Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, will the majority leader yield for a question?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I would like to ask the majority leader if he would entertain a question. I would like to inquire further of the majority leader on this subject of the farm bill. I know it was the stated intent of the majority leader to attempt to offer a motion to proceed to the farm bill this week, perhaps midweek, late in the week, yesterday, or today. I know that was thwarted by the filibuster on the motion to proceed to the bill that the Senate was prepared to debate. The majority leader was unable to make the motion to proceed to the farm bill. The filibuster we have had and cloture vote that was required now puts us into next week. The majority leader indicated it is still his intention to file a cloture motion to proceed following the disposition of the bill that is on the floor. Is that correct?

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I, too, was inspired by the remarks of a couple of colleagues. My colleague from Nevada just described a rather curious circumstance. We had colleagues come to the Chamber of the Senate and ask the question: Where is the stimulus package? Where is the legislation designed to provide economic recovery and lift to the American economy? It is as if they have forgotten the last couple of weeks. That stimulus package, or the economic recovery package, was before the Senate. We had debate on it. I was here and began debate on that. We were discussing it. Then the other side decided they would make a point of order against that stimulus package. A point of order was valid against it, as there is against the Republican package authored by Senator Grassley, as there will be against the House package. All of them violate the Budget Act. We understand that. This is an emergency, and all of us understand that passing a stimulus package to provide for economic recovery is outside of the Budget Act. But they are the ones who decided to make a point of order and take it off the floor of the Senate, and they did. Now they are asking: Where is it? They know where it is. It was before the Senate, it is now on the calendar, but it is not before us for debate because they made a point of order against the bill. There is a certain genius in being able to ignore facts, but it must certainly be uncomfortable in the long run to do that. This is not about he said, we said, she said, they said. This is about: what do we do to help the American economy recover, how do we do it, and when do we do it? That is what it is about. It is not about pointing fingers. We have had people come to the Chamber to talk about the majority leader this, the majority leader that. We had a discussion for an hour about energy and the majority leader. The majority leader came to the Senate Chamber today and said we are going to take up energy. He said exactly when we are going to do it, and how we are going to do it, and he is doing exactly the right thing because energy is important for this country. Part of America's security is energy security, that is true. But providing energy security is not developing policies that represent ``yesterday forever;'' developing policies that say our energy strategy is just dig and drill, and that is our energy strategy for the future. That is not an excuse for an energy strategy. Yes, we should produce more oil and gas. Yes, we should use more coal. We should do it in an environmentally acceptable way. There is much more to do, as the majority leader knows, to promote strong conservation measures, better efficiency of appliances, and incentives to produce both limitless energy and renewable energy. As the majority leader knows and some have forgotten, there is more to energy than just supply and conservation. Energy is also about national security and energy security--providing security for nuclear powerplants, providing security for transmission lines, and providing security for pipelines. All of that exists as well, and ought to be part of an energy bill. That is why the majority leader has waited just a bit to bring all of these things together from all of the committees, so that when we debate energy in the Senate, we are debating a comprehensive energy bill that deals with energy security for this country. It is not just a ``yesterday forever'' policy. I mentioned ``yesterday forever.'' I will not repeat the story, but my first car was a 1924 Model T Ford that I restored. When I got my Model T Ford restored when I was 14 or 15 years old, my father had a gas station, and I put gas in that 1924 car exactly the same way you put gas in a 2001 model car. Nothing has changed. You go to a gas pump, take the hose, stick it in your tank, and pump gas. Nothing has changed with respect to the way you fuel an automobile. Everything else in life has changed. Don't you think maybe when we talk about an energy policy 40 and 50 years from now, we might aspire to have a change? I drove a car out on the lot of the Capitol Building that was a fuel cell car operating on water and air, oxygen. The fact is, there are technologies, applications, and opportunities for us in a good energy policy dealing with not only transportation and automobiles, but with electricity and the transmission of electricity; with composite conductors, and tripling the efficiency of transmission lines. There is so much more we can do and should do. That is why the majority leader says: Let's do this. I pledge to do it, here is when we are going to do it, but let's do it right. Let's have it be much more than just the same-old policies. I asked those who run our energy policy one day--and I could have asked this question of any of the last four administrations, and gotten the same answer--I asked them: What are your plans? Do you have plans for 50 years from now, because we talk about Social Security--is Social Security funded for the next 30 to 50 years? Everybody is gnashing their teeth about that. I asked: What are our energy plans for 25, 35, and 50 years? Do we have any? If so, what are they? Do we aspire to wean ourselves just a bit from fossil fuels, and perhaps go to some other technologies and some renewable, limitless fuels? What is it that we aspire to do? The answer was: We do not have plans for 25 or 50 years with respect to an energy future. We really do not think in those terms. We ought to. That is why the majority leader says: Let's do an energy bill and let's do it right. Let's do it in a way that says to this country our energy policy for the future is not yesterday forever. Senator Daschle makes good sense when he commits to do this, and to do it the right way. I know one of my colleagues brought out several dozen charts today. I do not need any charts to simply say that we need an energy policy that is balanced, that represents production, conservation, efficiency, and renewable and limitless energy sources, and one that represents energy security for our country. I do not need charts to say that. We need to do that. The House of Representatives wrote an energy bill that almost drops off the one side of the page, it is so overweighted with ``yesterday forever'' policies. To those who talk about the energy issues at such great length, I say we are heading toward a real debate on real energy policies that will strengthen this country. The reason we are going to do that is Majority Leader Daschle says he is committed to do that in the first work period when we come back in January. We are going to bring the work from all of these committees to the floor of the Senate, and talk about all the facets of energy that we need to employ to give this country some assurance of energy security for the future. Mr. President, let me get back to the stimulus package. We cannot leave town without passing a stimulus or economic recovery package. We cannot do that. This country is at war. The economy of this country has been in a steep decline. We are in a war and a recession, and we must pass a package that tries to provide economic recovery. There is not a Republican way to do that or a Democratic way to do that. There are plenty of good ideas in this Chamber. The trick, it seems to me, is for us to discard the bad ones, and embrace the good ones from every part of this Chamber--to come up with a bill that says: America first. We want this country to succeed. We want our economy to grow. We want to provide opportunity for the American people. We have been in a situation where there was a call for an economic recovery program by virtually everyone, and the House of Representatives wrote one. It is not really worth much. I will just describe a couple of things. The Ways and Means Committee on which I served for 10 years and was very proud to do that--it is a great committee--wrote an economic recovery plan. God bless them, they just went back to the same old suitcase of tired ideas. One that they trotted out was: Oh, by the way, for economic recovery, let's do this: Let's provide a tax rebate for alternative minimum taxes paid back between now and 1988 for the biggest companies in this country. What does that mean? Well, Ford Motor Company gets a $1 billion rebate check. IBM gets a $1.4 billion rebate check. Is that going to promote economic recovery in our country? I do not think so. It is the same old tired thing, giving the big the most in a way that does not necessarily address the question of economic recovery. That is one example. The point is the House wrote a bill. It has some good provisions in it; it has some awful provisions. In the Senate, we had a bill that came out of the Finance Committee. I thought it was a good bill, though not perfect. I would have done some things differently, but we brought it before the Senate. The Republican side of the aisle decided they would offer a point of order against it. They made a point of order that it violated the Budget Act, and they took it down. Now they stand around wondering what happened to it. If a bill is taken down, it seems to me that if one's memory is not infinitesimally short, one should remember what happened to it when it was taken down. So maybe we need to get some mirrors for useful reminders to people when they say: Where is the stimulus package? Those who voted to take it off the floor of the Senate really dispatched the stimulus package from a debate we were having, which I thought was a pretty constructive debate. Senator Daschle has convened a meeting that is going to happen in 30 minutes. I hope that meeting bears some fruit, because I do not think this is about Republicans and Democrats. It is about trying to get the best ideas we can to figure out what approaches--in spending and tax changes, tax cuts and expenditures, approaches that are both temporary and immediate--can help this country's economy. Whatever they are, wherever they come from, we ought to employ them in a way that cooperates with the President's interests, employ them to try to help this economy. That is what we should be doing at this point. We had a discussion about judges. I happen to be one who believes we ought to move judges quickly to a vote. We ought to know all there is to know about them, as is the case in any lifetime confirmation. It is a lifetime appointment. When we confirm someone for life, we ought to know everything there is to know to make a judgment. I do not think we ought to hold judges. Let us move them to a vote. I am for that. The people who are complaining these days were silent for 6 and 8 years when the then-majority party held the Democratic President's judges in