drugs and can't afford them. The two issues we are going to deal with are coverage; that is, shall we, will we, can we put a prescription drug benefit in the Medicare Program? The answer to all of those questions is yes. It is long past the time to do that. We should provide coverage for prescription drugs in the Medicare Program, but it ought not be an illusory kind of coverage. It ought not be the case that we passed the bill and let us just tell everybody we passed a bill. Is it a good bill if you have $3,000 in prescription drug costs and the House of Representatives says, oh, by the way, we have given you a prescription drug benefit and you still get to pay 70 percent of your $3,000 cost out of your pocket, and we will cover the rest? That is like giving someone a $5 coupon and saying go buy a Mercedes. It isn't worth anything. But they say: We gave a discount with the coupon. We have to provide coverage. We have to provide effective coverage that really does provide help. I have described, before, meeting many senior citizens, especially senior citizens who are affected by drug prices. One evening, at a meeting in a small town in North Dakota, at the end of a meeting a woman came up to me, perhaps 75 or 80 years old, and she grabbed me by the elbow and said: Mr. Senator, can you help me? I said: I will sure try. What is the problem? She said: Well, I have these health problems that are very serious, and my doctor says I have to take this prescription drug medicine, but I can't afford it. As she spoke, her eyes welled with tears and her chin began to quiver. She began to cry. She said: I can't afford it. I don't have the money to get the medicine the doctor says I need. This happens all across the country. We need to do something about that. That is why we want to put prescription drug coverage in the Medicare Program. The second thing we need to do--and very important, in my judgment-- is to do something that puts downward pressure on prices, because if we just put a prescription drug coverage provision in the Medicare Program and do nothing about prices, we will have done very little in the long term, because last year's prescription drug costs--that is, spending on prescription drugs--increased nearly 18 percent in this country; the year before that, 16 percent; the year before that, 17 percent. We will hook up a hose to the Federal trough and suck it dry. We can't do that. We have to provide a prescription drug benefit in the Medicare Program, one that works, one that is sensible, thoughtful, and provides real benefits to senior citizens. But if that is all we do, we have failed miserably, in my judgment. We must also put downward pressure on prescription drug prices--for the benefit not only of the Medicare Program that will be saddled with these costs, but also for the benefit of all other Americans who are also required to take these prescription drugs. Let me say--I have said it before on the floor of the Senate--we have prescription drug manufacturers that are good companies. I am not here to tarnish all companies that manufacture prescription drugs. We have some great companies out there. We have great men and women doing terrific research. Incidently, I support the tax credit they have that exists for that research, experimentation, and development. I have always supported that tax credit. So good for them. I support those companies. But I do not like their pricing policies. So I am going to offer an amendment. The underlying bill, incidentally, deals with generic drugs, the ability to substitute a virtually identical drug to be sold at a lower price. That is the underlying amendment. I support that. I and my colleagues--Senator Wellstone, Senator Stabenow, Senator Snowe, and many others--intend to offer an amendment dealing with the reimportation of prescription drugs, as well, that will put downward pressure on prescription drug prices here in this country. I do not want Americans to buy prescription drugs elsewhere. That is not the point of it. I want to force a repricing of prescription drugs in this country. I do not want to force Americans to go to Canada, for example. The question is, Why should an American citizen have to go to Canada to get a fair deal and fair price on prescription drugs that were made in America? That is the question. Let me, if I might, by unanimous consent, show several pill bottles on the floor of the Senate.

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I must say that is one of the more tortured explanations I have heard about why a bill has been delayed coming to the floor of the Senate. Of course, everyone has that right.

Mr. DORGAN. I haven't finished the first sentence. Of course, I will yield to my friend.

