Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I listened to the comments of my colleague from Alaska. He obviously feels passionately about this issue. I have served with him on the Energy Committee for a long while. He studies these issues carefully. He uses a prodigious number of charts when he makes his presentations. I noticed that he did say in his presentation that there is much in this bill on which we can find agreement. He indicated there were a number of areas of agreement. I know he stressed areas of disagreement, but I think he also said there are a number of areas in this legislation where there can be some broad agreement. I think that is helpful. At the start, however, I want to comment on the exchange between my colleague from Alaska and the majority leader. The majority leader brought this bill to the floor of the Senate for a very important reason. It is not unprecedented. It was brought to the floor of the Senate rather than being moved through the committee first. We all know the issue of energy security is more than just finding additional supplies of energy. As a result of September 11, and other concerns about the broader area of energy security, the majority leader decided to bring to the floor the product of a number of different committees of the Senate working on this issue of energy security. This is about protecting America's nuclear power plants against attack by terrorists. That is part of this bill. That is part of energy security. So there are a series of things that were brought together, including the work and the efforts by the Finance Committee dealing with tax credits. That, too, is part of this bill. The majority leader decided to bring this bill to the floor as a product of a number of different committees, to work on all of these issues on the floor of the Senate, so all Senators would have the opportunity to address these issues. It does not shortchange the Senate to adopt that approach. It has been done before. It is not unprecedented. And the majority leader did not make a mistake in doing so. I think he advanced the interests of the energy bill and advanced the interests of the debate about energy in this country by adopting this strategy, despite the fact that some of my colleagues think it was the wrong thing to do. I respect their opinion, but they are just flat out wrong. We are here in the Chamber dealing with energy. That is where we ought to be. This is an important public policy issue for this country. The bill that has now come to the floor has the combined input of many committees, which is as it should be. We ought not deal with these issues incrementally. I say that, because I know the majority leader has been criticized by some for this approach. The majority leader has done exactly the right thing and has done it at the right time. He kept his word in bringing this bill to the floor, so we can have an open and full debate on all of the issues that affect this country's energy future. This is probably not the most opportune time to debate energy. Timing is everything, of course. This morning I stopped for gas on my way to the Capitol Building, and it cost $1.08 per gallon. In high school, when I was pumping gas at my father's service station, I was pumping gas for about the same price--actually slightly more in real dollars than we are paying today for a gallon of gasoline. The current price probably does not promote great urgency among the American people that we must have a new energy policy now. Most Americans understand, despite the fact that the price of gasoline is very moderate at this point, that we have a very tenuous existence with respect to our economy and its dependence on a continued long-term source of oil from places such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the Persian Gulf, and Central Asia. It is foolhardy for us to continue betting our future economic progress on a sustained supply of oil from the Middle East. We need to do better than the increasing reliance year after year that we place on that supply of oil. It doesn't mean perhaps that we can ever--or certainly not in the short or intermediate term--shut off that oil or find replacements. I am not suggesting that. But I am saying that the relentless march to increase our dependence on foreign sources of oil, especially on energy coming from the Persian Gulf, is not a very smart policy. Let us determine how we can, together, Republicans and Democrats, in good public policy, begin to ratchet that back down, so we have less dependence on foreign sources of energy. How do we do all of that? We will hear many statements about many facets of this energy policy. There are as many ideas about good energy policy as there are Members serving in the Senate. Emerson once said that common sense is genius dressed in work clothes. Common sense is what we need in putting together the components of an energy bill that work. Simply, do we need to produce more energy to meet future energy needs? The answer is yes. We need to produce more. Let's do it in an environmentally sensitive way. So produce more in an environmentally sensitive way, No. 1. No. 2, do we need to conserve more? Yes. We waste too much energy. Let's do that in a thoughtful way. No. 3, can we achieve greater efficiency with all of the appliances we use every day in every way in this country? Yes, of course. That also is an element of conservation. No. 4, and finally, turning to limitless, renewable sources of energy. That makes sense for this country as well. These policies combined will help wean us from the overdependence on foreign sources of energy, help us develop additional sources of energy at home, and also help us become more efficient and more conservation- minded as we use energy. Now, more than ever, we understand this is not just about energy security, but that energy security is about national security. That has to be part of this debate. Reducing our dependence on foreign oil and better protecting our energy infrastructure, that is about national security. Financial assistance in this bill would help improve critical energy infrastructure security. That is a part of this legislation that is very important. This legislation will increase domestic oil, gas, and coal production. It will do that in a thoughtful and environmentally sensitive way. It will help remove barriers to production on public lands in an environmentally sustainable manner, and it will authorize the construction of a natural gas pipeline from Alaska to the lower 48 States, helping to create hundreds of thousands of jobs and, more importantly, helping us move an estimated 32 trillion cubic feet of reserves of natural gas that exist in Canada, reserves that are leased and that can come into our inventory, when we are able to build the pipeline. That pipeline authorization is in this legislation. This bill will promote research, development, and deployment of advanced clean coal technologies, something very important, including, especially, opportunities for lignite coal, because coal is going to be a part of our energy future. Lignite coal is a significant part of that opportunity as well. One of the questions for us when we finish this debate will be: are we going to see the future through a rearview mirror? Is our energy policy a policy of yesterday forever? We have some who will come to the floor who will say: I have a new idea. Let's just drill and dig for more oil and coal. What I say is: we support that. We need increased production. But if our strategy for tomorrow's energy supply is simply drilling and digging, that is a strategy of yesterday forever. We had someone from the Energy Department testify before the Energy Committee. I asked them a simple question that we similarly ask about a lot of programs. On Social Security, we ask the question: What will be the stability and the financial circumstance of Social Security in 25 or 50 years? Can you tell us what is going to happen 50 years from now? So we do charts and graphs and create the financial mechanisms to evaluate whether we will be on safe ground in 50 years with respect to Social Security. I asked the Energy Department officials: What is your plan for 35 and 50 years from now with respect to energy? What kind of energy will we be using? What will be the energy mix? How much will we be using? The answer was: We don't have a plan. The reason I asked the question was, I was trying to determine, are we going to wean ourselves from this overly dependent need for foreign sources of oil? Are we going to move toward technologies that will change our use of energy, our need for certain kinds of energy? Have we decided as a country, for example, if we want to change to a goal of deciding that in 50 years we want fuel cell cars driving on the streets of the Nation's Capital and all across the country using oxygen and hydrogen and throwing water vapor out the back end? That sounds like a pretty good deal to me. The Energy Department's answer was: We don't have a plan. We will get back to you. My response was: We need a plan. America needs to decide its energy future, what it intends to do to with respect to energy supplies in the long term. If we do what some of my colleagues counsel at this point, we will be back here 25 years from now, and we will have exactly the same debate. People will wear the same color shoes and shirts and suits, and they will stand up and use the same tired, worn arguments. The solution 25 years from now? Dig more and drill more. This debate doesn't change. Only the calendar changes. The people change. You could have read this debate 25 years ago. You will be able to read it 25 years from now, unless we decide we are going to do some things differently. My first car was a model T Ford that I restored as a young boy. It was a 1924 Model T Ford that I bought for $25. It was in an old granary and had not been driven for decades. The rats had eaten off the seat covers and all the wiring. It was a tin shell with an engine that didn't work and tires eaten off and rotted off. My father owned a service station, so I pulled it in and put it up on a hoist. I worked on it for nearly 2 years. I restored that 1924 model T Ford. It was a great thing to do as a high school boy. Then I got interested in girls and decided a 1924 car was not the thing, and so I sold it--much to my regret. I have regretted that sale ever since. I got myself a new two-door car for a couple of hundred dollars. My point about the Model T Ford is that you put gasoline in that 1924 car exactly the same way you put gasoline in a 2002 car. Everything else in our lives has changed. Everything has changed around us, except you drove a 1924 Ford up to the gas pump the same way you drive a 2002 Ford up to the gas pump. You take the cap off, you stick the hose in, and you start pumping. Seventy-seven years later, nothing has changed. Should it? Will it? The answer is, yes, if we decide as a matter of public policy that we want to put in place energy policies that