a deep prison, and they never saw the light of day. We never heard a peep from these people. Notwithstanding all the history, it seems to me this country is best served by moving judges after we have determined through hearings what their backgrounds are. My understanding is Senator Leahy is holding a hearing, and about to report either eight or nine judges this week. So I think we are moving on judges. I think it is important for us to work together to do that. What we have is a situation where Senator Daschle brings forward the Railroad Retirement Act. It has 74 cosponsors. In a 100-Member Chamber of the Senate, 74 Senators have cosponsored this Railroad Retirement Act, and yet we have a filibuster. Next we will try to bring the farm program. That came out of the Agriculture Committee. I am told by some there may be a filibuster on the motion to proceed to the farm bill. I hope very much that is not true. I hope we can get that legislation before the Senate. With respect to the Railroad Retirement Act, I do not think this ought to be a cause for a filibuster. I know that has happened in the last day and a half, but the Railroad Retirement Act has 74 cosponsors, years of discussion between the railroads themselves, rail labor, and management, and the principles of those discussions have been incorporated into legislation that has been worked on for a long time. This has a very long gestation period. This has been around a long time. The bill is sufficiently good that it attracts 74 cosponsors. How many times does legislation in the Senate have 74 cosponsors? Not very many. So why does this have 74 cosponsors? Because this has been worked on a long time. It represents a sound compromise that will do a lot of important things. I very much hope those who take a good look at this, especially those who cosponsored it, will vote to break this filibuster so we can move this bill and pass it through the Senate. But this provides for an expansion of the widow and widower benefits. It deals with important vesting provisions, early retirement provisions. It represents a compromise with respect to investment of funds. It is a compromise that is a good compromise, and has been developed over a long period of time, and one that the Senate really ought to embrace. I realize when we come to the end of a session, as we have experienced now with probably a week and a half or two left, there are some who do not like the agenda. They say: this bill is brought up, but that is not what they want. They wanted a different bill. The problem is, someone has to be in charge. Our side did not like it when the other side was in charge. I understand that. That goes way beyond, in my judgment, the question of trying to get a couple of very important things done in the next week or week and a half. One is the stimulus package. That, by far, is the most important. Our economy took a huge hole in its belly on September 11, and it was very weak going in. Economists now say we have been in a recession for some months. This economy is an economy that no one quite understands. It is a global economy. It is safe for me to say that Mr. Greenspan, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, does not understand it. Mitch Daniels, Director of OMB, does not understand it, despite the fact that today he was talking about what might or might not happen with respect to deficits in the years 2002, 2003, 2005, in the outyears. None of us understands it. I do not understand it. It is a global economy. The modeling does not work. It is a new economy. So what does this mean, this slowdown, this recession? When will it end? What can we do to help it? It is quite clear to me the most important element by far is consumer confidence. If the American people are confident about the future, they do things that manifest that confidence. They buy a house, buy a car, or take a trip. They do things that represent confidence and security in their future. If they are not confident about the future, they do exactly the opposite. From those two reactions, of either being confident or not confident, we have both a contraction or an expansion of the American economy. In this global economy, that is even much different than we used to teach it in college. That expansion or contraction has other elements attached to it as well. So it is our responsibility, in my judgment, to pass a stimulus package. The sooner, the better. My hope is the meeting at 6:30 this evening will give us an opportunity to reach a compromise between the two parties--to be able to create a package of economic recovery proposals that will really give confidence to the American people that this economy can begin to strengthen, can begin to expand and provide jobs and opportunity once again. In the month of October, some 415,000 people had to go home one night after work and tell their family they lost their jobs. That is a pretty tough thing to do. These are people who lost their jobs through no fault of their own, people often at the bottom of the economic ladder being told that they no longer have a job. Then on the other side of the coin, about half of them, when they see if they can qualify for unemployment compensation, are told, no, they do not qualify. If they do qualify, they qualify for a rather insignificant quantity of unemployment compensation for a limited time. That is why I hope when we pass this stimulus package one of the things we will do is recognize, as every economist who has talked to us recognizes, that one of the important elements of every economic slowdown to stimulate the economy and to do the right thing for people who have lost their jobs is to extend unemployment benefits. That money immediately goes into the economy and immediately helps the economy. So that is one of the things I hope will