Mr. DORGAN. Just to make the point: This is a drug called Zocor used to lower cholesterol. In fact, there is a football coach whom you see on television almost every day in this country who talks about his heart problems. He had surgery, and now he takes Zocor for a healthier life. Zocor, likely, is a wonderful drug. You will see, it is sold in two different bottles. For this bottle, sold in the United States, it is $3.03 per tablet. If you buy it in Canada--the same drug, put in the same bottle, by the same company, FDA inspected--it is not $3.03, it is $1.12 per tablet. That is Zocor--nearly triple the price in the United States. Let me demonstrate another prescription drug and the pricing policies. This is Vioxx, used for arthritis. It is sold in identical bottles in the U.S. and Canada. It is an FDA-approved prescription drug. If you buy it in the United States, it costs $2.20 per tablet. If you buy it in Canada, it costs 78 cents per tablet. Why nearly three times the price in the United States for the U.S. consumer? Finally, if I might demonstrate one additional prescription drug, this is the prescription drug Paxil. It is used to treat depression. It is sold in identical bottles, made by the same company. It is the same tablet, produced by the same company. It costs $2.20 for the American consumer, 97 cents for the Canadian. These examples beg the question about pricing policy: Why does the U.S. consumer pay the highest price in the world? My colleague from New Hampshire said that is because we are paying for all the research and development. That is not the case. It is just not accurate. In fact, 37 percent of the research and development of prescription drugs is done in Europe; 36 percent is done in the United States. Slightly more is done in Europe than done in the United States, yet every European consumer is paying less money than the United States consumer for prescription drugs. So that is not an argument that works. They try it, and I assume we will hear it again, so we will trot out these studies again to demonstrate it is not accurate. We need to do two things, as I indicated. We need to provide a prescription drug benefit to the Medicare Program. We are going to do that, if not this week, next week. We have the patience to get this done. It needs to be effective. It cannot be what the House did, which is essentially a hollow vehicle that says: Hey, we passed a bill. They passed a bill that provides precious few benefits to senior citizens. We are going to pass a piece of legislation that has a prescription drug benefit to it. We are also going to pass some legislation--and I hope a reimportation amendment, which is bipartisan and, incidentally, received 74 votes the last time it was addressed here on the floor of the Senate. We have narrowed it and changed it so it now deals with only reimportation from Canada, which has nearly an identical chain of custody supply and then can be accessed only by licensed pharmacists and licensed distributors in the United States. So there is no safety issue. All there is, is a price issue. We are going to offer a reimportation amendment. We had 74 votes for it previously. I expect it to be added to this bill. I expect, at the end of the day, we will have done something very important: Added a prescription drug benefit in the Medicare Program and also imposed some cost containment measures. By cost containment, I am saying, let the market system and the global economy apply downward price pressure on prescription drugs. So there has been a lot said. My colleague from New Hampshire also talked about us running out of money in Social Security. I might observe that those who are trying to create privatized accounts in Social Security, and hook them to the stock market, might take a look at the market in recent days and see whether they might run out of money really quickly with their plan. I think it would be nice to debate that plan one of these days. They have been pushing for the notion of privatized accounts inside the Social Security system, which falls about $1 trillion short. They create a $1 trillion hole but then connect Social Security to the stock market. One might enjoy, it seems to me, having a discussion about the merits of that idea one of these days. There is very little enjoyment talking about what is happening in the market. This is a very important, serious issue in the country. I just wanted to make the point that there are those who talk about the Social Security problem, and I will tell you how you make that problem much worse, and that is, embrace those who want to connect the Social Security revenues to the stock market in some way. And that includes the President and those in Congress who feel they want to do that. This would be a good time, perhaps, to have a discussion about the dangers of taking the Social Security Program, which has the word ``security'' in it, and connecting it with the stock market. But getting back, finally, to the question of prescription drugs, let me say to the Senator who chairs the committee, the underlying bill you brought to the floor of the Senate is a good bill. I held a hearing on this in my Consumer Affairs Subcommittee in the Commerce Committee. This bill makes great sense. I fully support it. I hope, of course, for his support, and others', on the issue of reimportation, which is the amendment we will offer to try to impose some downward pressure on prescription drug prices. And then it is my fervent hope we find a way to do something that the House of Representatives could not or did not do, and that is to pass a prescription drug benefit in the Medicare Program that provides real benefits. There are so many people in this country, senior citizens and other citizens as well, who just cannot afford lifesaving drugs. There is nothing lifesaving about a prescription drug you need but can't afford. That is what we are trying to address in the Senate. