Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, this morning we have had a generous discussion of farm policy. Some see me come to the floor of the Senate and say: Oh, no, here comes the farm speech again. Probably that is the case because family farming is very important to this country, to its future, and the passion I have for trying to do something to keep a network of food producers in our country represented by families living on farms in America is a passion that doesn't dim. And so I will respond to some to the discussion to date. We have been debating the farm bill all week. Today we are in a town largely vacated. We don't have record votes. The Chamber is largely empty. We are in a situation where we will now take the farm bill into next week because we had a cloture vote to try to cut off a filibuster yesterday, and we did not succeed. Fifty-four Members of the Senate voted to restrict debate so we could finish the farm bill, and that was not enough. It requires 60 votes. We have some in this Chamber who have decided to slow-walk this farm bill. While that is not unusual--that happens on legislation--no one has actually confessed to that strategy. They just have done it. Actually, on a good day no one accuses the Senate of speeding. But on bad days, this is almost glacial in terms of its movement. That is what has happened in recent days with respect to the farm bill. I listened carefully to the discussion this morning and to the discussion earlier in the week with respect to those who don't like the farm bill that came out of the Senate Agriculture Committee. I am reminded of the person who knows the cost of everything but the value of nothing. We have had a lot of discussion with respect to a farm bill, and it is about numbers--carryover stocks, loan rates, direct payments, a whole range of numbers. No one really talks of values. This debate is much more than just a discussion about numbers. It is a discussion about values: What kind of a country do we want to be. What kind of an economy do we want to have? Who do we want to produce America's food? Does it provide security to have a network of family producers scattered across this country, producing America's food? Does that produce a more secure food supply? Those are the questions we also ought to be discussing. I have expressed to my colleagues previously my feelings about farming and family farmers and ranchers in my State and other States. The Presiding Officer today is from the State of New Jersey. It is a large State, an urban State. His experience and background would be different than mine. I come from a town of 300 people. The Presiding Officer likely grew up in a town slightly larger than that. It seems to me that all of us coming together in this Chamber represent the gridwork of America, bringing different perspectives and different values from different parts of the country together in a discussion about who it is we are and what we want to be. That is why I rise to talk for a moment about family farming in North Dakota and what it provides for our rural lifestyle. My little town of 300 people just had their last high school prom last May. It was the last high school prom because it was the last year of their high school. I graduated many years ago from that same school in a class of nine. There were seven boys and two girls. (Mr. INOUYE assumed the chair.)

