Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet on Wednesday, June 12, 2002, at 2:30 p.m. on the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, June 12, 2002, at 2:30 p.m. to hold a closed hearing on the joint inquiry into the events of September 11, 2001.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to meet on Wednesday, June 12, 2002, at 9:30 a.m. to hold a hearing to receive testimony further analyzing the benefits and costs of multi-pollutant legislation. The hearing will be held in SD-406.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet on Wednesday, June 12, 2002 at 9:30 a.m. for the purpose of holding a hearing entitled ``Protecting Our Kids: What is Causing the Current Shortage in Childhood Vaccines?''

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing on ``The Criminal Justice System and Mentally Ill Offenders'' on Wednesday, June 12, 2002, in Dirksen room 226 at 9 a.m. Agenda Witnesses Panel I: The Honorable George Ryan, Governor of the State of Illinois. Panel II: The Honorable Matt Bettenhausen, Illinois Deputy Governor for Criminal Justice Policy, Executive Director, Illinois Governor's Commission on Capital Punishment; Donald Hubert, Esq., Donald Hubert & Associates, Chicago, IL, Member, Illinois Governor's Commission on Capital Punishment; John J. Kinsella, Esq., First Assistant State's Attorney, DuPage County, IL; Professor Larry Marshall, Northwestern University Law School, Legal Director, Center on Wrongful Convictions; Kent Scheidegger, Legal Director, Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, Sacramento, CA; Scott Turow, Esq., Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal, Chicago, IL, Member, Illinois Governor's Commission on Capital Punishment; and Druanne D. White, Esq., Solicitor, Tenth Judicial Circuit, South Carolina.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, how much time remains on each side?

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, inform me of the time remaining on both sides.

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, my amendment is cosponsored by Senators Durbin, Carnahan, Corzine, and Stabenow. Let me respond to some of the discussion we just heard. I have great respect for my friend from Arizona. I have listened to him with great interest in previous debates about repealing the estate tax. He believes passionately that we ought to get rid of the estate tax and makes the case for it. But I was reminded when I heard his discussion of my amendment of Mark Twain who was asked once if he would be willing to engage in a debate. He said: Of course, I would--as long as I can take the negative side. They said: We have not told you the subject of the debate. He said: It doesn't matter. The negative side will take no preparation. It is easy. It is inherently easy to oppose things. The way the opposition renders this amendment is almost indescribable to me. I am the one offering the amendment. But the interesting discussion that incorrectly describes this amendment needs some correction. Let me begin by talking about why we are here and what this debate is about. Then I will describe my amendment. We are here because our country, a little more than a year ago, decided on a new kind of fiscal policy. Those who seemed to think they knew saw surpluses for years and years ahead--surpluses as far as the eye could see for the Federal budget. They said that because we have all of these surpluses that stack up in the future, let us cut taxes and let us do it right now. By the way, they said, let us cut the estate tax sequentially so in the year 2010 it will be completely repealed. It is true that the goofy kind of proposal finally offered and passed into law takes the estate tax right up to the repeal in 2010, and then reinstates it in 2011. Historians will scratch their heads for some while when they evaluate what was done a year ago on estate tax. Our colleagues who want to repeal the estate tax forever because they said we are going to have these large and continuing budget surpluses say, although they wanted to reinstate it in 2011, they now want to make that repeal permanent. Of course, over a year later, things are different. We don't see surpluses as far as the eye can see. Yesterday, the Senate had to consider an increase in the debt limit. Why? Because surpluses have turned to deficits. The country has an economy that is in some trouble. We now have deficits for some years into the future. Yet my friends on the other side of the aisle are coming to the Senate saying: Oh, by the way. Our urgent priority is to permanently repeal the estate tax. Let us evaluate what these priorities are about. Do we have a priority, for example, to try to help people at the bottom of the economic ladder in this country--people who are working for the minimum wage who haven't seen an increase for years and have seen the value of that minimum wage eroded? Do we have an obligation to them? Is that a priority? No. It is not a priority for some. They do not want that question on the floor of the Senate. Do we have a priority to see if we can't do something about people who do not have health insurance--over 40 million people who tonight may find their child is sick, discover they do not have any money in their pocket or in their bank account to help take care of their child? Do we have a priority to deal with sick children and people who do not have