come out of the meeting this evening. I hope Senator Daschle, working with the other leaders in the House and with the White House, can reach agreement on a stimulus package that really will help this country. Let me make one final point that I think some people will wonder about. There is no disagreement or dispute in the Senate about support for the President in prosecuting this war against terror. President Bush called on this Congress to support his prosecution of the war against terrorists. We support him. I think he has done an extraordinary job. I commend him. I commend the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense. My heart goes out to all of the men and women in uniform who are risking their lives for this country. We have some disagreements on domestic policy--on how we might put a stimulus package together, or whether there should be a filibuster on the Railroad Retirement Act--but people should understand there is no disagreement about this prosecution of the war against terrorism by this administration. We support this administration. We applaud them for their efforts and stand behind them and do everything we can to see they succeed. It does not disserve this country's interests to have a discussion and debate about other issues--railroad retirement, farm policy, a stimulus package. It doesn't disserve anyone's interests to have disagreements about that. The best solution will be devised if we have disagreements and come up with all of the ideas, have a competition and select the best from that competition. That is what this Congress, in my judgment, owes the American people. From time to time people will be concerned about what the majority leader did or did not do; we ought not be concerned that this is broken down into some sort of a debate that is unhealthy. Once in the Washington Post a Member of Congress was quoted as saying: This issue has really degraded into a discussion about principle. I thought: Well, I hope so. That is why we are all here, to debate policies and principles. No one should feel aggrieved because there is debate breaking out in Congress on some of the domestic policies; but no one should be mistaken about the war against terrorism and terrorists and the support this Congress has for this President in the prosecution of that war. It is my hope we will be able to make some significant progress on these issues in the coming days. Despite the agreements we have had in recent days, I think we will see that progress.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Last evening the Senate passed S. 1684, my legislation to provide 1 additional year that was much needed for States, health plans, and health care providers to comply with the transactions and code sets regulation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA. We needed an additional year in order to implement that. This legislation has been difficult to get passed, but I thank my colleague, Senator Craig, especially, and Senators Baucus, Grassley, and Kennedy, for working with me to reach a compromise on this legislation. Senator Craig and I would prefer this bill go further in providing a bit more time in coordination with the effected entities, but we recognize others would have preferred no action at all. We worked for many months to try to reach a compromise. This compromise is appropriate. I am still a strong supporter of the Administrative Simplification Act, which is the concept of what is called HIPAA. Ultimately having all the regulations in place will allow our health care system to be better coordinated and much more efficient. This bill provides an extra year to comply with part of these requirements with which we needed to have time to comply. It doesn't in any way affect the implementation of the medical privacy regulations by April 2003. Now that it has passed the Senate, I look forward to working with my colleagues in the House to pass the legislation so we can provide for the States, for the health plans, and the providers the certainty they need to plan to implement the important health regulations. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 10 minutes.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I will comment on a couple of issues, one of which was raised yesterday by the majority leader and commented upon this morning by our colleague from Montana--the issue of energy policy. Yesterday, the majority leader came to the floor and said we would be taking up a comprehensive energy bill in the Senate, the first work period after we reconvene in January. I appreciated that. I think it is the right thing to do. Energy policy is much more than just finding energy or conserving energy. It is also a matter of national security and energy security. It is the right thing to do. We are trying to form an energy policy for this country that is balanced. Some believe this country's future energy needs are simply going to be satisfied by digging and drilling. That will not be the case. We should produce more--yes, oil, gas, and coal--and do so in an environmentally sensitive way. There is no question about that. I support that. However, if that is our only policy--digging and drilling--our energy policy is consigned to be ``yesterday forever.'' That is not what I want for an energy policy. I discussed this with the energy policy experts at a hearing. We talked about Social Security 50 years from now. I asked: Do you have a notion of what we want for an energy policy 25 and 50 years from now, and if so, can you state what it is? The answer they gave me was: We will have to get back to you. I think as a country, we ought to have a policy that, 50 years from now, aspires to do certain things. Let me describe why. My first car was a 1924 Model T Ford. I bought it as an antique and restored it. As a