Mr. DORGAN. Well, the years passed and passed, and some more years passed, and they came to last May when the high school in Regent, ND, was closed. They held their last high school proposal. So the Regent Ranger basketball team and that high school are history. That is happening across much of the Farm Belt in the small towns that are shrinking like a plum to a prune, just shrinking up. So the question for many is, Does it matter? Isn't that the inevitable march of progress, the drumbeat of moving ahead? Isn't that inevitable? Why not just accept it? There are things that we lose in this country when we decide that that which is rural doesn't matter. I will give you some examples. I have mentioned before these examples. Nonetheless, they are important. If you are in need of a hotel room and are in Marmarth, ND, this evening, there is a hotel in Marmarth, ND. No one works there, however. You just go in and you take a bed, and the next morning when you leave, there is a cigar box attached to the inside of the door and they would like you to put some money in it, if you can. That is how you get a hotel room in Marmarth. Admittedly, it is a small town. Marmarth has 70 or 80 people now. It is an old railroad bunkhouse that they use as a hotel. The door is open for you if you need a place to sleep. Just put some money in the cigar box. That is part of a system of rural values that I think is important to understand. Another part of my State, down the road, also in the southern part of the State, is Havana, ND. People magazine did a story about Havana. They have a cafe in Havana, a little restaurant, but it is also a very small community. I believe it is under 100 people-- perhaps just under 200. In any event, in order to keep the restaurant open, because they can't afford to keep it open under regular circumstances, they asked the townspeople to sign up each week for when they can work there for 2 hours--for free, for nothing. That is the way the community keeps the small town cafe open. In Tuttle, ND, a little town of less than 100 people, they lost their grocery store. That wasn't satisfactory to the people in Tuttle, so the city council decided they would build their own grocery store. So you have a city-owned grocery store there. Some would call that socialism, but they simply wanted a grocery store, so the city built it. I was there the day they opened the new grocery store. They asked me to come. They cut a ribbon on Main Street. They had the high school band out on a beautiful day. The sun was shining, the wind was blowing gently, and the high school band played on the streets to celebrate the opening of the city-owned grocery store. Good for them. In my hometown of Regent, they had a robbery. They had not had one for an awful long time. The county sheriff from Mott came rushing over in his car. He had his lights and siren on because he doesn't get a chance to use them that much. He came rushing in and discovered someone had stolen some money from a home. He investigated and announced that there was no sign of forced entry because these folks had gone on vacation for 2 weeks and had not locked their house. They had left some cash in their home and someone had stolen some cash. But there was no sign of forced entry because, having left for vacation for 2 weeks, they didn't lock their home. The county sheriff said to the residents: There are two things you ought to consider doing. One, if you are going on vacation, consider locking your home. Two, if you are going to leave your vehicle on Main Street, consider taking your keys. The people in my hometown down at the cafe talking about that discovered there was a practical problem for the first suggestion. Most people didn't have keys for their homes. Regarding the second recommendation, the county newspaper pointed out that the county sheriff thought people should remove keys from vehicles on Main Street when they parked. They asked a rancher how he felt about that. His response was: Well, the question I have about the sheriff's suggestion is, what if somebody needs to use my pickup truck? So that is where I come from. That is a set of rural values that you won't find in some other parts of the country. These are wonderful places in which to live and raise children, places with good neighbors. So this is more than just about dollars and cents. It is more than just about graphs and charts that people show with lines and bars on them. It is about values, a value system. Let me speak for a minute about what is happening in rural America. The discussion we have heard this morning is about our plan versus their plan. Well, look, every plan that existed in the last 30 years had been a plan during which, when implemented, we have had this relentless march away from rural America. There is a Lutheran minister in New England, ND, who told me that she conducts four funerals for every wedding. She says: For every wedding I conduct in my Lutheran Church, I conduct four funerals. I thought, that is the opposite of that movie, ``Four Weddings and a Funeral.'' In rural America, it is four funerals and a wedding. Why is that the case? Because the population is growing older, young people are leaving, family farmers are going broke. This rural lifestyle of ours is decaying and atrophying. The question is whether the Congress cares about it, whether there is a public policy in Congress that matches the kind of public policy Europeans have already embraced that says: Do you know what we want for our future? We want a network of food producers represented by families, producing food on the land across Europe. We want that for food security purposes and for economic and cultural and social purposes. They have done it. Go to Europe and go to a small town and ask yourself whether that town is living or dying. It is alive. Do you know why? Because families out there are making a living on the land producing crops. This country points to Europe and says it provides subsidies to its farmers, as if it is an accusation. Yes, it does, because that is the kind of economy it wants. When prices for food collapse on the international markets, Europe says they want to maintain a network of farmers in rural Europe. So, too, should the United States decide that family farmers matter. Family farming is much more than just the act of planting a seed. Family farming produces communities. It is the blood vessel that creates small communities. It is where we raise children and educate children, and those family values that start on the farm and roll from family farm to small towns to big cities nourish and refresh the value system of this country. That is why this issue is important to some of us. We can ignore this, we can pretend the problem doesn't exist, and we can say everything is just fine. But that ignores the truth--the fundamental truth that somewhere all across rural America this morning families were waking up on farm after farm after farm wondering how long it is going to be before they lose their farm. How long before they lose their hopes and dreams of trying to make a living by scratching the land and planting a seed, how long? You can't imagine the letters we receive from people who have lost everything. A woman called me a while ago. She and her husband got married just out of high school and started a farm. That was about 25 years ago. It was a dairy operation. If anybody knows anything about dairy, you know how hard that is. You milk every day, twice a day, early in the morning and at night. She said for 25 years they have scrimped on everything; they don't go to town on weekends or at night, and they don't spend money foolishly on anything. They wait an extra year to buy Levis for their kids for school. They called me and told me a story. She said: The bank says they are going to foreclose on us because the price of milk is too low and we can't make a living milking 80 cows. What are we going to do? It is the only thing we know. It is what we decided to do after high school. Our dream was to run a family farm. We have done it for a quarter century. We are not trained for other things. Can you help us? That plaintiff cry, ``Can you help us,'' comes from all corners of rural America to the U.S. Congress, asking: Do you care whether family farms produce America's food? If you do, give them a decent opportunity to make a living if they are good managers. That brings me to the point of the numbers. When a family farm in rural America today raises a bushel of wheat, they are paid