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, in the final moments, I hope again to persuade my colleagues to accept by unanimous consent my amendment dealing with corporate bankruptcy. Let me again say what this amendment is. It says that during the 12 months preceding a bankruptcy, CEOs who have received stock options, bonuses and other performance-based payments shall not be able to keep that kind of compensation. If they ride a company down to bankruptcy, they know the inside details of that company and got incentive-based compensation, including stock options, they ought not ride off in the sunset with a pocketful of gold while the employees and investors lose everything they have. That is not the right thing. A bankruptcy disgorgement proposal ought to be part of this bill. Everyone in this Chamber knows it should be part of this bill. Former SEC Chairman Breeden, a Republican, says it ought to be in this bill. I quoted other CEOs who say it should. Pass this bill without it and this bill is incomplete. My colleague said he thought maybe the market, which has been so volatile recently, has been frightened by amendments that have been considered by Congress. I don't think so. I think the market has been volatile, up and down like a yo-yo, because we have story after story on the news in this country about financial crooks. These are crooks who have cooked the books of their corporations, cheated investors, pulled the rug out from under their employees, and ruined some good companies. They did it in broad daylight, under the nose of their accounting firms and law firms. It seems to me those CEOs who made millions, in some cases over $100 million prior to bankruptcy, ought to give that money back. That money ought to go to help those who lost their live savings and those who lost their jobs. We have in this bill a provision that says if there is a restatement of earnings, you have to give back some of these incentive-based compensation packages. However, the bill is silent on the issue of bankruptcy. What about top executives who ride their company right into the ground and run off with $50 million in their pockets and leave everyone else flat on their back? How about asking those executives to disgorge themselves of their ill-gotten gains? How about telling them in this legislation that they must give that money back? That is what my amendment would do. I want to talk about the SEC, but I don't have time at the moment. I will save that for another day. This process has been a travesty of the Senate, in my judgment, having someone as a gatekeeper and preventing us from bringing up germane amendments. It does not make sense. That is not the way the Senate is supposed to work. I ask unanimous consent to lay aside the Edwards and Carnahan amendments so I may offer amendment 4214 on bankruptcy disgorgement.

Mr. DORGAN. That will give me some time then to snoop around the cloakrooms and the corners and the nooks and crannies in the Capitol to find out who won't come to the floor and answer the question I have asked. Why will we not get a vote on the simple proposition that those corporate leaders who run their corporation into bankruptcy and who take $10, $20, $30, or $50 million out of it just prior to bankruptcy-- why will we not allow a vote on an amendment that would require them to disgorge themselves of that profit? Why should that ill-gotten gain not be used to help the employees, help the investors, help others recover, who lost everything? Why should one group in this circumstance walk off into the sunset with a pocketful of gold, leaving everyone in their wake, employees, investors, and others who lost everything they had? Perhaps in the next hour or so, I will find someone in the Chamber or in the anterooms who will say: I am the one who decided you should not get a vote because I believe that those CEOs ought to be able to get away with that money; that is the American way. My guess is the Senator from Virginia was right when he shook his head. I think this amendment passes 100 to nothing or very close to that, and I hope he and others will help me get it to a vote before 6 o'clock. Obviously I am a little irritated about the process. It stinks. That is not a genteel way to say that. But postcloture, if we have germane amendments, we should be able to be here to offer those amendments. That is not now the case. I will be here the next couple of hours trying to see if we can find a way to cause enough trouble in as short a time as possible to allow these amendments to be offered. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Parliamentary inquiry: Are we entitled, as a Senator, to 1 hour postcloture, those of us who are recognized?