the capability of providing health insurance for their children? No. That is not a priority for some. How about schools? Are schools a priority? I have spoken on the floor of the Senate many times about schools. I toured a school populated largely by American Indians. But it is a public school district. And a little girl in the third grade named Rosie Two Bears looked up at me and said: Mr. Senator, will you be able to build us a new school? Do you know why they needed a new school? Because there are 150 kids and two toilets and one water fountain. They were holding classes in a basement room in a building that had been condemned long ago. Two or three times a week they had to evacuate that classroom because sewer gas was backing up in the classroom. Rosie Two Bears wanted to know if her Senator could build her a new school. Incredibly, the answer is we don't build new schools. But the question is, Is education a priority for that young girl and others around the country? Not for some--that is not on the floor of the Senate. This isn't about helping people at the bottom of the economic ladder. This is not helping to address the issue of health care costs, or lack of health care coverage, or lack of insurance for some American families--nearly 40 million of them. This is not about improving American schools. No. This issue is different than that. This issue is saying, let us permanently repeal the estate tax. How narrow is this? Let me describe the amendment I am offering and that I offered last year which got 43 votes. Those who now speak loudly about the need to repeal the estate tax voted against my amendment last year. My amendment said the following: It said, let us have a $4 million exemption per estate--$8 million for husband and wife. If you have fewer assets than $8 million, you pay no estate tax under any circumstance. My amendment also said, by the way, this issue that the other side continually says persuaded them to deal with the estate tax--that is, the inability to pass a family farm or a small business from the parents to the kids--let us totally repeal the estate tax for the passage of a family farm or business. If it is family owned, the parents die, and the kids want to keep running it, I say don't interrupt the transfer of that business. Let us not have the kids inherit a business and a crippling estate tax. Let us allow them to inherit the business exempt from the estate tax, if they want to keep running it. This says no estate tax at all. Repeal it for the transfer of a business from parents to children who want to keep running it. It is very simple. We will do it in 2003. I offered that amendment last year. Those who come to the floor of the Senate and say they are persuaded to propose a permanent repeal of the estate tax because they care so much about family businesses and the transfer of family assets to the kids who want to run the business are the ones who voted against my amendment. This amendment will provide that repeal next year. Their proposal would provide the repeal some 7 years later. One wonders whether they care less about this issue and more about repealing the estate tax for the wealthiest Americans. Or do they really care about family businesses and family farms? If so, this is the amendment to support. Let me talk a little bit about privilege and those at the upper end of the economic ladder. I think it is terrific that in this country people do well. In fact, we have some innovative geniuses in this country who have done very well. One-half of the world's billionaires live here, and good for them. But let me talk about the question of whether our priority at this point--given the kind of Federal budget deficits we have and the kind of economic problems we have--ought to be to bring to the floor of the Senate a billionaire tax relief package. Because that is what this is. This is all about, let's cut taxes for billionaires. And you can describe it however you want. You can put all kinds of seasoning in it. You can stir it up, boil it; you can do whatever you want with it. Just strip it away, it is a tax cut for billionaires, when we have very big Federal deficits and when we have other priorities that some in this Chamber want to ignore. Let me talk about some of these issues. Here shown on this chart are people who are going to benefit from the proposal on the floor of the Senate to permanently repeal the estate tax. That is why I want to amend it, so we don't repeal the estate tax for everybody. The chief executive officers of our corporations in this country, in 1980, made 42 times the amount of money that the average worker made. Twenty years later, they made 531 times the money the average worker made. That is who is going to benefit from what the minority is proposing here today. In 1981, the average compensation of the 10 highest paid CEOs in a U.S. corporation was $3.5 million. I come from a town of 300 people, a small high school class of nine. I happen to think $3.5 million is a lot of money. So is $3.5 million a year in compensation. That was 20 years ago. Do you know what it is today for the 10 highest paid CEOs in the country? It is $155 million a year. That is who benefits from this tax cut. That is what this debate is all about. They say that these folks pay too much in taxes, so they want an estate tax repeal even including the highest income earners in our country. And they will do that at