a pitiful sum for that bushel of wheat by the grain trade because the grain trade says that food they produce isn't worth anything. It is inexplicable to me that in a hungry world where half a billion people go to bed at night with an ache in their belly because it hurts to be hungry, our farmers are told their food has no value. It is just inexplicable. That is what the grain trade says to the family farmer, but that food the grain trade tells the family farmer has no value is put on a railroad that in most places charges monopoly rates to a farmer to haul that grain to the market. From that market, a cereal manufacturer will take from that bushel of wheat a kernel and puff it, and by the time they get that puffed kernel of wheat and stick it in a cereal box, seal it up, put bright colors on the box, send it to the grocery store, and put it on the shelf, they will sell that for $4 for a small box. All of a sudden that food does have value. It just had no value for the person who bought the tractor and planted the seed and took the risk. The value is to the company that took the kernel of wheat and puffed it, or the rice or the corn and flaked it and created the pop and the crackle, and then sold it for $4 or $5 a box. That is where the value is, apparently. Farmers have increasingly lost their share of the food dollar as they are pressed from above and pressed from below by increasing monopolies in virtually every direction that a farmer looks--hauling their product, selling their product, buying their chemicals, buying their seed in virtually every direction. Then when the Federal Government gets about the business of dealing with trade, saying to farmers, by the way, we will let you sell overseas that grain you raised, we discover the trade agreements this country has negotiated with others are fundamentally bankrupt in the way they treat family farmers. We negotiated one with Canada and sold out American farmers, just sold them out. We negotiated one with Mexico and sold out American farmers. And the list goes on. Farmers need a little help. Farmers are asking Congress to stand on their side for a change. Let me go to this question of what kind of plan will work. We have a plan before the Senate that comes from the Senate Agriculture Committee. I know the administration does not like it. I also know some of our colleagues who spoke this morning do not like it very much. The administration wrote a statement of administration policy; it is called SAP. There is an acronym for everything in this town. They said supporting prices is self-defeating. The point is, we really should not support prices for family farmers. And I fundamentally disagree with that. If a big economic interest has a headache, this town is ready to give them an aspirin, fluff up their pillow, and put them to bed. This town is ready to help them at the drop of a hat. How about a family farmer who does not have much power? How about a family farmer who discovers the grain they sell has no value? Colleagues say: Supporting prices is self-defeating. It is not self- defeating. Supporting prices for family farmers is an effort to help this country maintain a network of food production that promotes domestic security in this country, promotes a lifestyle and a culture in America that is very important. It is not self-defeating at all. We have brought this bill out of the Senate Agriculture Committee, and Senator Harkin and many others brought it to the floor of the Senate. It was reported out unanimously. Every title of the bill but one was voted on unanimously, and that was the commodity title. That title was voted on and had a Republican vote, so it has a bipartisan flavor to it. This bill was virtually unanimous coming out of the Senate Agriculture Committee. Despite the fact there is an urgency to get this done and get it done now--we are trying to get it done by the end of the year--yesterday we could not break a filibuster because some do not like the price supports in the bill. Today we have a discussion by some who say they want to offer an amendment. We have been waiting for that amendment for, I believe, 4 days now; the amendment will reduce price supports for every single commodity. It will reduce the price supports for wheat, corn, barley, oats, oil seeds, and soybeans. It seems to me reducing price supports--and the bill that came out of the Senate Agriculture Committee, in my judgment, is not generous enough, but at least it gets us at the starting line of what we need to do to help family farmers--reducing price supports from that level, in my judgment, would make no sense at all. The proposition is: Let's have a direct payment to farmers that has no relationship to price. That is Freedom to Farm, too. That is the current farm law. The current farm law, Freedom to Farm--which title is sort of incongruous, in my judgment, but nonetheless that is the title to it--has nearly bankrupted rural America. Every single year Freedom to Farm has been in force, we have had to do an emergency bill at the end of the year to keep people afloat. Why? Because the underlying farm legislation is awful. It does not work, and everybody in the country knows it does not work. The proposal that says what we really need to do now is have a fixed payment, notwithstanding what prices are in the marketplace, is saying: Let's continue what we have been doing. Freedom to Farm is a proposal that says: Let's have 7 years of declining payments. It does not matter what the market is. If the market is $5.50 a bushel for wheat and you do not need the help, you are going to get it anyway. That is what Freedom to Farm is. They did not calculate that instead of $5.50 a bushel for wheat, it collapsed to $2.50, and Freedom to Farm was a miserable pittance in terms of what farmers needed to stay out of bankruptcy. The circumstances are that a substitute is going to be offered that says: Let's go back to a fixed payment, and if prices improve, we will still give payments. That is not my interest. In my judgment, family farmers do not want a payment. If they get $5.50 for a bushel of wheat, they do not want, they do not need a payment, and they should not get a payment. It is just very simple. What we ought to be doing for family farmers is something that is a countercyclical program that when prices are collapsing and times are tough, we help. When times are good, we do not need to help. That is common sense, in my judgment. The bill that was brought to us by Senator Harkin does exactly that. It makes a policy U-turn and says: Let's understand Freedom to Farm did not work, and let's put in place something that is truly countercyclical. It retains all the things farmers want; that is, planting flexibility. They want the flexibility to make their own planting decisions, and they should have that. Absolutely. They have it under the current law. They will have it under the new law. That makes good sense. It does not make any sense to begin, even before this bill is passed, pulling the rug out from under price supports saying somehow we want to provide less to family farmers than they need to survive. This is an extraordinarily important time. We are not in session today with votes. We are in session but have no votes. We return with votes on Tuesday. We will be working Wednesday and through the remainder of the week, I expect. We expected and hoped we would get this farm bill that came out of the Senate Agriculture Committee passed by yesterday or the day before. We were not able to break a filibuster. So now we have to, on Tuesday, come back and see if we can--or perhaps Monday with no votes but then Tuesday with votes--see if we can provide some additional votes on amendments and get to the end stage. My hope is those who have been developing this slow-motion strategy will understand that it serves no real interest. We are going to finish this bill. The only thing that will have been accomplished is we will have delayed dramatically the ability to pass a farm bill, and we will not have had the opportunity to have a conference with the House of Representatives if this goes much longer. We have a Republican chairman on the House side who is anxious to get to conference. Congressman Combest--good for him--told the White House and the administration some months ago when they said, Don't write a farm bill this year; we do not want you to write a farm bill, Congressman Combest said to his own party: It does not matter what you want; we need a new farm bill, and I am going