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, we are in a postcloture period of some 30 hours. I understand we will complete that at 6 o'clock or so this afternoon. What is happening here is really an outrage, from my standpoint. We are in postcloture. I have a germane amendment. I have been here every single day since this bill came to the floor of the Senate prepared and ready to offer my amendment. Now, postcloture, I have a germane amendment. And the only way, apparently, that I can offer my amendment is if the Senator from Texas is willing to allow me to offer it. That is not the way the Senate should work. I want to briefly describe my amendment. My amendment requires the disgorgement of profits, bonuses, incentives and so on that the CEOs of corporations receive 12 months prior to bankruptcy. That is not in the bill at the present time. It ought to be in the bill. The bill contains a disgorgement provision requiring the return of incentives and bonus payments received prior to a restatement of earnings. I support that being in the bill, but there is nothing about the requirement to divest all those bonuses and incentive payments 12 months prior to bankruptcy. That ought to be in this bill. Let me describe some of the problems that we are dealing with. We have been holding some hearings over in the Commerce Committee on the subject of Enron. Here is what some Enron officers got before Enron went bankrupt: Kenneth Lay, $101 million; Ken Rice, $72.7 million; Jeffrey Skilling, $66.9 million; Stan Horton, $45 million; Andy Fastow, $30.4 million. They did pretty well at the top. Of course, they have already filed bankruptcy with their corporation. Should some of this be given back? I have a constituent in North Dakota who wrote to me and said: I worked for Enron for a good many years. I built up a retirement fund of $330,000. It is now worth $1,700. That was my family's retirement fund. What am I to do? I have lost it all. But not everybody lost it all with respect to Enron. Those close to the top made a fortune, and the folks at the bottom lost their shirts. Most of the investors and employees lost everything. The question I ask with my amendment is, Should we include a provision in this bill that requires the give-back of this unwarranted compensation in the form of bonuses, incentives, and various things 12 months prior to bankruptcy? The answer is, of course, we should require it. We ought not to be debating this. This amendment ought to be accepted. Let me describe some of the other folks who believe this ought to be done. Mr. Richard Breeden, former SEC Chairman from 1989-1993 says: We have long required officers and directors to disgorge ``short-swing'' profits for purchases and sales within a six- month period . . . we should consider disgorgement to the company of any net proceeds of stock sales or option exercises within six-months or a year prior to bankruptcy filing. That is Mr. Breeden, former SEC Chairman. Henry Paulson, CEO, Goldman Sachs, who worked in the Nixon administration, said: The business community has been given a black eye by the activities of and behavior of some CEOs and other notable insiders who sold large numbers of shares just before dramatic declines in their companies' share prices . . . in the case of CEOs and other inside directors, we should raise the bar and mandate a one year ``claw-back'' in the case of bankruptcy, regardless of the reason. He is right. This bill doesn't require it. There is no ``claw-back'' in this bill. There ought to be 1 year prior to bankruptcy. I don't mean to diminish the importance of other issues that we have just discussed. The other issues are very important. On the issue of how stock options are treated, in 1994, I was one of nine Senators who voted against the proposal back then that would handcuff FASB. I come to that issue with fairly clean hands. Let me say that while that issue is important, I have been here every single day this bill has been on the floor to offer this simple amendment on disgorgement in the face of bankruptcies. If there are people in corporations at the top of those companies who make $100 million or $70 million or $50 million, and then the company files for bankruptcy, do you not believe that some of that ought to be required to be given back? The folks at the bottom lost everything they had. They lost their life savings. They lost everything, and the folks at the top got rich. Shouldn't there be a requirement in this bill to disgorge those profits? Does anybody think that is unreasonable? The Senator from Texas left the Chamber as I was beginning to speak. I was hoping I might get his attention. But as I understand where we are, we have a first- and a second-degree amendment. The first-degree amendment is the Edwards amendment. It is followed by a second-degree amendment, which is the Carnahan amendment. In order for anyone to offer an amendment postcloture today, we must ask consent to set aside these amendments so we can offer our amendment. My understanding is, if someone here does not agree with that, then he can prevent that from happening. My understanding is that that is precisely what would happen. So the result is, for the next 5 hours, we will have gatekeepers who require us to say: Captain, may I? May I offer an amendment? And they will say: No, you may not. We will not allow the setting