the expense of all the other priorities that exist in this country. I say, yes, let's repeal the estate tax for the passage of family-run businesses and farms. Let's provide an $8 million threshold for families, below which you will pay no estate tax. But if you are fortunate enough to have tens and hundreds of millions and billions of dollars, I think it is important to understand a couple things. One, most of that has never ever been taxed. Most of it comes from the growth appreciation on assets and has never been subject to a tax. And, yes, I think your descendents ought to get a fair part of that. But I also think this country ought to capture part of that and use it to invest in our kids, invest in education, invest in the solvency of Social Security, invest in the solvency of Medicare, to strengthen this country. That is what I think ought to happen. Let's talk about compensation just for a minute. I mentioned some of the compensation that exists for individuals. I have a chart that shows the 1-year compensation in the year 2000. These are the people, incidentally, who are the beneficiaries of this proposal. And I guess I don't know of a time when I have heard people come to the floor of the Senate and say: I know we face a big budget deficit, I know our economy is in some trouble, I know we have other priorities--education, health care, and other things--but our priority is to provide a tax cut for the wealthiest Americans. These figures--$290 million, $225 million, $157 million--these are individual compensation numbers in the year 2000 for people who ran America's corporations. These are the people who will ultimately benefit from repealing the estate tax. We have a lot of folks out there in this country who are working hard, trying to do the best job they can. Look, they are never going to pay an estate tax. They are not going to have $8 million, as provided under my amendment. But their proposal today is to say $8 million isn't enough of a threshold; we need to be able to exempt those who have $20 billion, those who have $2 billion, those who have $500 million in assets, so none of those assets can ever be used to help America's children, to invest in America's schools, to strengthen Social Security, to strengthen Medicare, and to do the other things we also know are necessary. So my amendment, as indicated, is very simple. It was described in a tortured way by my colleague from Arizona. He said: Well, you know, if you try to exempt family businesses and family farms, you run into this web of complexity. A web of complexity, he calls it. So the result is, we have to exempt from the estate tax billionaires in order to solve the issue of family farms and family businesses? I don't think so. I think if you go into any store in the county, they call that a bait and switch. You come out to the floor of the Senate and say: Look, our mission is very simple. Our mission is in support of family farms and small businesses. That is what we are trying to do, to get rid of the crippling estate tax that exists on the transfer of a business or a farm from the parents to the kids. I say, if that is your mission, then I am with you. Let's repeal the estate tax for the transfer of that property. The kids want to run the business? It is fine with me. I don't think we ought to shut the business down. I don't think we ought to load the business with an estate tax debt. I think the parents ought to be able to move that business to the kids upon the death of the parents with no estate tax obligation at all. And that is what my amendment does. No amount of arm waving in this Chamber can obscure the fact that we have an exemption that is workable. It has only been in existence since 1997, I might say. It was described as QFOBI, which is an acronym. We use too many acronyms in this town. The fact is, if you have spent the last couple of years of your career talking about protecting small businesses and family farms, and its passage to the kids, then don't vote against this amendment and say to folks back home: Oh, by the way, it was too complicated. This amendment I offer does two things. It provides an $8 million unified credit threshold for a husband and wife, below which there is no estate tax. It is repealed for everybody below $8 million in assets, husband and wife. And second, and most important to me, is that family businesses, regardless of size, if transferred to the kids--and if those kids continue to run those family businesses--will be exempt from the estate tax; and, no, not in 2010, but in 2003. You see, the problem with the proposal offered by the other side, first of all, is they propose a complete repeal, but it just kind of dribbles along, as with most of their proposal; they just dribble it out over a period of time. If it is worthy to say, let's not interrupt the transfer of a family business, so the kids can continue to operate it without an estate tax obligation--let's do it next year. If you don't want to do it next year, then vote against our amendment, but don't you go home and say you stood for family businesses and family farms. Don't you dare do that, because voting against this amendment, just as many of you did last year--we got 43 votes in favor--voting against it is to say to folks back home: No, I want you to wait 7 or 8 years for the relief that was offered permanently in this amendment for family businesses and family farms.