will advance a different kind of energy future in this country. Now, let me talk a bit about some features of this bill that I think are very important. This bill contains a series of goals that I think almost everybody would or should agree with: To ensure adequate and affordable supplies of energy from renewable sources, as well as oil, gas, coal and nuclear; improve the efficiency and productivity of energy use, including energy reliability and productivity of electricity; and to improve energy use in industry vehicles, appliances, and buildings. I am particularly interested in renewable energy. Last week, I brought up on the floor of the Senate the 5-year extension of the wind energy production tax credit. That tax credit expired at the end of last year. The result of Congress allowing that to expire means projects are put on the shelf that are ready and funded. They are put on the shelf. There is a company that has a 150-megawatt project for North Dakota. They have the money for it--$150 million. The project is ready to be launched. However, the company shelved the project until Congress passes the extension of the wind energy production tax credit. That makes no sense. But taking energy from the wind with highly- efficient, new wind turbines and producing electricity, and putting it on lines and moving it across the country makes great sense to me. On transmission issues, we have new technologies, such as the composite conductor technology, which can double or triple the efficiency of existing transmission lines. Putting up a wind turbine, producing electricity from this turbine, and transmitting that electricity makes great sense. I come from a State that is No. 1 in wind. The U.S. Department of Energy says North Dakota is the ``Saudi Arabia of wind.'' The potential to develop wind energy from my State is exceeded by no other State. We are last in trees. North Dakota ranks 50th in native forest lands. But it ranks first in wind. So, we want to put up some wind towers in North Dakota and be able to move some of this energy around the country. Renewable, limitless sources of energy--that makes good sense to me. What we have now is all of these projects that are stalled, because Congress has not done its job. This bill contains a five-year extension of the wind energy production tax credit. And while I support it in this bill, I would like to get it done apart from this bill because, as we know, when we complete the bill in the Senate, we will be in conference with the House. This will take months. My colleague from Wyoming, the other day, said--after I gave this presentation on extending the wind energy production tax credit--he said, yes, but we are taking that up as part of the energy bill. That is of little solace to me. It will be months and months before this energy bill is completed. Meanwhile, projects in many States will languish on the shelf when, instead, those projects should be helping to create jobs and energy. With respect to electricity, I have just described the reliability of the transmission grid and the opportunity in this legislation to help facilitate access to and reduce constraints of the grid. This bill will help create a more seamless and national grid, and it will help States like North Dakota use its vast resources, such as coal and wind, to be able to move electricity around the country. We also are going to repeal PUHCA and PURPA in the context of this comprehensive energy bill, while we will still retain sufficient consumer protections and safeguards, which are included in this legislation as well. And, this bill is going to facilitate energy production and transmission on tribal lands. It also includes measures to research and deploy transmission technologies--which I am very high on--including composite conductor wire that can dramatically increase the efficiency of existing wires to improve the efficiencies of existing lines and alleviate transmission bottlenecks. We are going to hear a lot about the energy efficiency of appliances, such as residential air conditioners. We put into this bill what is called a SEER 13 standard with respect to air conditioners. This bill contains a number of provisions designed to save energy in buildings and save energy with more efficient appliances. The SEER 13 air conditioner standard would save an amount of energy equivalent to that produced by nearly 70 power plants. This standard also would save $3.6 billion in electric bills for consumers over a 12 SEER standard. The Energy Department received more comments on this standard than on any other rulemaking in the agency's history. The vast majority were in support of this 13 SEER standard, and that is why we have put this standard in the bill. This bill contains Federal building performance standards, too. It requires the Government to purchase energy-efficient products, among other provisions, because the Federal Government is the single largest user of energy in the United States. I want to talk for a moment about transportation, which is the sector in which we consume the most amount of energy in this country. If you look at the demand for energy, you see that the transportation sector is where the largest demand occurs and where that demand is increasing. My colleague, Senator Bingaman, has used this chart on a good many occasions. There will be a debate in the Senate on the issue of CAFE standards. I come from a State that uses pickup trucks, SUVs, and four- wheel-drive vehicles extensively. It is not a convenience for someone in a northern State, which experiences rough weather, to need a four- wheel drive. These vehicles also are not a convenience for people that are out there operating a ranch, a farm, or living in a small town and are 50 miles from a hospital. It is not unusual for these people to want to drive a vehicle with some weight, a vehicle with four-wheel drive. I don't think any of them want someone to tell them they can't do that. We can't address energy without addressing efficiency and without addressing the opportunity to make this transportation sector more efficient. So, some say, let's go to the old CAFE standard. I happen to prefer a pull rather than a push. Some say, let's push to 37 miles per gallon or whatever number that is being used today. I think we ought to say to consumers that we are going to empower them when they buy their vehicles. We are going to give them a very substantial tax credit to purchase more efficient vehicles--a per car credit of $4,000 or $5,000 depending on the value of the car. So, a consumer would be able to go to a car dealership, knowing that such a credit would only exist if he or she were to buy a car that meets certain efficiency standards. If one manufacturer is not making that type of car, then the person would be able to go to another manufacturer. I want to ``pull'' manufacturers to be making the kind of products that consumers would want to buy, given certain tax credits. But I don't want people, because of where they live, or because of their needs, to be penalized, if they drive a four-wheel-drive pickup truck or SUV. We are going to debate that. So, I will have more to say about that in the future. We have a difference of opinion on whether we should provide a legislative push or pull. I believe that our future with respect to vehicles is to be able to expect that we will see the manufacture of more hybrid vehicles and hydrogen-powered fuel cell cars. I drove a demonstration car on the Capitol grounds, which was running on oxygen and hydrogen, and it was emitting water vapor out the back end of the car. That is the future. But we won't get to that future unless as a matter of public policy we pull very hard in that direction. Otherwise, we will be consigned to yesterday forever. We will keep doing what we have done forever. The past is our future. That is not what I want for an energy policy. If that is going to be the end of this debate, we should not have it. If this is going to be the same debate we had 25 years ago--the names have changed on the floor of the Senate--but if this is our debate, then it is a thoughtless debate. This country needs to understand it has a world class economy, the strongest economy in the world. It uses a substantial amount of energy. That use continues to increase. We are overly dependent on foreign sources for that energy, especially from areas of the world that are inherently unstable, and we would do well to remember that--especially now more than ever. There are some who say, well, that is all really interesting. You folks who talk about renewable and limitless sources of energy, that is really great because, they will say, look at this chart. Look at the renewables used in the United States, compared to other countries. We are not doing much. It is a very small part of our energy supply. They will say, you are focusing on the mouse in the corner rather than the lion at the door. The fact is, this country has the opportunity right now to describe an energy policy that really does turn the corner and move us in a very new direction. If we are moving in the right direction at the end of this debate, then we will have probably passed the kind of bill that was brought to the floor of the Senate and perhaps even have improved upon that. Then we will especially be able to say: We are doing something different. Think about this. I just described that, in over 75 years, nothing has changed with respect to the way we put a gas hose in a 1924 Model T Ford versus a 2002 Ford Explorer--nothing. Think of this country. We have, as people, written, split the atom, spliced genes, cloned animals, and invented radar, the silicon chip, and plastics. We have built airplanes and learned how to fly them. We have built rockets and flown to the Moon. We have cured polio and smallpox, and invented the telephone, television, computer and the Internet. And now we are hearing from some that perhaps, as a new energy policy, we must just adopt the same old energy policy and put it in place for the next 25 years. That is the legacy we want for our country? I do not think so. Our country will go much further, if we summon our manufacturers, scientists, and geniuses to work on this problem in the context of national security needs. I indicated at the outset that this might not be the best time to debate energy policy, because gasoline only cost $1.08 a gallon this morning. When gas is $1.08 a gallon, there is not a lot of urgency for change. A year and a half ago, we experienced some rolling brownouts and blackouts, and price spikes in California. We had a lot of problems. There were a lot of reasons for those problems. At the moment, though, there does not seem to be a sense of national urgency. When gas is $1.08 a gallon, there is just not that kind of urgency. As I said, I was thinking of this old country western song: ``When gas was 30 cents a gallon, love was 60 cents away.'' When I was pumping gas at my father's service station many years ago, it was 30 cents a gallon. In