to do it. Good for him. I commend him. He is a good, strong guy who pushed ahead and did it. He wants to go to conference with us; the sooner the better. My colleague, Senator Harkin, has now brought a bill out of the Senate Agriculture Committee, and we should be in conference today had we not had a filibuster. Hopefully we can be in conference next Wednesday. We owe it to the family farmers in this country to get this bill done and get it done right. We will, I suspect, hear from a lot of family farmers in the coming days through their farm organizations. Every farm organization in America, every one that I am aware of, has asked this Congress to do this job now. Farm organizations and commodity groups have said: We support this job being done now. It is just inexplicable to me that on behalf of family farmers this Congress will not rush to good policy. If this were some other economic sector with big companies and lobbyists filling the hallways, Congress would be rushing off and saying, When can we get this done? But somehow when it comes to the farm bill, we have people who do not seem very anxious to complete the work. I began by talking about small towns and values, and let me end again by saying this is about values. What does this country want for its food production in the future? Does it want family producers? If it does, then it has to develop public policy that complements those desires. I mentioned before that Europe has done it. We have not. Some of our friends point to Europe and say they are subsidizing their farmers. Yes, they are doing that. Good for them. Do you know why they are doing it? Because Europe has been hungry, and it has decided it is never going to be hungry again. We have people who are just benign about family farmers. We have people who say it does not matter who farms America. We have big agrifactories that can line up tractors on farms from California to Maine. That would be fine. All that has been lost is families. Yard lights are not needed if there is nobody living out there. One can fly from Los Angeles to New York and see almost no lights then. I do not think that advances America's interest. I think that retards it. I think there is a difference in terms of this country's future about who produces America's food, and if we stand with family farmers and believe in a future with family farmers producing America's food and believe the values that come from rural America are important to our country's future, then it seems to me we have an obligation and an opportunity now to do the right thing. Doing the right thing is passing the bill that came out of the Senate Agriculture Committee, getting it into conference, and joining with Congressman Combest and Senator Harkin in getting this bill to the desk of the President. I do not know whether the President will sign it. That is up to him. It is not our job to anticipate what this President might or might not do in agricultural policy. It is our job to write the best farm bill possible, and that is what we should be about doing. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, one of my State's leading citizens has passed away and I want to reflect on what can only be described as a triumphant life. I extend my sympathy to his family in this time of grief. But I know his family is also celebrating his full life. Harold Schafer is the classic story of a poor youth who became successful through old-fashioned entrepreneurship and flat-out hard work. He deserves our respect for that, but, more importantly, we ought to take note of what he did with his wealth. Harold Schafer would not permit his capital to pile up in trust funds, and stock portfolios, and real estate investments. To what will be his ever-lasting credit, he worked just as hard at disbursing his money to good causes as he initially did earning it. The recipients of his generosity are legion, colleges and communities and authors and park boards and hospitals and youth groups and a cavalcade of individuals who needed a hand. Most memorable is his re-creation of the historic and romantic cow town of Medora. Cradled in the spectacular Badlands of North Dakota, it's become the State's primary tourist designation. Because of the enormous investment and creative imagination that Harold Schafer poured into rejuvenating it, this storied village, a place where Teddy Roosevelt once lived, has become symbolic of the Old West. Harold Schafer's resurrection and promotion of Medora has made it a jewel of North Dakota's heritage and will forever be the crowning achievement of his life. Harold Schafer has left us, but he has given us Medora, a sweet, handsome, proud, and historic place. There can be no question but that Harold is pleased with this very special legacy and North Dakotans are thankful indeed.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I want to take a few minutes to congratulate Chairman Tex Hall for his recent election as president of the National Congress of American Indians. Tex is the chairman of Three Affiliated Tribes, Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation, in my State of North Dakota. As my colleagues know, the NCAI is the Nation's oldest and largest advocacy group representing Native Americans. I can vouch from my own personal experience in working with Tex that he will be a strong and persistent voice on behalf of Native Americans. Over the years, Tex and I have worked together on such issues as Indian education, Indian health care, economic development, water needs in North Dakota, and other issues. Tex has always been fighting, and rightly so, to increase the Federal Government's funding for Indian health, education, transportation, and other programs. Federal funding in these areas has been woefully inadequate, and I have been glad to join him in this fight. A story from just last year illustrates what a strong advocate Tex is. I was working very hard with Tex to secure funding for the Four Bears Bridge, which is the only crossing point across the Missouri River for 150 miles and is especially important to the Fort Berthold Reservation because it connects the two halves of the reservation. The President's budget requested only $5 million for design of the new bridge, and at first it looked like even keeping that level of funding would be a challenge. After a lot of elbow grease, however, I was pleased to call Tex to let him know that I had been able to secure $35 million, which was the full Federal Government share for the bridge's design and construction. I was pretty proud of this accomplishment, and of course, Tex thanked me very graciously. Then, like the true tribal advocate that he is, he asked for more money. Virtually his entire life, Tex has been a leader in one way or another. For instance, he served 11 years as principal and superintendent of the Mandaree school, and was named North Dakota ``Indian Educator of the Year'' in 1995. Prior to being elected tribal chairman in 1998, he served on the tribal business council for 3 years. He currently serves on countless boards and task forces, representing tribal interests in just about every important area of Indian policy. And he has even had time for his cattle and buffalo ranching and to found the All Nations High School Basketball Tournament and Tex Hall basketball camps. Tex's election as president of NCAI comes at a very important time in the Federal Government's relationship with tribes. As is well documented, the Federal Government's century of mismanagement of Indian trust funds and resources is coming to a head with Interior Secretary Gale Norton's announcement of a reorganization of her Department's trust responsibilities. Chairman Hall has jumped right in as president of NCAI and has been leading the fight to ensure that tribes are meaningfully consulted before a plan with such enormous consequences is implemented. I look forward to continuing to work with Tex in his new position on the many important issues facing Indian country and Congress. I offer him my congratulations and best wishes.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, it wasn't clear to me who had the floor. I believe the Senator from New Jersey has the floor, and the Senator from Florida is sort of asking questions. In terms of time here, I am wondering if we could get some notion. Is the Senator from Florida intending to seek recognition on his own when he finishes these series of questions so we might have some sense of whether others might be recognized in this debate?