Mr. DORGAN. I am happy to yield.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Missouri.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, today the Senate voted to increase the debt limit by $450 billion. I agree with many of my colleagues that raising the debt limit is the responsible thing to do. We must protect the full faith and credit of the United States government and we are dangerously close to debt limit. The Department of Treasury has already used extraordinary measures to avoid a default. The time for action is now. However, I also believe that we must put pressure on the Congress and the Administration to find solutions to our budget problem. We must work together to restore fiscal discipline to the Federal government. The bill approved by the Senate would raise the debt limit by $450 billion which will provide sufficient funds for the government to operate through next spring. I opposed this increase. I would have supported a smaller increase in the debt limit--$150 billion, for example--that would prevent a default but would force an agreement on our budget issues this fall. It would have given us leverage to force a solution to our budget problems. The debt limit must be raised. It is the responsible thing to do. However, a smaller increase would have kept the pressure on the Congress and the Administration to come to agreement on a long term solution to put our fiscal policy back in touch and develop a plan to eliminate our budget deficits.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, in recent months I have been conducting hearings in the subcommittee that I chair and the Commerce Committee on the issue of the Enron scandal. While conducting those hearings, I received a letter from a constituent of mine in North Dakota. That constituent said he had been an employee of the Enron Corporation for a good number of years and had $330,000 in his 401(k) retirement account, invested in Enron stock. And then, of course, Enron collapsed. Now that $330,000 is worth $1,700. The folks at the top of Enron made a fortune and got away with their fortune, and the company collapsed, the employees lost their shirts, and the investors lost their shirts. It is another case of the big doing very well, and the little losing everything they had. It reminds me of the verse in a song by Bob Wells and the Texas Playboys from the 1930s: Little guy picks the cotton, the big guy gets the money. The little bee sucks the blossom, the big bee gets the honey. That is what is going on too often in this country. I am more and more dismayed by what I am reading in the business pages, about the scandals at the top levels of a number of corporations in America. I have been reading especially in recent days about Dennis Kozlowski, CEO of Tyco International. Mr. Kozlowski resigned under criminal indictment for tax evasion, but he has been criticized for some time for the way his company was playing games with his books. Now, I don't know him. I have never met him. I did not know much about his company until it started making news. But Tyco's problems are another troubling sign about the state of our system of capitalism, the system by which companies accumulate money in a corporate structure, and the system by which people are compensated for their performance. I will speak about this in a moment. But first let me mention another aspect that troubles me about Tyco's story. Because Tyco is one of those companies that, recently, decided to move its corporate headquarters off-shore, to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. In the middle of a war against terrorism, it is unconscionable for an American corporation to forsake its country and move off-shore--in a so-called ``inversion''--to avoid paying taxes. It really raises questions of patriotism, in my judgment. Who do they think should fight this war on terrorism? Who do they think ought to pay for the war against terrorism? Who do they think protects their assets and their company and their business? They want the protection of the U.S. military, but they do not want to pay for it. Tyco is one of the world's largest manufacturers and services of electrical and electronic components, as well as undersea telecommunications systems, the largest manufacturer of fire protection, and electronic security services. Mr. Kozlowski resigned because, according to the allegations, he evaded more than $1 million in sales taxes on works of art that he acquired by Renoir, Monet, and others. I am very interested in the information that has come to light after Mr. Kozlowski's resignation, criticism of the way he ran the company. He became CEO of Tyco in 1992. He was an accountant by training. In 1997, he moved Tyco headquarters from New Hampshire to Bermuda, as I mentioned. During the late 1990s, the company was in the eyes of many a very successful company. Tyco grew at an