constant dollars, gasoline costs about the same now. In fact, it is slightly cheaper now. We must, it seems to me, take the product that Senator Daschle and Senator Bingaman have brought before the Senate, and work on this with an eye toward dramatically improving this country's energy future. This Earth, according to scientists, was formed somewhere around 4.5 billion years ago. Some say that in the first nearly 4.499 billion years nothing happened, but that in the last million years, man invented use for his arms, legs, and his cave and, in the last 10,000 years, he invented language, tools, the wheel, fire, primitive warfare, and agriculture. Five thousand years later, he invented recorded history and chariots. In the past 500 years printing occurred, the steam engine was invented, and the industrial revolution occurred. But nearly everything else has been invented in a very short period of time the last 100 years or so. Yet, we tend to think that our existence on Earth is the only existence; that this Earth was placed here for our convenience. If we take the long view of energy policy, we will understand that this is not the case. The long view of energy policy says: Let's change what we are doing. Yes, let's produce more; but, let's also disconnect in the long term and pay more attention to opportunities for limitless and renewable sources of energy. Let's have real conservation, real efficiency, and let's, as a nation, understand that energy security is part of our national security. I thank Senator Bingaman. Serving on the Energy Committee has been a source of pleasure for me. These are very interesting and important national issues. Senator Bingaman, Senator Murkowski, and many on the Committee have exhibited great passion about these issues. I chided Senator Murkowski for the number of charts he used today. It simply shows the depth of his passion, and I respect that. Senator Bingaman has, with quiet, effective leadership for a long period of time, worked to bring before the Senate a bill of which we can be proud. I say to him how much I appreciate his work. The Energy Committee has been, from time to time, a divided committee. At other times, we have worked closely together. The men and women who serve on the Energy Committee are good thinkers. They come from different parts of the country and combine to bring to the center a good, interesting, and aggressive debate about these issues. As I indicated, I have great respect for those with whom I may disagree. But there is no more important policy we will debate this year that will have ramifications for decades and decades into the future than this energy bill. I am pleased we can finish our opening statements and go to amendments. I believe we will start on amendments tomorrow. I thank the Senator from New Mexico and the Senator from Alaska for their earlier statements. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, Subcommittee on Public Health, be authorized to meet for a hearing on ``Making Sense of the Mammography Controversy: What Women Need to Know'' during the session of the Senate on Thursday, February 28, 2002, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, February 28, 2002, at 2:45 p.m. to hold a nomination hearing. Agenda Nominees: Mrs. Emmy B. Simmons, of the District of Columbia, to be an Assistant Administrator (Economic Growth, Agriculture, and Trade) of the United States Agency for International Development (New Position); and Robert B. Holland, III, of Texas, to be United States Alternate Executive Director of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development for a term of two years.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Government Affairs be authorized to meet on Thursday, February 28, 2002, at 2:30 p.m. to consider the nomination of Louis Kincannon to be Director of the Census.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, February 28, 2002, at 10 a.m. to conduct an oversight hearing on ``Issues Regarding the Sending of Remittances.''

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet on Thursday, February 28, 2002, at 9:30 a.m. on protecting content in a digital age-promoting broadband and the digital television transition, in room SR-253.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works, Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Water be authorized to meet on Thursday, February 28, 2002, at 2:30 p.m. to conduct a hearing that will focus on S. 1961, the Water Investment Act, a bill to improve the financial and environmental sustainability of the water programs of the United States. The committee will also receive testimony on the following legislation: S. 252: A bill to amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to authorize appropriations for State water pollution control revolving funds, and for other purposes. S. 285: A bill to amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to authorize the use of State revolving loan funds for construction of water conservation and quality improvements. S 503: A bill to amend the Safe Water Act to provide grants to small public drinking water system. S. 1044: A bill to amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to provide assistance for nutrient removal technologies to States in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The hearing will be held in room SD-406.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing on ``The Unaccompanied Alien Child Protection Act'' on Thursday, February 28, 2002, at 2:30 p.m. in Dirksen Room 226. Witness List Panel I: Michael Creppy, Chief Immigration Judge, Executive Office of Immigration Review, Falls Church, VA; and Stuart Anderson, Executive Associate Commissioner, U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, Washington, DC. Panel II: Edwin Munoz, Grand Rapids, MI; Wendy Young, Director of Government Relations and U.S. Programs, Women's Commission on Refugee Women & Children, Falls Church, VA; Andrew Morton, Attorney, Latham & Watkins, Washington, DC; and Julianne Duncan, Director of Children's Services, United States Conference on Catholic Bishops, Washington, DC.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on International Trade and Finance of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, February 28, 2002, at 2:30 p.m. to conduct an oversight hearing on ``Argentina's Economic Crisis.''

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support of the Armed Services Committee be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, February 28, 2002, at 2:30 p.m., in open session to receive testimony on Department of Defense installation and environmental programs, in review of the defense authorization request for fiscal year 2003.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I notice my colleague from Wyoming is in the Chamber. I did give notice that I was going to propound a unanimous consent request, and if he is in the Chamber for the purpose of representing the minority, I will propound that unanimous request at this point in time. I spoke yesterday about the subject of the wind energy production tax credit, which expired at the end of last year. The expiration occurred because it became embroiled in the back and forth over the economic recovery package and the stimulus plan. The fact is, the Congress ended its year and its work without having extended the tax extenders--there are some half dozen of them--one of which is the tax credit for wind energy. In my judgment, it is just fundamentally wrong for us not to take the action we need to take right now to extend that production tax credit for wind energy. I had a conference in Grand Forks, ND, last week when the Senate was not in session. The conference was on wind energy. Over 700 people showed up. There is great interest in this from all over the country. North Dakota is No. 1 in wind energy potential. The new technology wind turbines are remarkable. To be able to take energy from the wind, put it in a transmission line and move it around the country is remarkable. There are plans on the books right now. A CEO from one of the largest companies came to see me 3 weeks ago. He said: I have plans for 150 megawatts, 150 one-megawatt towers. It is going to cost $130 million to $150 million. The plans are done. He said: They are ready; I have the money. That is already developed. But it had to be put on the shelf until Congress extends the production tax credit. We do not seem to think it is urgent. I believe it is urgent. My colleague, Senator Reid, asked he be remembered on this issue because he supports this. He has companies in Nevada with plans on the shelf. They are ready to go, but they are held up. The same is true in many other States in the country. For that reason, I ask unanimous consent that the Finance Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 94, a bill to extend tax credits for wind energy; that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; that the bill be read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I understood there would be an objection. I want to demonstrate again--and I hope I can do this in the coming days--there are many Republicans and Democrats serving in the Senate who know we ought to pass this bill, who want to get this done. We need to find a way to make this happen. This is urgent. Yet we are sort of at a parade rest on a range of areas. We can talk about who is at fault. I do not intend to do that. I am much more interested in trying to get this started than I am in trying to figure out why it stalled. Let's see if we can work together to accomplish this goal. We know it needs doing. We are going to turn to the energy bill next. We know having this production tax credit extended is important. It ought to be done now, not later. Mr. President, I understand my colleague from Wyoming was required to object to this. I will not go beyond that except to say I hope he joins me and others as we find a way to extend these tax credits and that we do so soon. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Gabriel Adler be granted the privilege of the floor for the duration of my remarks on trade.