Mr. DORGAN. It is actually interesting that the Senator from New Jersey seems to be well aware of that about which you are inquiring. The Senator indicated he is well informed and, observing that, I would concur. All I am interested in doing is to see if we can have a debate spring out and when that might occur.

Mr. DORGAN. I am happy to yield to the Senator from Arizona for an inquiry, without losing the right to the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, there has been a generous amount of debate about this subject, and an interesting debate it is. However, let me put in a word on behalf of family farmers in our country who would say to you ``don't use food to punish people; don't use food as a weapon.'' That is what this issue is about. Let me stipulate to all what has been said about Cuba or Castro or terrorism. Let me stipulate to all of it, and then ask you the question: When you use food and medicine as a weapon against a country, any country, what on Earth have you accomplished when the day is done? What have you accomplished? We have had a vote in the Senate on this subject before. Over 70 Members of the Senate said we ought not use food and medicine as a weapon. We ought not, in the conduct of foreign policy, trying to punish some other country, use food and medicine. It is unseemly. It is wrong. It is not the moral thing to do. Over 70 Members of the Senate have already voted on that. Did we get it done? No, because it got hijacked in a conference with the House of Representatives on two occasions. So we opened up a small crevice, that some food can go to Cuba under certain conditions provided there is no public financing and no US private financing. So you have no public financing, no capability of getting private financing, and some food can go to Cuba if someone goes to Europe and gets financing, gets a license and has to wait on a ship for 2 weeks, and in the event of a hurricane, we send some corn to Cuba, as we finally did yesterday. Because 70 Members of the Senate have already expressed themselves on this issue, someone listening to this debate earlier would believe because four or five people have spoken about it in passionate terms, this issue is about stopping terrorism in its tracks, about punishing the Castro government, punishing the government of Cuba. I have no truck for Fidel Castro and his government. What I do care about is the ability of our family farmers to be able to move food around the world to hungry people. That is what this is about. How often do we continue to use food as a weapon? It is one thing to shoot yourself in the foot. It is quite another thing to take aim before you shoot. That is exactly what has happened here, time and time and time again. Maybe we ought to have a little clear thinking about what we are doing. Restrictions on food sales to Cuba are not going to punish Fidel Castro. What they do is punish poor people, sick people, hungry people, and kids. Everyone knows it. That is why 70 percent of the Senate has already voted to say this is a policy that doesn't work. I was in Cuba. Many Members have been to Cuba. I was in a hospital in Cuba, in an intensive care ward where a little boy was in a coma. He had been in a bicycle accident. He was severely injured and was in a coma, lying in the intensive care unit, without one piece of equipment, without one machine attached to him. Why? Because they didn't have any. In that particular hospital, they told me they were out of 240 different kinds of medicine. Yet the policy advocated by those that push this amendment is we should continue to use medicine as an instrument of punishment against Fidel Castro or the Cuban Government. This is not about Fidel Castro or the Cuban Government. It is about kids in hospitals. It is about kids who are hungry. It is about family farmers in North Dakota who are told time and time again: ``By the way, we intend to use your wheat fields as an instrument of foreign policy, and we are not going to pay for it.'' It is easy to put on a blue suit in the morning and come to the Senate and decide you want to use a field of wheat in Nebraska as an instrument of your foreign policy and say you can't sell that wheat to this country or that country. We are familiar with embargoes. We have had too many. We ought never have an embargo on food. Hubert Humphrey, many years ago, said: ``Sell them anything they can't shoot back.'' So they are going to shoot corn back at us, are they? All these restrictions do is hurt kids and hungry people. Does anybody in this Chamber want to stand up and tell me because we had a 40-year embargo and we have decided we will cut Cuba off from being able to purchase or achieve a food shipment from the United States, that Fidel Castro has ever missed a meal? Does anybody believe he has missed a meal? If so, which one? Breakfast? What day? Dinner? Lunch? I don't think so. We know better than that. Those who govern in Cuba have never missed a meal because we decided to use food as a weapon. It is the hungry, the sick, and poor people that get hurt with embargoes. And America's family farmers get hurt with embargoes. We get all the agents of change that come to the Senate on virtually every issue except this: 40 years of a policy that doesn't work. We know it doesn't work. The biggest excuse Castro has for the total collapse of the Cuban economy is that he says the American Government has its fist around the Cuban economy's neck. That is what causes these problems. That, of course, is pure nonsense. But that is what he uses. The quickest way to get Castro out of power is to open that country up, eliminate this embargo, see the investments go into Cuba. They are going in now from Europe. If we stop this embargo, Castro would have an awful tough time holding on to power. Aside from that, there is a narrower question. Should part of the embargo be food shipments and medicine shipments to Cuba? The answer is, no. Let me ask a question: Are we able to ship food to Communist China? I say Communist China because China is a wonderful, big country, a big trading partner of ours. I say ``wonderful'' because we have spent a lot of time negotiating with them. We have treaties with them. But it is a Communist country, isn't it? Has anybody come to the floor of the Senate talking about cutting off food to China, a Communist country? Let me ask the question, when China was selling missile technology to Iran, did anybody rush down to the floor of the Senate talking about cutting off food to China? No. No, you won't hear about that. Nobody will do that. How about North Korea? Is there anybody rushing to the floor to talk about cutting off food to North Korea, a Communist country? Is anybody rushing around with their Vietnam amendment to cut off food to Communist Vietnam, a country that is a wonderful country, coming out from behind the curtain with a market system, but still a Communist government? Is anybody rushing to see if we can cut off food to a country that is run by a Communist government? No, the only country in the world in which we prohibit by law private financing--not public, private financing--to ship food, the only country in which we prohibit private financing to ship food is Cuba. We can do private financing and ship food to China. We can do it to North Korea and Vietnam. I can go down a long list of countries that are depicted as terrorist countries, but nobody is on the floor saying we have to stop this. We have to start using food and medicine as a weapon to stop this. No one is saying anything about that. Why? This is about Cuba only. Let me stipulate again to all that which has been said before me. I don't know how much of it is true. I suspect a fair amount of it is true. It is a repressive government. It is not a government chosen by the people of Cuba. It jails dissidents. But it is interesting, if you go to Cuba and talk to the dissidents in Cuba, they will tell you the embargo is counterproductive. A good many dissidents believe a good way to get rid of Fidel Castro is to get rid of the embargo. Those who believe we ought not be able to ship food to Cuba, even financed privately, ought to explain to us why we ought to be able to ship food to China, North Korea, Libya, and the rest of the world, through private financing. Why? Is it all right to ship food through private financing to the country of Iran? Yes, with a license. But not Cuba. Why? It is interesting to me. It seems to me we are so blinded we cannot think our way out of this fog. I have spoken on the floor a number of times about the restrictions on travel to Cuba. We are not debating that today, but those restrictions are absurd also, just absurd. You can travel anywhere else in the world, but you can't travel to Cuba. Let me tell you about a little old lady in the State of Illinois, retired, responding to an advertisement in a Canadian travel magazine, a biking magazine. She decided she wanted to bike. The Canadian bicycle club was sponsoring a bicycle tour of Cuba for 8 days. She signed up. She is retired, living in Illinois, loves to bike, and wanted see Cuba. She went to Cuba, had a wonderful bicycle trip, and came back. Eighteen months later, from the U.S. Treasury Department, she got a $9,600 fine for traveling in Cuba. So we have the Office of Financial Assets Control in Treasury tracking little old ladies in Illinois riding bicycles in Cuba while we have terrorists plotting to fly airplanes into the World Trade Center. Obsessive? I think so. Maybe we can find our way out of this public policy mess if we just think through it clearly. It seems to me we ought to decide, every one of us, that we should not use food or medicine as a weapon. I understand the Senator from Arizona wishes consent to be recognized. I ask unanimous consent he be recognized following my presentation.