amazing pace, and Mr. Kozlowski made a killing on the sale of company stock and stock options. In fact, over the past 4 years, this fellow made $325 million in compensation. Then in 1999, the SEC started to investigate allegations that Tyco was engaged in ``questionable'' accounting practices. Mr. Kozlowski claimed to have done nothing wrong. He said publicly he was not about to sell off the stock in his company. According to filings with the SEC, however, he sold nearly $100 million of his stock as compensation in the year 2000 alone. The Tyco stock started to drop rapidly. Tyco disclosed Mr. Kozlowski repaid $70 million in loans to Tyco--using company stock. Tyco shares lost $50 billion in January of this year. Last December, the value of this stock was $60; last night, $14. So it is the little guys, the investors, the folks who put their money in Tyco stock who did not do very well. Mr. Kozlowski got $325 million in compensation over a 4-year period. I have been reading about this day after day after day, and it reminded me of the movie, ``Wall Street.'' That movie had an infamous character played by Michael Douglas, named Gordon Gekko. And that character delivered the often quoted words: ``Greed is good. Greed is right. Greed works. And greed, mark my words, will save . . . that malfunctioning corporation called the USA.'' That movie came out in 1987. By today's standards, Gordon Gekko seems like a Boy Scout. The average compensation of the 10 highest paid chief executive officers in America, 20 years ago, was $3.5 million. That was their average compensation. Mr. President, $3.5 million a year was a pretty good compensation package then, and it would be a pretty good package today. But do you know what it is today? It is $150 million. The average compensation of the 10 most highly compensated CEOs in the country is $150 million a year. Here is a list of some of the compensation paid to CEOs in the year 2000: $290 million, $225 million, $157 million. These are yearly compensation figures. In the 1980s, when the movie ``Wall Street'' came out and Gordon Gekko was saying that greed was good, the average pay of a corporation head was about 42 times the pay of the average worker. Today, a CEO's pay is about 531 times greater than that of the average employee working for the corporation. In one of my hearings on the Enron Corporation we found that Mr. Fastow, who was the CFO of the Enron Corporation, had a little partnership deal that he constructed. Even as an employee of the corporation--highly paid, I might add--he constructed partnerships, that were attached to the corporation, in which he had equity pieces and then got a commission to manage. He put $25,000 of his own money into one of these partnerships, and 60 days later took out $4.5 million. I come from a really small town--300 people--with a very small school--9 in my senior class. But it does not take higher math to understand what cheating is all about. The hearings I have held on the Enron Corporation have described a culture of corruption and cheating and, in my judgment, criminal activities. The hearings I have conducted on Enron with respect to West Coast electricity pricing suggest to me rigging of electricity prices to the tune of billions, perhaps tens of billions, of dollars. There is something rotten going on inside some of these corporations--not all of them, but some of them. And who stands to lose? The big guys make off with millions and millions of dollars--in most cases tens and hundreds of millions of dollars--and the little people lose their shirt. If I might show some additional charts that describe this saga. The pay of American corporate executives is not even related to performance anymore. CEO pay was up 7 percent last year. Profits are down 35 percent. What kind of business do you see that in? The worse they do, the more they make? What kind of accountability exists with respect to the stockholders across this country, the moms and pops who have put their money in their retirement accounts in these companies, believing these people are doing a good job? I mentioned Enron because I have spent a lot of time on that issue. In 1998 the president was Mr. Ken Lay, who claimed not to have the foggiest idea of what was going on inside his company. If ever there was an ``Onward through the fog'' voice from a CEO, it came from Mr. Lay. But he got $101 million in compensation for his services, through his sale of Enron stock. Jeffrey Skilling testified before my subcommittee for about 6 hours. Nobody had the foggiest idea what he said. He apparently served in that corporation as one of its top executives. He heard nothing, saw nothing, participated in nothing, and decided he did not want to be a part of it anymore. It was the most byzantine hearing I ever held in my life. Here is a guy who claimed to be oblivious to fraud of the largest scale, and walked