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, Senator Daschle, the majority leader, was in the Chamber today talking about a decision that will be made in the coming days by the Bush administration on the subject of trade disputes that exist with respect to the American steel industry. What is all this about? It is that the steel industry, as with many other American industries, has been under assault. It has been under assault by unfair trade coming from abroad, products being dumped in our country into our marketplace below their acquisition cost, undercutting our domestic producers. This is unfair trade. It is trade that violates our trade laws. In fact, an International Trade Commission investigation has recently determined that the flood of foreign steel has significantly hurt the U.S. steel industry. The question the President will decide next week is: What will be the remedy? What will be done about it? If our steel industry is being threatened and assaulted by unfair trade and it is closing plants, going into bankruptcy, laying off workers, what is the remedy? That is the question this administration will answer next Wednesday. My hope is they will answer this question in an aggressive way. My hope is they will say, we intend to stand up for American steel. My hope is they will say, we intend to stand up for all American producers when confronted with unfair trade. How do you stand up for producers when confronted with unfair trade? You take action against those perpetrating that unfair trade against our producers. We have something like 10,000 steelworkers in Washington, DC, today who are here demonstrating the point that they are losing their jobs and their companies are going bankrupt. This is about them and their families and their future. They are saying: Give us some fairness in international trade. Stand up for our interests. It is not steelworkers saying, we want our country to be protectionist. It is not them saying, we want to build a wall around our country and prevent imports from coming in. It is a group of workers who have come to Washington to say: When we are confronted with unfair trade, we expect our Government to be in our corner. We expect our Government to stand with us. It is interesting that the steel dispute is very much like a dispute we have with Canada on the issue of wheat. The North Dakota wheat producers, with a 301 case, brought a trade case against Canada. That case, after investigation, was recently resolved by the United States Trade Representative saying, yes, the Canadian Wheat Board is a state- sponsored monopoly that engages in unfair trade practices that harm United States wheat growers. If we have decided Canada is guilty of unfair trade with respect to wheat, what have we done about it? USTR's answer was: We are not going to have any remedies. If we provide relief at this moment, it will violate NAFTA and it will violate our World Trade Organization commitments. Therefore, even though we have decided Canada is guilty of unfair trade practices that injure American farmers, we essentially will do nothing at the moment; we will instead take this to the WTO. That means that our great grandchildren, if we are lucky, may see action by the WTO. Although they probably won't see it because the WTO considers and takes action behind closed doors. And anyway, it is likely not to take much action at all; if it does, it will be years in the future. I have talked about the steel dispute and the wheat dispute. In both cases, our producers have been told that those who are competing against us, foreign producers, are doing so unfairly, injuring our workers and our farmers. Yet it is very hard to get relief, to get this country to stand up for its producers. There are some real storm clouds on the horizon. Our trade deficit keeps rising year after year. The more trade agreements we have, the higher the trade deficit. This chart shows what has happened. We have the GATT Tokyo Round, and then we have the Uruguay Round, the WTO agreement, and then the NAFTA. We can see what has happened to the trade deficit--up, up, up, over a long period of time. The U.S. Constitution has something to say about international trade. Article I, section 8, says: The Congress shall have the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes. That means the authority vested by the U.S. Constitution on matters affecting international trade rests here--not at the White House, but in the Congress, and only here. Yet to listen to Republican and Democratic administrations over the last 30 or 40 years, you realize that, by and large, they think they are the ones in control of trade. Administrations empower negotiators to go out and work out trade agreements that they bring back to the Congress under a provision called fast track. Fast track allows administrations to tie the hands of Members of Congress behind their backs and say: Here is the trade agreement we negotiated--mostly in secret--and you have no right to offer any amendment to change any of it at any time. That is fast track. Fast track is fundamentally undemocratic. I voted against it in the past. I would not support giving it to President Clinton; I will not support giving it to President Bush. Go negotiate treaties, if you wish--but good ones. If you do, the Congress will approve them. If you don't, they deserve to be changed or killed. Let me talk for a bit about some of these treaties. We've had fast track in the past; fast track was something given to previous Presidents, including President Reagan and the first President Bush. We negotiated an agreement with Canada, and the agreement with Canada went through the House Ways and Means Committee. I was serving in the House at the time. The vote for the United States-Canada trade agreement was 34 to 1. I cast the lone vote against it. There were 34 for it, 1 against. I believed I was right at the time, and events certainly demonstrated that was the case. We took a small deficit with Canada and doubled it very quickly. They dumped grain into this country, injuring our farmers, and we have had trouble ever since. Do you know why we could not do anything about the provisions in that agreement that traded away the interests of family farmers? Because you can't offer amendments to trade agreements with fast track. So the administration said: Here it is. We negotiated it and, by the way, we had secret side agreements we will not tell you about. You accept it, yes or no. If you don't like it, there can be no amendments because fast track ties your hands behind your back. That is what happened with that trade agreement. Not long after that, I drove up to Canada with a man named Earl in a 12-year-old, orange, 2-ton truck. The truck was carrying 150 bushels of U.S. durum wheat. All the way to the Canadian border, we saw Canadian 18-wheelers coming into this country, hauling Canadian wheat into this country. There was 18-wheeler after 18-wheeler. In fact, it was a windy day, and even though they had tarps on their trucks, the grain kept spilling off, and it was hitting our windshield all the way to the border. We had that 12-year-old, little, 2-ton orange truck. We arrived at the border having seen dozens of Canadian trucks hauling grain into this country. We were stopped at the border and told: You can't take that 150 bushels of U.S. durum wheat into Canada. We asked: Why not? They said: Because we won't let you in. All the way to the border, we saw them coming into our country, but we could not take the product of one little orange truck into Canada. Is that fair trade? I don't think so. The administration turned from Canada to Mexico and did a trade agreement with Mexico called NAFTA. We wrapped Canada and Mexico together. NAFTA sure didn't work. I voted against that as well. We had a very small trade surplus before NAFTA, and we turned that into a very big deficit. Now we are up to our neck in troubles with NAFTA. We have troubles trying to get high-fructose corn syrup in, we have unfair trade with potatoes--you name it. After we negotiated to reduce tariffs from United States goods going into Mexico, the Mexicans devalued their peso 50 percent, which meant that all the work done to get rid of the 10- or 15-percent tariffs didn't mean anything. They obliterated that by simply devaluing the peso. What else are we facing? I will give you some examples. Automobiles. We don't make automobiles in North Dakota, but this is a national issue. Let me show you this chart. Absurdities in trade. Last year, we had automobiles coming into the United States from Korea. Last year, we imported into the United States 570,000 automobiles from the country of Korea--570,000 cars. Do you know how many cars the United States sent to Korea? One thousand, seven hundred. I will say that again. We had 570,000 Korean cars driven off boats to be sold in the United States. Going the other way, we had 1,700 United States cars into Korea. Do you know why? If you try to sell an American car in Korea, they will find all kinds of ways to stop you. Not just tariffs, but all kinds of non- tariff barriers, like intimidation of potential buyers with the threat of a tax audit. They want to just ship their cars to our country, and make it one-way trade. If you are somebody working for a car company in this country, you have a right to ask: Who on Earth is minding the store if you let this go on? Is this fair trade? Clearly, no. Somebody ought to stand up on behalf of workers in this country and say we are not going to let that happen. What about beef to Japan? Every pound of American beef going to Japan has a 38.5-percent tariff on it, and that is 12 years after a beef agreement with Japan. Every pound of T-bone steak going to Tokyo has a 38.5-percent tariff. That is absurd. Right now, we are fighting and trying to get soybeans into China because they are trying to squeeze the neck of the bottle, just after we had a bilateral trade agreement with China. The list goes on and on and on. We have a trade agreement with Canada, as I mentioned. Do you know what happens with Canada? They move sugar from Brazil into this country, in contravention of American law, in what they call stuffed molasses. Then they take the sugar out of the molasses and send the molasses back, and they do it again and call it stuffed molasses. It is done every day. That is fundamentally wrong. Yet nobody is willing to stand up on behalf of producers. Winston Churchill said that when he was a kid, he got into a debate with Atlee in Parliament. As the story went--it was an aggressive debate--he told Atlee: When I was a child, my parents took me to the carnival, and they had a sideshow. At the sideshow, they had these canvas flaps that described what wonderful, extraordinary, outrageous things you were going to see in the sideshow. One of them advertised the boneless wonder--a man apparently born without bones, if you can imagine. Churchill said: My parents felt I was far too tender in age to be taken into a sideshow to see the boneless wonder. Then, standing on the floor of the Parliament when he was in this debate with Atlee, he said: It has taken 50 years, but I can finally put my eyes on another boneless wonder. When I think about the boneless wonder, I think about the people who are supposed to be negotiating trade for us and enforcing it and standing up for American interests. They should be working hard on behalf of farmers, steelworkers, auto workers, and so many others in this country, who are part now of a global economy, demanding on their behalf that the rules of trade be fair. We had a hearing in Congress in which we heard about conditions under which carpets or rugs were made for export to this country. We heard about warehouses where young children, 9, 10, 11, and 12 years old, are using needles to make these carpets that will be sent to Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, and