Mr. DORGAN. It also appears you are intimately familiar with all of that which is being delivered to you by my colleague from Florida.

Mr. DORGAN. If the Senator will yield, I do not think the question is whether people want to be heard. The question is how long they want to be heard on the amendment. I will oppose it, but I am perfectly willing to accept 45 minutes. Are there people who want to comment 20, 30 minutes in opposition? If so, we will have difficulty getting a time agreement. My hope is, given the hour and difficulty of moving this bill along, that we can get a time agreement on this amendment on both sides.

Mr. DORGAN. Let me make one final point. We have been stuck in reverse with respect to policy for decades. The Senate has spoken on this issue; 70 Senators said using food and medicine as a weapon is absurd. Let's change the policy. So we are going to have a vote today. I hope the vote today will reflect what the Senate has previously reflected on this issue. This is not about Fidel Castro. It is not about the Cuban Government. It is about being able to ship food as we do to every other country in the world with private financing: Iran, Libya, North Korea, China, and on and on and on. Except this absurd proposition that with private financing we cannot ship food to the country of Cuba. It makes no sense. Everyone in this room understands it and knows it and it is time to change it.

Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. DORGAN. I think it makes sense to reach a time agreement on the Smith amendment. I intend to speak against the Smith amendment and want to do so for a minute or so. It seems to me we have debated this over the years as a general subject. If we can reach a time agreement and then let the Senate vote makes sense to me.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, if the Senator from New Jersey will yield further, I respect that, and I understand the rules of the floor. The Senator is making a long statement and then asking, ``are you aware of that.'' He has the right to do that in the form of a question. The Senator from Virginia would like to speak. I would like to speak. Could we get some sense of time here, how long this inquiry will go on? Does the Senator intend to seek recognition on his own behalf, or the Senator from Virginia expect to seek recognition next so we could have some sense of whether or when we could actually have a debate about this policy?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for me to make a unanimous consent request?

Mr. DORGAN. The Senator is very courteous. I have been waiting some while to speak. I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized to speak following the remarks of the Senator from North Carolina.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Again, I thank the Senator for his response. I invite the response of the Senator from Iowa, but I hope that perhaps we can find a way to get a list of amendments and also agree to reasonable time limits on amendments. There is Parkinson's law that the time required expands to fit the time available. So because we are nearing the end of the session, it is really important to find a way to reach an end stage. I ask the Senator from Iowa if he might respond on whether we can get a finite list.