away from the company with $70 million in stock. A couple of weeks ago the CEO of Adelphia, the sixth largest cable company in the country, resigned. We now discover, as a result of the 10-K financial statements that are filed with regulators, that Adelphia had $2.3 billion in debt, that was hidden off the balance sheet. Most of that was owed to companies that the CEO's family controlled, and that could not be paid back--$2.3 billion. Almost all across this country now, workers in corporations--that is, the folks who make corporations function--are discovering that they no longer have defined benefit pension programs. That used to be the bulk of the pension programs. Now it is diminished to less than a fourth. While the workers in a corporation are discovering the erosion of their pensions, the compensation at the top of these corporations is skyrocketing, in no relationship to how the corporation is doing. This next chart also shows something interesting, and deeply troubling. The corporations in this country are paying a smaller and smaller percentage of the tax burden in our country. Payroll taxes-- which hit the lowest wage earners in the country much harder than the top wage earners in the country--are growing as a portion of our tax burden. And these corporations, as I mentioned, are now increasingly looking to save taxes by renouncing their U.S. citizenship. I know many corporations are responsible, and would never consider running off to Bermuda to avoid taxes. But some of them are doing so, and shame on them. Where is their sense of patriotism here? We are at war against terrorism, and we have corporations making a decision they don't want to be American anymore, they don't want to have an American identity, because to do so you have to pay taxes and pay a portion of the cost of the burden of government, which includes providing for the common defense and paying the wages and salaries of the men and women and the equipment in our armed services. Shame on people who think like that. Franklin Roosevelt, in one of his fireside chats, said: Not all of us can have the privilege of fighting our enemies in distant parts of the world. Not all of us can have the privilege of working in a munitions factory or a shipyard, or on the farms or in the oil fields or mines, producing the weapons or raw materials that are needed by our Armed Forces. But there is one front and one battle where everyone in the United States--every man, woman and child is in action. . . . .That front is right here at home, in our daily lives, and in our daily tasks. Here at home, everyone will have the privilege of making whatever self-denial is necessary, not only to supply our fighting men [and women], but to keep the economic structure of our country fortified and secure. . . . When I read this and compare it to the stories about American companies moving their headquarters to a mailbox in Bermuda just to avoid paying taxes, I say shame on them. I think we have to begin to think, here in the Congress: What do we do about the crisis in corporate governance in an increasing number of American firms? Where will it go? When the average corporate executive in this country is now making 530 times the average compensation of workers in the corporation, isn't there something wrong here? We have seen speculative bubbles recently, bubbles that are unhealthy in our economy. Is this not just another unhealthy bubble that is going to break at some point? Will the American people trust corporate governance when we have people at the top who are taking hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars out themselves and are not worried about the long-term financial solvency of the corporation, but worried only about what their compensation does relative to the stock value in the next quarter? Because their compensation is tied to short-term stock prices, they may have $50 million, $100 million, or $200 million at stake for them personally. Will the American people trust corporate governance when we see corporate executives such as Mr. Lay, Mr. Skilling, Mr. Fastow, and others cashing out and putting millions and millions into their bank accounts even as they are telling employees, ``Hold onto your stock. Tomorrow is going to be a better day. Our future is brighter. Hang onto your stock, don't sell''--even as they are furiously selling off their shares privately in order to enrich themselves? There are some legislative measures that we ought to consider, in my judgement. I will talk more about them later. Today, I wanted to raise some public questions about the state of corporate governance in our country, and the erosion in confidence in our economic system. And to say that we have some work to do on this issue. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, will the Senator from Hawaii yield for a unanimous consent request?