Denver--into the American marketplace. Locked in these warehouses, the children had gunpowder put on the tips of their fingers, and it was lit with a match; their fingertips were burned so they would scar, and these 10- and 12-year-old kids, with scarred fingertips, could then use these needles with impunity, making these carpets, and it would never hurt their fingers because they were now scarred sufficiently to be able to resist the needle's sting. That is how they got more productivity out of 10- and 12-year-old kids. They were making carpets that were being sent to this country. The question is: Is that something we ought to allow? Is that fair trade? Is that a product we want on American markets? The answer is no, it is not fair trade. We have the marketplace being flooded with products--the products of forced child labor anywhere in the world. It is not fair trade for someone to be paid 16 cents an hour to make shoes in a factory somewhere, and ship it to Pittsburgh, and compete with somebody working in a factory in this country who would be required to be paid some sort of a living wage--and to work in a factory that will not pollute the water and air. We fought 75 years in this country for those basic conditions. Now we have people saying, let's pole-vault over those issues, and we will go to Bangladesh, or to Indonesia--we will go someplace where we don't have to worry so much about those restrictions, and we will ship the product back in to Toledo, or Buffalo, or Los Angeles. The global economy needs to define fair trade. We in the U.S. Government need to define for ourselves when and under what conditions we will stand up for American producers. Or is there not a case at all where our Government is willing to stand up for American producers and demand fair trade? This is an issue that is not going to go away. We will have the debate over so-called trade protection authority. That is a euphemism. You know, in this town, when something becomes controversial, you just change the name. Fast track became TPA, trade promotion authority. But a hog by any other name is a hog. We are talking about fast track. In the coming weeks, the President will ask for fast track. I keep coming back to article I, section 8, which says that: The Congress shall have Power To . . . regulate Commerce with foreign Nations. . . . I just ask all of those who are concerned about the decision being made next Wednesday on steel, to ask whether the next group of trade negotiators should go out, lock the door, keep the American public out, negotiate a deal, and then come back to the Congress and say: you have no business suggesting any change under any circumstance to the deal we made. My hope is we could just once find an administration, Democrat or Republican--it does not matter to me--who would hire trade negotiators and have the will and the backbone and the strength to stand up on behalf of American producers and demand fair trade. I am so tired of these mountains of Jell-O that serve in public office and negotiate incompetent agreements, sell away the interests of American producers, and then say to us: Oh, by the way, you are correct; this trade is unfair, but we elect not to do anything about it. That is just wrong. I guess on every occasion I have spoken about this, I have suggested--mostly in jest--we ought to have jerseys for our trade negotiators. We have them for the Olympians and they can look down and know they are for the USA. What about jerseys for trade negotiators so that occasionally when they are in meetings, behind those locked doors, they can look down and say: Oh, yes, that's right, now I remember for whom I am negotiating. Most of our trade policy has been negotiated as foreign policy. Most of it has been eggheaded foreign policy now almost a quarter of a century. For the first quarter century after the Second World War, it was all foreign policy. We just granted trade concessions everywhere, and it did not matter because we were bigger, tougher, and we could compete with anybody around the world with one hand tied behind our back. So our trade policy was almost exclusively foreign policy. Then we had competitors who developed into shrewd, tough, international competitors in the global economy, and we are still running around giving away concessions, tying our hands behind our back, negotiating agreements we will not enforce, and shame on us for doing that. This country needs an economy with a manufacturing base. We cannot remain a world-class economy unless we have a manufacturing base. We need good jobs that pay well, that sustain a strong manufacturing base in our country. There are those in this town who divide the trade debate into two thoughtless categories: You are either a smart, incisive person who can see over the horizon and understand that global trade is benefitting our country, or if you say anything at all on the other side of the issue, you are some xenophobic stooge who does not get it, has never gotten it, and wants to build walls around America to keep foreign products out. Of course, that is a thoughtless way to describe relative positions on trade. There is a much better way to describe this country's trade interests, in my judgment, and that is to say this country ought to be willing, ready, and able to compete anywhere in the world with any product as long as the competition is fair. The doctrine of comparative advantage is a fair doctrine, in my judgment. If someone can make a product better than we can, then by all means let's find a way to acquire that product from a country that has a natural advantage. But the impediments to fair trade have very little to do with comparative advantage; they have to do with political advantage. They have to do with countries that decided they do not want minimum wages; that think it is fine to have 16-year-old kids working 16 hours a day being paid 16 cents an hour; they think that is fine. This country fought 75 years to say it is not fine, and the American marketplace ought not be open to any and all schemes of production around the globe, regardless of how inhumane and unjust they might be. It is not acceptable to us as consumers and ought not be acceptable to us as public officials who have an obligation to stand up for American producers, for fair trade. Mr. President, that is a long meandering road to describe the decision next Wednesday that this administration has to make on the subject of steel. My hope is that the administration will make the right decision. I have not seen an administration in some 20 years that has a record in international trade that I think benefits this country and its producers in a way that is fair.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, about a week ago I spoke briefly on a subject that falls under the jurisdiction of the Senate Finance Committee and that is referred to as the extenders. This term does not mean much to people, but the extenders are tax provisions that expire at certain times. For example, at the end of last year one of the tax provisions that expired was the wind energy production tax credit. It is a tax credit that was in law to stimulate the development of wind energy in our country. That tax credit expired on December 31 and, at that moment, the development pretty well stopped because the expectation was that the credit would be extended, but it has not been extended. This credit is one of a handful of extenders that should have been extended at the end of last year. The Congress did not do it, because it got connected to the issue of the economic recovery package, and it went back and forth between the House and the Senate. The fact is, at the end of the day, this tax provision expired and wind energy development has pretty well stopped around the country. By ``wind energy development,'' I mean those developments that were on the books with plans underway, and ready to be financed and installed across the country. What does this wind energy mean? We are going to take up an energy bill as soon as we figure out what to do with the filibuster on the election reform bill, and when we talk about the energy bill in this country we talk about the need to produce additional energy: more oil, more natural gas, more coal. Yes, we are going to produce more by digging and drilling, and do that in an environmentally acceptable way. But limitless and renewable sources of energy such as ethanol, biodiesel, wind energy, and others, are also a very important part of what we ought to be doing in this country. Let me focus for a moment on wind energy, because I come from a State in which wind energy has great potential. The Department of Energy ranks the States and their potential for wind energy, and North Dakota ranks No. 1. We are called the Saudi Arabia of wind for its energy potential. North Dakota is a lot of things. Most of all, it is wonderful. It ranks 50th, dead last, in native forest lands. That means we have less trees than anybody else. But we have a ranking of No. 1 in wind and the ability to take the energy from the wind, put it in transmission lines, and move it around our country to extend America's energy supply. I held a wind energy conference in Grand Forks, ND, last week. Over 700 people came to the conference from all over the country. They had a display of a couple of the types of blades used in the new, very large turbines. One of these blades weighs 18,000 pounds. This new technology is highly efficient and, with the small production tax credit, is also very competitive. We have brought the price of wind energy way down, and now if we extend this wind energy tax credit for 5 years, we will be able to unleash the opportunities in wind energy development. A CEO of a company came to see me about 2 weeks ago and said his company has 150 megawatts of wind-generated electricity on the books and prepared to build in North Dakota. He told me the company has the money for it, $130 million to $150 million, the plans complete, but that it cannot move forward until the company knows whether Congress is going to extend the wind energy production tax credit. The fact is, the Congress is messing around back and forth, stuttering, and not getting it done. This back and forth between the House and the Senate means the extenders did not get finished. What does that mean? It means companies that were preparing investments and were going to be able to build wind energy facilities across this country have now put these plans on hold. Does that make sense for the country? Is that a good energy strategy? I do not think so. I am going to be asking unanimous consent, and I will not do it at the moment because I wanted to provide notice to others in the Chamber as a matter of courtesy, but I will ask either later today or tomorrow, unanimous consent to take up the legislation that I have previously introduced, S. 94. It provides a 5-year extension of the tax credit for electricity produced from wind. I will ask that it be discharged from the Senate