aside of the pending amendments. So we will limp along to the end of the 30 hours not being able to offer germane amendments to this bill. It is outrageous, simply an outrageous process that puts us here. I think there will be a good number of Members of the Senate who, in the future, will consider this and find ways to avoid our being put in this position again. But what I would like to do is have a debate about this amendment at some point. And perhaps there are people in the Senate who want to stand up and say: Do you know what I think? I think if somebody takes home $50 or $80 million 6 months before bankruptcy, in the form of incentive payments and bonuses, they ought to be able to keep it, even if they drove this company right straight into the ground. Is there one person who will stand up in the Senate today to support that? Does one person want to support that position? Well, we will see. In the year before the Enron Corporation filed for bankruptcy, Kenneth Lay, the chairman of that company, and 140 other company officials received $310 million in salaries, bonuses, long-term incentives, loan advances, and other payments. Does anybody here want to stand up and say: ``That makes a lot of sense.''? Anybody? Does anybody agree they should keep all that money? Do we hear nothing because they don't have the floor, or is it that nobody here believes the top officials of Enron should keep $310 million prior to filing for bankruptcy, where their employees lost they jobs, lost their life savings in their 401(k)s, their investors lost their money? How about NTL, Incorporated? It is a Manhattan TV cable operator that filed for bankruptcy in May, just several months after it gave its chief executive officer $18.9 million. It made him one of the 30 highest paid CEOs in New York, putting him ahead of IBM's Louis Gerstner. That company had $14 billion in losses. And the CEO, Mr. Knapp, had a salary of $277,000, a bonus of $561,000, and stock options worth $18 million. So does anybody here think he ought to keep all that money, just let the investors and the employees lose, but the people at the top keep it--just walk away on some gilded, golden carpet? There are plenty of other examples, of course. In recent months, we have heard all of these discussions about what has happened at the top in the boardroom by companies that wanted to find the line, and then go right to it, and then go across it, if they could. And there are accounting firms that were the enablers, who said: Yes, go ahead and do that. And the law firms were on the side, collecting big fees, saying: Yes, go ahead and do that--and the CEOs without moral conscience. The result is, they got rich and the little folks got broke. My amendment is very simple. My amendment says that 1 year prior to bankruptcy, if you are getting the big bucks, big bonuses, big incentives, big stock options, and you want to take off with $50 or $100 million, and leave everybody else flat on their back, you cannot do it; you have to give it back. Very simple. No one can misunderstand the amendment. This amendment is not strange or foreign to anyone. This bill will fall short of the mark, this bill will be incomplete, if we just proceed now to the final vote this afternoon and we are told: You cannot offer this amendment. We will not consider this amendment. And we do not want to require the give-back of millions of dollars by CEOs who receive that money prior to bankruptcy. If that is the message this Senate sends from this bill this afternoon, this Senate has a lot of explaining to do. We came to this debate with great promise. I have been to the floor a couple of times complimenting the Banking Committee, complimenting all on the Banking Committee who worked to put this bill together. But I said there were areas where it needed to be improved. This is one of them. This is the lightest load you will ever be asked to carry, in my judgment, to support an amendment of this type: The disgorgement of ill-earned profits by CEOs who led their corporations to bankruptcy but waltzed off with millions of dollars in their pockets and left everyone else--the bondholders, the stockholders, the employees--holding the bag. This is not heavy lifting, to do this amendment. It is absurd if the Senate says: No, we will have nothing to do with that. Our position is, let's call this corporate responsibility. Let's change the accounting standards. But, by the way, let's let those people who essentially looted the corporation from the top--drove it into bankruptcy, and then left town--let's give them a big wave and say: So long, God bless you, and I hope your future is a good one with all those millions of dollars. If we do that, this Senate has a lot of explaining to do. A good many corporate leaders, respected business officials in this country, have said this must be in a bill, this should be in a bill, there is no excuse for it not being in a bill. So I have amendment No. 4214 at the desk. Let me ask unanimous consent that we set aside the Carnahan amendment, which is a second- degree amendment to the Edwards amendment, for the purpose of allowing consideration of amendment No. 4214. Let me make the first unanimous consent request first. I ask unanimous consent that we set aside the Carnahan second-degree amendment for the purpose of considering my amendment.