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following the presentation by the Senator from Hawaii, I be recognized for 20 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Again, let me make the point that coming to this point in time and saying that the amendments that the Parliamentarian says are not germane represents some distinction that has relevance when we have offered these prior to cloture, I understand technically why this is being done but substantively it is unfair, in my judgment. The Senator talks about the unfairness of coming to the end of this process and having a managers' package that has a bushel of paper attached to it. There is another unfairness that exists as well, and that unfairness is being perpetrated by those who come to the floor and create artificial distinctions at the twelfth hour and they say, oh, now, by the way, something that has previously been approved to we object to, especially in circumstances where we thought this amendment had already been approved. I think we can get by with this once, but it will not happen again, in my judgment, because there are other ways to deal with it. I say to my colleague from Texas, I think it is unfair. He has a right to object, of course, but I think it is unfair, and I hope he will not ask similar consideration some day.

Mr. DORGAN. Of course I will yield.

Mr. DORGAN. Yes. Mr. President, exceptions will require some judgment I agree, but the migraine headache around here for a number of people has been that managers' packages include things other than technical amendments. My point is, this amendment is technical, has been agreed to by everybody, was offered precloture. I understand it would require some judgment, amendment by amendment, to deal with these, but it seems to me that is why we are here. But if the objection stands, I guess I accept that. We will be back, and I guess we will pass it at some point in the future. I will make the final point. I do not think we ought to be here again on some future bill having just a couple of people deciding what they are going to accept, even in circumstances where purely technical amendments which have been approved previously by Republicans and Democrats in the Senate are going to fall. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. The Senator from New Jersey is correct.

Mr. DORGAN. Is that correct?

Mr. DORGAN. Well, I am asking consent if my colleagues might not agree to include 3689. The Republicans and the Democrats have previously accepted it. It does not spend a dime. Can we not, with respect to this distinction, agree to accept this amendment?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I thought I yielded to the Senator from Arizona.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I want to make a very brief point. If my colleague from Arizona, Senator McCain, would listen, I say to the Senator, a while back he talked about a managers' amendment should be purely technical amendments. I wanted to make a point. The arbitrary distinction of nongermaneness at this late hour is something I think is going to throw away some amendments that should have been adopted. An amendment, for example, that I offered, 3689, was offered prior to cloture. It is purely technical, has no money attached to it, is out of previously appropriated funds that deals with two transmission studies. It corrects an error that existed in prior legislation. So it is purely technical and no one would argue it is not technical. Creating an arbitrary distinction of saying those things that are nongermane shall not be considered means that those small issues I have offered previously, for example, in this amendment, that was approved by both the minority and the majority, they said to me, yes, this is fine, we accept the amendment, this kind of an amendment that is purely technical now falls because of an arbitrary distinction that we say nongermane amendments are gone. I only want to make the point to my friend from Arizona, I agree with him on a lot of issues but this clearly is technical; it is clearly something that should be a part of the managers' package and was agreed to by both the majority and minority and now is going to fall under this arbitrary distinction at midnight. I do not think that is fair.

Mr. DORGAN. I agree with both my colleagues that this matter needs to be resolved. I understand that the Postal Service has been in contact with the hospital's administrator to arrange a meeting to review the data supporting the reimbursement request. The Postal Service informs me that this is a necessary step as any funds the Postal Service pays to any entity are subject to an audit by the Postal Inspector General. I am confident that once this review is completed, this issue will be resolved to the satisfaction of the parties involved.

Mr. DORGAN. I understand objection has been heard. I still have the floor.