Mr. DORGAN. I rise in opposition to the Gregg amendment. In my opinion, this is a terrible amendment. Essentially it abolishes the sugar program and significantly injures a good many family farmers who are struggling under ordinary circumstances to try to make a decent living. I will try to correct some of the misconceptions about the sugar program. First, I thought I would point out that this debate is about this. This is the fun-sized Baby Ruth candy bar. This debate is about candy corporations versus family farmers. I intend to eat this Baby Ruth when I am finished. That is why I don't have a large, full-sized Baby Ruth. This is a fun size. Let me read for a moment the ingredients of this candy bar. For the corporation that makes it, I am not casting aspersions upon your product. Since I intend to eat it, I would be telling people it is a pretty decent product. Let me describe what is in it. Ingredients: Sugar. That is not in bold type, it just says sugar. That, of course, misses the point. There is a lot of sugar in this candy bar. That is what this debate is about. This debate is about the price of the sugar that this company is paying for and putting in this candy bar. What else is in this candy bar? Although this debate is about sugar only, I thought it would be useful, perhaps, to read the entire list of ingredients: Roasted peanuts, corn syrup, partially hydrogenated palm kernel, coconut and soybean oils, high fructose corn syrup, dextrose, skim milk. And then emulsifiers--with a couple of emulsifying words I cannot pronounce--and artificial flavors, TBHQ. Maybe I won't eat this after I finish; maybe I will. Emulsifiers: Artificial flavors, carrageenan, TBHQ, and citric acid to preserve freshness. Then they have added caramel color. So that is what is in this little old Baby Ruth. This issue is about the sugar, the first ingredient in this candy bar. This amendment is not new. We have had this amendment time and time and time again because those who produce candy in this country, among others, want a lower cost of sugar. Let me ask the question. Has anyone noticed recently that the price of candy bars has decreased? Go to the store, go to the candy counter and pick out a bar, any bar, and ask yourself, has there been a reduction in the price of that bar? Maybe a 10-percent cost reduction? Maybe 20? Maybe 30? Maybe 40? Anybody see any of that? I don't think so. Same candy, same price or higher price, but they are paying less for sugar. Who gets the benefit of that so-called less for sugar? Those who receive lower prices for sugar are the families out there in North Dakota and Minnesota and the Red River Valley who are producing sugar beets. They are good, hard-working honest folks. They produce a good product. They plant those beets and they hope very much they will get a decent crop. When they get a decent crop, they hope, through their marketing mechanisms, they will have a decent price. But you know what has happened to the sugar producers and beet producers and cane producers and so on? The underlying farm bill has been so poor, so badly constructed in the last 6 or 8 years, that farmers, because the underlying farm bill for other crops has been so poor, farmers have planted more in beets. That is the fact. It relates, of course, to the underlying Freedom to Farm bill, which has been a terrible failure. But it is not just that there has been some additional acreage planted. That is not the issue that drives this today. We have had some price problems but that is not the issue that is driving all this. Let me give an example of what is driving it. It always comes back to this, it seems to me. We have a circumstance where, for example, today, on Wednesday, we are going to import sugar from Brazil into this country. It is not supposed to be coming in. It is highly subsidized by Brazil. And Brazil ships its highly subsidized sugar to Canada. Then they load liquid molasses with Brazilian sugar and ship it into the United States in contravention of our trade laws. It is a so-called legal way of cheating. It happens in our trade laws virtually all the time and nobody can do a blessed thing about it. So those who are farming out there in the Red River Valley, trying to produce beets, and hope beyond hope they can support their family and get a price for their beets, they take a look at this and say, what about this cheating in international trade, this so-called stuffed molasses? I hold up a Baby Ruth. We all know what a Baby Ruth is. Has anybody ever eaten stuffed molasses? Stuffed molasses is a term of art in international trade that means someone has taken Brazilian sugar, ran it through Canada, added it to a liquid and moved it to the United States, taken the sugar out of it, and moved it back to Canada. It comes back again and again and again. All it is is a transport for Brazilian sugar which is unfairly subsidized, and that cuts the legs out from under our producers and nobody wishes to do anything about it. I wish someone would come to the Chamber with half the energy with which they come to the Chamber on these kinds of bills to try to get rid of the sugar program and cut the legs out of our producers, I wish they would come to the Chamber with that energy and say, let's stop the cheating in international trade. Let's stop the stuffed molasses, stop it dead. It is cheating, it is unfair, and undercuts American producers. When we are talking about trade, does anyone think of the farmer in Minnesota or North Dakota who is out there trying to raise beets, that their responsibility is to compete against Brazilian producers who are being unfairly subsidized? Is that trade that is fair? I don't think so, not where I come from. In my hometown, we understand what fairness is. We grew up understanding the definition of the word ``fair.'' What is happening to our farmers in international trade, all of our farmers? And I can go through long lists dealing with the issue of durum wheat in Canada and others, but let me focus on this issue of trade in sugar to demonstrate how unfair it is to American producers. Yet we do not have any energy coming to the Chamber, except those of us who have been trying desperately to write a law which prohibits that molasses coming down here under the term of ``stuffed molasses.'' That is simply a liquid truck to bring Brazilian sugar into this country to hurt American producers. We have had people say today that the world price for sugar is way down here. The U.S. price for sugar is way up here. I guess they just miss the facts about how sugar is both produced and then marketed around the world. Almost all sugar around the world is traded by contract, country to country. That which is not is the residual amount of sugar surplus that is dumped on the open market at an artificial price. It has nothing at all to do with the market value at which sugar is selling or is being bought and sold. It has nothing to do with that. So we have people come out here with a chart with a price that is irrelevant. It is just irrelevant. If this were automobiles, that would be the salvage price but it is irrelevant to what a new car is selling for. On the issue of price, let's put that to rest once and for all. The price for sugar is the price at which sugar is traded internationally and predominantly the price at which it is traded internationally by contract is not at all related to the dump price that has been alleged as the world price by those who offer this amendment. Let me hold up a couple of charts that other of my colleagues have used as well. Some say, well, this really doesn't matter. All that matters here is the price of sugar in the grocery store. The fact is, what matters is that this is an important part of this country's economy. It provides over 400,000 jobs, a good many of those jobs in North Dakota and the Red River Valley, men and women who have a dream to run a family farm and make a living, and they expect public policy to support that. They expect public policy to weigh in in their favor against unfair trade. Instead, too many bring public policy to the floor of the Senate that says let's give the candy corporations a little more benefit and take it away from those who are trying to run a family farm. I have nothing against candy corporations. I eat candy--probably more than I should. As I said, I intend to eat this piece of candy. But the candy corporations have done right well. What has happened is they have seen a substantial reduction in the price of sugar and they love it. They have seen a substantial increase in their profits and they enjoy it, but has the consumer seen any evidence that the price of sugar is lower than it was? No. This is a transfer from the pockets of those running a family farm trying to produce sugar beets to the corporate coffers in the accounts called ``profits'' in the pockets of some of the largest candy companies in the country. That is what it is. It is revenuesharing. It takes from those who have not and gives to those who have. When you strip away all the pieces of this debate, this dispute is very simple at its core. This industry produces a great many jobs in this country. It is important to this country. It faces fundamentally unfair trade, and it has a sugar program that for many, many years has worked, contrary to other farm programs that have been miserable failures. Now we have had, routinely, people come to the floor of the Senate to say we want to take apart that which works. It doesn't make any sense to me. The producer prices for sugar plummet. The wholesale refined price for sugar--you see what happened, a 23.4-percent reduction. I asked the question about the candy bar, but let me ask it about a box of cereal. That cereal aisle in the grocery store is a wonderful aisle. It has so many different kinds of cereal these days you can hardly stop to see them all or understand them all. There are just lots and lots of boxes of cereal. When I take my kids to the grocery store with me, they know all those names. They have seen them advertised. They want to buy the most byzantine boxes of cereal I have ever heard of. Occasionally they sneak them into the grocery cart. Has anyone ever seen a reduction in the price of cereal as a result of a reduction in the price of sugar? I don't think so. Has anyone seen a reduction in the price of cookies or cakes at the retail level? No. They are heavy users of sugar. How about other bakery products? What about ice cream? Is ice cream selling at a substantial reduction? Of course, that is a tremendous carrier of sugar as well. No. I don't think so. What about doughnuts? Is the price of doughnuts down because the price of sugar has plummeted? I don't think so. I think the price of doughnuts is up. I think the price of candy bars and cookies is up, including the profits of candy manufacturers who now want more. They want more. This is not enough. They want more. They want to kill the sugar program. The answer to those interests that want to do that is, you are not going to be able to do it--not today, not tomorrow, not next month, and not next year. This is a program that works. It is constructed in a way that works. It works for American family farmers and for American consumers. We have a stable supply of sugar and a stable price. We had it for a long time until the most recent problems that, in my judgment, came about because the underlying farm bill didn't work. Stability of supply and price serves both the family farmer interests and consumer interests. I think there are other interests here. I admit that. There is the interest of the candy manufacturers, and there are interests of others. But I am most especially interested in the broader question of public interest that reflects those who live and work on our land in this country--family farms--and the interests of the broader spectrum of the American public who want a stable supply at reasonable prices on their grocery store shelves. That is what this issue is about. I don't disparage those who have offered this. They come from their perspective. They represent the candy manufacturers. Some other interests want lower sugar prices. I represent family farmers who want a fair deal. All they want is a fair deal. They are not getting it. This amendment would further destroy their opportunity to make a living. We are going to kill this amendment, I hope, in the next couple of hours. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I wonder if there is an expectation of having a recorded vote on the Bond amendment this evening and what time that might be expected. I do not know what the amendment is, but is it expected there will be a recorded vote required on the Bond amendment?