Finance Committee and be brought to the floor and voted on. This is not controversial. We have done this before. We should have done it last December but did not. It does not require a big debate. We have had debate after debate on this. It is widely supported by virtually the entire Senate and the entire House, but it does not get done. It is one of these things that runs off the ditch and gets stuck there, and nobody thinks much about it. The problem is we are not producing the energy we could be producing, because these projects are not being built. As we get people in the Senate who ring their hands and gnash their teeth and wipe their brow about America's energy problems, I want everybody to understand that part of the solution--just part--to that problem is to build these projects that are ready to go, that can produce and create these new highly efficient wind energy turbines, that can put electricity in our transmission lines and move it around the country. Does anybody remember California and the price spikes, some of the other problems we have experienced with energy supply? The fact is, this country needs this new form of energy. I would like to talk for an hour about ethanol, biodiesel, and other limitless and renewable sources of energy. One of the big oil companies once said that ethanol is no good, that it will not work. I saw it in a quarter-page ad in a daily newspaper, and I thought, well, if the big oil companies say this is not any good, it must be something we ought to take a closer look at: Taking the alcohol from a kernel of corn--you get a drop of alcohol from a kernel of corn--and you still have the protein feedstock left. One can use that alcohol to help contribute to America's energy supply. That makes good sense to me. But taking energy from the wind and running it through a turbine, through blades that turn, and then moving the electricity to the transmission lines, makes eminent good sense. There is no excuse at all for this Congress to twiddle its thumbs when it ought to extend these production tax credits for wind energy. It ought to be done not next week, not next month, not next year; it ought to be done now. It ought to be done for 5 years. If we get people to come out and say first let's not do it, I say they are not thinking much about America's energy needs. If they say let's do it for a year, I say it will not matter. It will not mean a thing. That will not provide enough of an incentive for anybody to do anything. Let us give people an opportunity to plan, to do the right thing. Let us give people the opportunity and the incentive to build, to extend America's energy supplies. I am intending to offer that unanimous consent request either later today or tomorrow and would want to put people on notice of that. Let me, if I might, read a couple of examples of what has happened because Congress did not do what it should do. Lonestar Transportation of Fort Worth, TX, is losing $1.5 million in revenue per month due to the delay of this production tax credit. Trinity Industries of Dallas, TX, a builder of wind turbine towers, has furloughed 200 workers and projects a revenue loss of $7 million a month. MFG, a builder of fiberglass turbine blades located in Gainesville, TX, laid off 138 skilled workers. Georgia and Texas: CAB, Inc. of Oakwood, GA, and also in Texas, that manufactures steel tower components, will see a 50- percent reduction in revenues because of failure to extend this. In Oregon, investment will not be made in a multimillion-dollar wind turbine manufacturing facility for Portland. DMI Industries in my State of North Dakota, a tower manufacturer in West Fargo, will likely see a 25-percent decrease in revenues. The company currently employs 165 people and was planning to hire an additional 50. They will not be able to do that at this point. LM Glasfiber, a wind turbine blade manufacturer in Grand Forks, has furloughed 30 percent of its 100 employees because of failure to extend the tax credit. In Louisiana, Beaird Industries of Shreveport, LA, a builder of metal towers for wind turbines, furloughed 150 of its 500 employees just before Christmas. Zond Wind Turbines in California near Bakersfield furloughed 85 skilled workers. In West Virginia, Atlantic Renewable Energy Corporation will indefinitely delay a $65 million investment in its Backbone Mountain site in Tucker County. That is 150 construction jobs. M.A. Mortenson Company of Minneapolis, MN, that designs and builds wind tower projects throughout the United States, will hold off creating 150 direct construction jobs and 450 subcontractor jobs without the extension. The list goes on. I ask unanimous consent to have this printed in the Record.

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I am disappointed we have not been able to get this completed. It is a matter of will. We understand there is wide support here and in the House. Bring it up, pass it on the floor of the Senate and the House, and send it to the President, so projects can go forward beginning tomorrow, next week, and next month. Skilled workers will find they are rehired by the companies. New jobs will be created. We will extend America's energy supply. It is exactly what we ought to do. For that reason, I intend to make unanimous consent requests that the Finance Committee be discharged and we bring up and pass S. 94, legislation to provide a 5-year extension of the tax credit for electricity produced from wind. I intend to come to the Chamber and talk about this--until I am more than a minor annoyance--to see if we can get people to understand we have a responsibility to act in the interests of this country. I yield the floor.

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, February is American Heart Month. This is the 38th year that the President and the Congress have acknowledged the need to continue the fight against heart disease. Let me describe my interest in this condition and why I have a special desire to promote practices that will lead to healthier hearts for all Americans. It is important to recognize that heart disease is this country's number one killer and the leading cause of disability and death in our country. It is estimated that if all forms of cardiovascular disease were eliminated, life expectancy would rise by almost 7 years. We need all of our citizens to become more knowledgeable about this condition and what can be done to identify and control it. Too often, we think of heart disease, stroke and other cardiovascular diseases as ``men's diseases.'' But we need to get the message out that these conditions actually kill more American women than men, and that cardiovascular diseases kill more females each year than the next 9 causes of death combined. More deaths occur due to cardiac defects than to any other birth defect. Which leads me to one of the reasons I have a special passion to do what I can to promote healthy hearts. I lost a beautiful young daughter to heart disease some years ago, and I have another daughter who has a heart defect. So I have spent a lot of time visiting with cardiologists about the human heart and have first hand knowledge of the devastation of this disease. How can Members of Congress help fight heart disease? For one thing, we should continue on our course to increase funding for the National Institutes of Health. We have made a lot of progress and I hope that in 2003 we will have met our goal of doubled the funding of the NIH to $24 billion in only five years. I have visited the researchers at NIH and what is going on there is remarkable. I am pleased to have been one of those who stimulated this increase in research not only of heart disease, but also, of a variety of other conditions such as cancer and diabetes. Yet even with this increase in funding we must focus our eyes, and those of the Nation, on the many areas of research yet to be pursued. Even with the significant increases in funding, NIH still only has the ability to fund a fraction of meritorious applications. That means many missed opportunities for scientific advancement. Much of what we know about the causes of cardiovascular disease has been discovered as the result of research sponsored by NIH and has lead to much improved treatment. For example, 50 years ago heart attack patients faced a long ordeal of six weeks or more in the hospital and six months before they could sit up in a chair. Now most patients return to normal activities within weeks of a heart attack. One of the top priorities at NIH is to support studies to facilitate reduction of the epidemic of obesity in American children and adults. Obesity is an important factor leading to diabetes, hypertension and lipid imbalances, all of which are implicated in cardiovascular disease. I urge my colleagues to join the Congressional Heart and Stroke Coalition that we founded in 1996. I am a co-chairman in the Senate of this bicameral, bipartisan Coalition with Senator Frist, who is a former heart transplant surgeon. The purpose of the Coalition, which has grown to over 210 Members, is to raise awareness among Congress and the public about cardiovascular diseases and to support public policies to prevent, treat, and ultimately cure these diseases. The theme for this year's Heart Month is ``Be Prepared for Cardiac Emergencies.'' Although more than 600 Americans die every day of sudden cardiac arrest, the good news is that normal heart rhythm can be restored in many cases using an electric shock from an automated external defibrillator, or AED. Thanks to modern technology, AEDs are now portable, the size of a briefcase, user friendly, and quite affordable, less than $3500. I was in Fargo, ND, with an ambulance crew who showed me how to hook it up and use it. Believe me, if I can be trained to use it, I am sure any of my colleagues here in the Senate can as well! Congress has taken several steps to make AEDs more readily available. It passed the Cardiac Arrest Survival Act, which I cosponsored. This new law facilities the placement of AEDs in Federal buildings and other public places which are visited each day by countless visitors, and where more than 1 million federal workers are employed. It also extended ``Good Samaritan" protection from legal liability for people who use an AED to provide emergency medical care and for those who acquire AEDs. As the Chairman of the Treasury-General Government Appropriations Subcommittee, I provided $2 million to place AEDs in Federal buildings in FY2002. The Senate earlier this month passed the Community Access to Emergency Defibrillation Act of 2002, that I cosponsored, which will provide grants for public access defibrillation programs and demonstration projects. Programs to place defibrillators in public places are already paying off. For instance, a retired professor in my part of the country, Roger Spiled, suffered cardiac arrest while playing basketball. Due to the quick action of an ordinary person with no medical training, who had ready access to an automatic defibrillator that