Mr. DORGAN. Reserving the right to object, Mr. President, the Senator from Michigan is claiming his 1 hour. I understand he has been yielding back and forth. I assume we could, under these circumstances, have one Senator run the entire 30 hours, as long as they keep yielding to other Senators. There are others of us, of course, who want to be heard and who want to offer amendments.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me say, again, I think the process is an outrage--an outrage. We are in a situation today where we have 4 or 5 hours left postcloture, and we are told that no one in the Senate has a right to offer an amendment because someone has set himself up as a gatekeeper saying: I will object to setting aside the Carnahan second- degree amendment. What kind of a way is that to legislate? Is someone afraid he will lose on this amendment, that he will lose the vote? Is that the purpose of the objection, that he is afraid we will have a vote, Senators will vote for my amendment, and therefore he will lose, so the words ``I object'' become a proxy for avoiding a loss on an important amendment? How many votes do you think would exist in the Senate for saying: We want to enable CEOs, who ran the corporation into the ground and took $20 million out and then filed bankruptcy, to keep the money; we want them to keep the bonus, to keep the stock option, to keep the commission payment, to keep the money? How many votes do you think exist for that? Ten, maybe 12? Probably zero. I think the Senator from Virginia is correct. Probably no one would stand up and support that proposition. So the question is why are we not allowing amendments to be voted on this afternoon? I would be happy to yield to someone to answer that. Is there someone who can answer that? Perhaps we could find out on whose behalf the Senator from Wyoming objected. How much time do I have remaining?

Mr. DORGAN. Several of my colleagues wish to speak. I want them to be able to speak. I hope they will offer amendments. I will guarantee them this: I will not be objecting to an amendment if they want to offer them. They have a right to offer an amendment today. They have a right to get a vote on the amendment. I will not object to that. The parliamentary inquiry is, I have just made a unanimous consent request that has been objected to. Am I prevented from making an identical request following the presentation by the two Senators on the floor?

Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, will the Senator yield for a brief question?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, this is, of course, the last chapter on amendments, and a pretty sad book. I know people will go up to the gallery--and I understand someone is at a press conference from the other side--claiming credit for this bill. I want to know who wants to run up to the press conference and claim credit for preventing an amendment that says you must disgorge ill-gotten gains, incentive-based compensation, if you ran a company into bankruptcy. I want somebody to go to the press gallery and take credit for blocking that kind of legislation. Tomorrow I want to read about it. Who takes credit? Someone ought to take credit for blocking an amendment that ought to be passed in the Senate by a 100 to zero vote.

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, the Senator from Massachusetts has just propounded a unanimous consent request on an amendment that makes good sense to me, and it certainly should be added to this bill. I assume it is a germane amendment. We are postcloture. At the very least, he should have gotten a vote on the amendment. But I wonder if the Senator from Massachusetts knows that this has gone on all afternoon. I offered an amendment a couple of hours ago that was simple and germane. It should have had a vote. It said that if the CEOs and directors of a corporation waltz out the door with millions of dollars of bonuses, stock options, and incentive pay, and then the company goes bankrupt, they have to give it back. I couldn't get that amendment up for a vote because of the same objection. I wonder if the Senator from Massachusetts might conclude from this that the things here in the final hour which are germane have a right to be considered and heard on behalf of the workers and the shareholders and the folks who didn't get rich but the folks who lost everything. I wonder if there is not a pattern here that the Senator from Massachusetts sees and that others see to shut down those amendments and protect the folks at the top while the folks at the bottom lost everything.

Mr. DORGAN. How much time remains?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, perhaps the Senator from Texas would like a explanation.