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I share that view, and I encourage us to move along. I understand Senator Bond is here to offer an amendment. The quicker we move through these amendments, the better it is for American farmers.

Mr. DORGAN. I understand there is likely to be a larger amendment, or a more significant amendment, the Cochran-Roberts amendment--not to suggest that the others are not significant. But we have all been awaiting an amendment by Cochran-Roberts, which is not on the list. Is he anticipating that?

Mr. DORGAN. If I might inquire one more time, is there an anticipation that there is an opportunity perhaps to finish this bill by sometime tomorrow evening, or does the chairman or the ranking member expect this is going to take longer than that? In the context of that, is there a time when one might be able to get a finite list of amendments?

Mr. DORGAN. At this point, the Senator does not know if we will have recorded votes this evening or when?

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. In closing, I thank Senator Craig for his long and hard work on this issue, as well as Senators Baucus, Grassley, Kennedy, and the many cosponsors of our original legislation, for their help in reaching enactment of this bill.

Mr. DORGAN. I thank the Senator for raising this important concern. I agree that HHS should provide states with the necessary guidance. I also want to note that when Senator Craig and I first introduced legislation on this issue it was our intention not to affect the implementation of the medical privacy regulation. I'm pleased that this bill accomplishes that goal, and the medical records privacy rule will not be delayed or affected in any way.