had been put in place just one month earlier, Mr. Spiled was shocked back to life. Finally, Congress can help to encourage cholesterol screening, which is one of the best ways to quickly gauge the risk for developing cardiovascular diseases. Although cardiovascular diseases account for one-third of all of Medicare's spending for hospitalizations, remarkably, the identification of one of the major, changeable risk factors for cardiovascular disease, high levels of cholesterol is not covered by Medicare. The most recent guidelines from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute recommend that all Americans over the age of 20 be screened for high cholesterol, but when an American turns 65 and enters the Medicare program, they are not eligible for cholesterol screening. This makes no sense. In recent years, Congress in its wisdom has acted to improve Medicare's coverage of preventive services. Medicare now covers screening for breast, cervical, colorectal and prostate cancer, testing for loss of bone mass, diabetes monitoring, and vaccinations for flu, pneumonia, and Hepatitis B. Now we must act to provide Medicare coverage of cholesterol screening. I urge you to cosponsor the Medicare Cholesterol Screening Coverage Act that I have introduced, along with Senators Campbell and Bingaman, which adds this important benefit to the menu of preventive services already covered by Medicare. My family and every family is touched by, and is acquainted in some way with, heart disease. The American Heart Association is a wonderful organization of volunteers that does extraordinary work. I will continue to work with them and with the Heart and Stroke Coalition in the Congress to continue to make progress in battling this dreaded disease that kills, and reduces the quality of life of, so many Americans.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Connecticut for his leadership on the legislation that has been pending. I want to talk about wind energy. I suppose people will think then that I am talking about the Senate, but that is not the case. We are going to turn to an energy bill very soon. When we complete the pending legislation before the Senate, we will turn to the subject of energy. Our country and its economy are terribly dependent on a substantial amount of energy coming from the Middle East. We understand the dilemma for the American economy to be that dependent on a part of the world that is so unstable. So we ought to find a way to be less dependent on that part of the world. I was in recent weeks in Central Asia and understand even more, once again, how fragile circumstances are there. Our economy and our country would be well advised to create an energy policy that extracts the kind of ultimate dependence we now have on an oil and energy supply from the Middle East. How do we do that? We write an energy policy that does a lot of things: increases supply at home--oil, natural gas, and coal--and does so in an environmentally acceptable way; increases conservation; increases efficiency of appliances we use; and also especially promotes limitless and renewable sources of energy. I am interested in the wide range of resources that belong to the last category, renewables: biodiesel, using sunflower and canola oil to run engines, taking a drop of alcohol from a kernel of corn and using that to extend America's energy supply, and then still having the protein feedstock from the kernel of corn. Today, I also want to talk briefly about wind energy. The new technology in wind turbines is extraordinary. Being able to take energy from the air, from the wind, using new, high-technology blades and coursing the wind through these turbines, then transmitting that energy across the grid to provide electricity where it is needed in this country makes good sense. It is limitless energy. We can have it forever. We will never deplete the source of energy coming from the wind. The production tax credit that has been on the books that provides the enhancement for wind energy projects expired at the end of last year. It is unthinkable that the Congress, poised to take up energy policy legislation, has allowed the production tax credit for wind energy to expire, and yet it did. The production tax credit for wind energy needs to be extended, and not for one year and not for 2 years, but for 5 years. We need to do that now. We need to do that on an urgent basis. We just cut a ribbon on the first commercial wind turbine along Interstate 94 in North Dakota. There are three blades on that turbine, each weighing 4,200 pounds. The turbine is a remarkable structure, and the efficiency and the new technology of these turbines is outstanding. When we look at all of the States and the opportunity to take energy from the wind, North Dakota is No. 1. We are 50th in native forest lands, so we are dead last in trees, but we are No. 1 in the potential for wind energy. Any young boy or girl who has grown up in North Dakota knows that. We have a lot of breezes that move across the prairies in North Dakota. We are No. 1 in wind energy potential. They call us the Saudi Arabia of wind energy. A week ago, I had a chief executive officer of a company come to my office, and he said: we have a project ready to be built in North Dakota--ready to be built right now. It will be a 150-megawatt wind farm. The plans for it are complete. Regrettably, he said, they are on the shelf until Congress extends the production tax credit. It does not make any sense to me, at a time when we are trying to figure out how we increase our supply of energy, to have companies that have the money, the plans and the will to produce 150 megawatts of wind-generated electricity in a State such as North Dakota, but to have those plans on the shelf because the Congress is dragging its feet. I know some will say: the extension of the production tax credit for wind energy has been inserted in this bill or that bill. In fact, the House of Representatives included it, I believe, just yesterday. They wrote another stimulus bill, which is a perfectly terrible piece of legislation, a big give-away to a lot of big companies that do not deserve it, and then added the extension of the production tax credit for wind energy on that vehicle. It is like putting earrings on a hog. It just does not mean very much. That is not the way we are going to get an extension of the production tax credit for wind energy. The way we are going to get it is for Members of the House and Senate to understand that we cannot come to the end of the year and have important policy issues, such as the production tax credit for wind energy, expire so that we have fits and starts and an industry that cannot get off the ground. A major blade manufacturer in Grand Forks, ND, laid off employees because, when the production tax credit expired at the end of last year, projects were put on the shelf, including the project I just described--a project worth $150 million in North Dakota that would produce 150 megawatts of electricity. They have the money, they have the plans, and it is not happening, because this Congress has been dragging its feet. I know the Majority Leader, Senator Daschle, agrees with me that we ought to do this. We ought to do it right now. Yet we cannot get it done because we have some people who insist on playing games with stimulus packages that will go nowhere, because they make no sense and will do nothing to stimulate this economy. Let us extract the tax credit extensions from the stimulus package. Let us pass these on a stand-alone basis. Let us pass that package of extenders that should have been enacted by the end of last year. Congress should have done that. Everybody knows that. I hope when we return following next week's State work period that we will have, both on the Democratic and Republican sides, a desire and a will to say that what we did not do at the end of last year we will commit to do now, and we will do it on an urgent basis, because that is what will contribute to a good energy policy for this country. Then we will turn to the energy bill. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I listened to my colleague. I have not seen the report, nor do I know the contents of that report. However, as my colleague has stated, it is not appropriate, in my judgment, for Canadians to be lobbying our Congress about a domestic farm program, or for anyone from our administration to be inviting them down. My hope is that that did not happen that the press report is erroneous--and the Secretary will put out a statement saying that is not accurate. If it is accurate, it is inappropriate. Senator Conrad is certainly right about that. This raises the broader point that, for the last 6 months, trying to get a farm bill out of this Congress has been an awful process. It is as if those who knew that we needed to get a better farm bill in order to enable family farmers to survive have been on a bicycle built for two, and we have been on the front seat pedaling uphill as hard as we could pedal, and the administration has been on the back seat with their foot on the break. Every step of the way the administration has said: we don't think you should do this; we don't believe you need a new farm bill. The administration told the House of Representatives not to write one. And the House of Representatives said: it doesn't matter what you say, we will do it. The administration told the Senate not to pass a farm bill in 2001. We had to go through three cloture votes and still could not get the 60 votes necessary to pass it in 2001. This year, We have finally gotten a bill out of the Senate. It is in conference. We need to complete this quickly. With respect to the issue of Canada, Canada is a good neighbor of ours, but it regrettably has undercut our Government and undercut our farmers in every way possible since the United States-Canada Free Trade Agreement. Canada dumped its wheat in our country and refused to open its books and records that would demonstrate there is unfair trade. We have sent people, including the GAO, to Canada to get those records. The Canadians have effectively thumbed their nose at all of our representatives and said: we are not going to give them to you. I don't think we need advice from Canada about how to help our farmers. What we need from the Canadians is for them to stop hurting our farmers. They have a State-sponsored monopoly in Canada called the Canadian Wheat Board that would be illegal in this country. Every day in every way for years they have been trying to undercut our family farmers with unfair trade. Senator Conrad is right when he says we do not need advice from Canadians about how to do domestic agricultural policy in our country. It is not welcome in my view. What is welcome is for the Canadians to decide that good neighbors ought not undercut each other with unfair trade. If they take that step once, they help American farmers with respect to fair trade. I thank Senator Conrad for allowing me to respond to his comments.

Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to rise today to talk about S. 1860, a piece of legislation I have introduced in the Senate along with my colleague, Senator Hagel, from the State of Nebraska. I want to describe what this legislation does and what it is. I ask the Presiding Officer if I could be notified when I have consumed 10 minutes.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the legislation we have introduced is the New Homestead Economic Opportunity Act. The President pro tempore will remember well the old Homestead Act in this country. We decided to try to populate the middle of this country well over a century ago by offering land to people who would move to the center of the country and work to improve the land. They would start a farm, start a family, and the Federal Government would give them 160 acres of land. That was called the Homestead Act. Let me describe what has happened to the middle part of our country in the last 50 years or so and why there is a need for a new Homestead Act now. No, it is not to give land away, because we don't have more land to give away, but to develop unique and different approaches through a New Homestead Economic Opportunity Act. This is a map of the United States of America. The red areas on this map are the rural counties that have lost at least 10 percent of their population over the last 20 years. All of these red areas are rural counties that have lost more than 10 percent of their population. You will see almost an egg shape in the middle of America. The middle part of America is being depopulated. People are leaving. Our rural counties are shrinking. If you are trying to do business in one of these rural counties, you are in very big trouble; you are trying to do business in a recession and have been for some long while. My home county is bigger than the State of Rhode Island. When I left it, there were 5,000 people. Now there are only 3,000 people--just to describe to you what is happening in the middle part of our country. Let me also describe how I came to this county. My county is right here in the corner of North Dakota. How did I get there? A Norwegian widow named Caroline, with six children, got on a train in St Paul, MN, and went to southwestern North Dakota by train, pitched a tent with her family, built a house, started a farm, had a son who had a daughter who had me. That is how I got here. Strong people? Sure. Can you imagine the strength of this widow with six children deciding, ``I am going to homestead. I am going to North Dakota to start a farm and raise my family.'' What a wonderful thing to have happen, and it happened all across the middle part of our country. That is the way we populated what is now called the heartland in America. But this population is now leaving. It is shrinking dramatically. Nearly 70 percent of the rural counties in the Great Plains have seen their populations shrink by a third over the past fifty years. Let me repeat that. Nearly 70 percent of the counties in rural America in the Great Plains have seen their population shrink by a third, despite the fact that in this part of America we have much of what people want. It is a wonderful place to raise a family. It is a wonderful place to live, with great neighbors and low crime rates. It has much of what people aspire to have in their lives. Yet rural counties in the middle part of our country are losing their economic strength, and they are losing their population at a rapid pace. Some years ago, we had a problem in inner cities in our country called urban blight. The Congress decided to do something about that. A new program was developed called the Model Cities Program. Urban renewal was developed to try to breathe life into major cities of this country that were suffering from very difficult problems. In introducing this bill, Senator Hagel and I are saying, we understand that out-migration is a national problem, and we ought to do something in public policy to try to breathe life into these rural areas in the heartland of our country. What is the heartland about? Let me describe North Dakota, and my colleague, Mr. Hagel, will perhaps describe Nebraska. Havana, ND, is a tiny little town. It is not big enough to keep a cafe unless everybody in town signs up to work for free. There is a sign-up sheet for everyone to volunteer to keep it from going out of business. This is the way the residents of Havana keep this business open in their town. Sentinel Butte, ND, has a population of 80 people. The owner of the gas station and his wife have reached retirement age. They do not want to be open all day long. They close at about 1 o'clock. They lock the gas pumps and hang the key to the gas pumps on a nail on the front door. If you need gas and they are not there, you take the key, unlock the pumps, pump some gas, and then make a note on a little sheet of paper. That is the way it works in a small town in western North Dakota. It probably wouldn't work very well in a big city, but it works in Sentinel Butte, ND. In Marmouth, ND, if you need a hotel, there is a hotel. Nobody works in the hotel. You check yourself into the hotel, and you have a good night's rest. When you check out in the morning, you leave your room key and some money in a cigar box that is nailed to the inside of the door. That is the place to stay if you visit Marmouth, ND. It may sound far-fetched, but it is not. In Tuttle, ND, they lost their grocery store. The city council said: We will have to build our own grocery store. So they built a city-owned grocery store. When they cut the ribbon for the new grocery store, I was there that day, they had the high school band out on Main Street. They closed Main Street to celebrate the opening of a city-owned store in Tuttle, ND. My point is that these are wonderful places with great people, with great qualities, and with great character. Yet all of the people in these areas are discovering that their population is shrinking and their Main Streets are dying. They are losing the economic vitality and the hope that ought to exist in communities like these. What can we do about that? Senator Hagel and I say the Government should play a role here, just as it did when the major cities in our country were in trouble. We have proposed the New Homestead Economic Opportunity Act. We propose that Federal policy embrace the notion that these rural areas in the heartland of America are worth saving as well. Let us provide some incentives to see if we can encourage people to move there or to come back and to live in these areas. We propose new homestead opportunities saying to young people that if you want to stay in one of these rural counties, which is losing population as defined in the bill, we will forgive up to 50 percent of your college loans by a certain percentage each year--about 10 percent each year for 5 years that you live and work in one of those counties, and help them to rebuild. We will offer a tax credit for home purchases in those counties that have been shrinking and losing population. We will protect your home values by allowing you to write off on your income tax the loss of the value of that home. These days, if you build a home in a small town of 200 people in one of our States--Nebraska, or North Dakota--the minute that home is completed, it is worth substantially less than it cost to build it. That is the way the market works in these small towns because banks and others don't want to finance in those areas. We propose that tax policy help alleviate that. We would establish individual homestead accounts to help people build savings and have access to credit if they live in these areas. Their savings could grow tax free, and after 5 years they could be tapped into for small business loans, education expenses, first-time home purchases, and so on. In addition to these homestead opportunities, we propose a new rural investment tax credit that says if you are doing business, investing, and creating jobs in these rural counties, you should be eligible for an investment tax credit because, as a matter of public policy, we want new opportunities for growth in the heartland. We propose a new homestead venture capital fund to promote business development and growth in these high outmigration areas by making sure they have access to capital in order to grow the businesses they need in order to create jobs. Even if entrepreneurs are willing to work hard and take risks, they can't make it in a county that is losing its population unless they have access to capital. Again, with respect to the middle part of America that is now losing population, let me say that when we sing that wonderful song, ``America the Beautiful,'' and talk about our country from ``sea to shining sea,'' and as we fly across America and pass over the heartland of our country and the breadbasket of America, we see wonderful values. We see wonderful people who are struggling to live in circumstances where their economy, their communities, and their schools are shrinking. I graduated from a little school with a class of nine, Regent High School, which closed last year. They had their last high school prom, and then they combined their school with that of a town 14 miles away. It is no longer the little school that I attended. That is happening all across the heartland. We can see the effect and the change that it causes in small communities. But can we in public policy make a difference? Can we begin to make an effort to change the future of rural America to a future of hope, opportunity, and growth? I think we can. That is why Senator Hagel and I have joined in proposing legislation that I think will begin to offer that hope, and that will begin to offer the people there the tools for economic opportunity and development in the heartland. I believe there are 10 minutes remaining. Is that correct?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that those 10 minutes be given to Senator Hagel, and I ask unanimous consent to extend 5 minutes beyond the additional 10 minutes.