young 14-year-old boy, I spent a lot of time with that old Model T Ford. A man named Tony owned it. I come from a town of 300 people, and Tony had it in the 1920s. A Model T Ford, for those who don't know, is like a little red wagon. When you turn the wheels too sharply on one of the red wagons, the front tips over because the wheel turns too far. The Model T Ford used to do that. It would jackknife if you turned too quickly. This Model T was driven home from the bar one evening, I am told, and the driver apparently had a lot to drink. He thought he saw a group of chickens in the road. So he took the wheel of the Model T, turned it all the way over, and jackknifed the front wheels. He was pinned underneath the car, and hot water from the radiator dripped on his ear. He lost part of the ear. After the Model T was fixed, he drove it home, put it in a granary, and there it sat for four decades. He never drove it again and never intended to drive again, all because of the phantom chickens. My dad said I ought to write this fellow, who lived in Wisconsin. I was 14; I wrote to him and asked if he wanted to sell the Model T. Rats had taken the wires and the seat cushion, but there was the frame. He sent a letter back and he said: Not only will I sell it, but here is the key and the owner's manual. I want $25. So I bought a Model T Ford for $25, and I restored it. It was a labor of love. But the interesting thing about that 1920 Model T Ford is that you put gas in it the same way that you put gas in a car today. Mr. President, 75, 80 years later, automobiles are fueled exactly the same way: Go up to a gas pump, pull out a hose, stick it in, and fill it with gas. Nothing has changed. Everything else about our lives has changed, but nothing has changed about how we fuel our automobiles. If you look at energy usage in this country, the most significant increase is in transportation. When we look forward 50 years, let's aspire to do things differently. What kind of energy use do we want? What do we aspire to do in conservation? What do we aspire to do in production? Do we believe we can have fuel cells? I drove a fuel cell car on the grounds of the Capitol awhile back. Can an automobile using a fuel cell be part of our future? If so, how much? How about ethanol? How about taking a drop of alcohol from a kernel of corn, with the protein feed stock left over, and using that drop of alcohol to extend our country's energy supply? We are trying to write an energy bill that makes sense. The majority leader said, I commit, we are going to bring it to the floor during the first two months of the year--the first work period of the year, following our return in January. That energy bill is going to be about production--yes, environmentally sensible production with certain safeguards--conservation, which is important; efficiencies, which are also important; and in addition to that, we are going to talk about limitless, renewable energy sources, which can also contribute a great deal to our country's energy future, both with respect to petroleum and also with respect to electricity and the production of electricity. So what the majority leader has said makes good sense. He understands that energy is a matter of national security. He is committed to bringing an energy bill to the floor. It is going to be an energy bill that is much more balanced than that which came out of the House, and it is not going to be ``yesterday forever,'' it is going to be a forward-looking, balanced plan. That is the way it ought to be. That is what this Congress owes to the people in this country. Let me turn to the issue of aviation just for a moment. Yesterday, the Secretary of Transportation said he cannot meet the 60-day requirement of baggage screening that was in the legislation we just passed to try to promote safety with respect to air travel. I regret that. I am really not very interested in hearing a Secretary or anyone else telling us what they can't do. I am much more interested in finding out what they are doing to try to meet these goals. We put in this legislation, which was coauthored by my colleague, Senator Hollings, and Senator McCain, and the chairman and ranking member of the Commerce Committee--we put in four alternatives how they might meet their obligations in the first 60 days. There are four different approaches that can be used. I was mightily disappointed yesterday to hear the Secretary say we cannot meet those time deadlines. I am just not interested in hearing what cannot be done. We are at war at this point. We are told almost weekly that there are credible threats of additional terrorist acts in this country. We have soldiers in the field abroad, and we have, supposedly, terrorist threats here at home. The issue of this aviation security is a matter of homeland security and homeland defense. We cannot be talking about what can't be done. We have to talk about what we are aspiring to achieve and how we are going to try to meet deadlines. That is very important. I hope the Secretary and others will understand our impatience with that kind of talk. I understand none of this is easy. It is not easy for anybody. Those young marines landing in Afghanistan, it is not easy for them or their families. None of this is easy for anybody. But we passed an aviation security bill because we must address this issue of safety in the air. God forbid that there be an explosion that will bring down an airliner in the coming weeks; God forbid that would happen. We must do everything we can, all of us, together, to assure safety in this country in a range of areas and especially safety with respect to airport security and aviation safety. Finally, I wish to comment about a bill that is going to be brought to the floor, we hope, tomorrow, and that is the farm bill. I have talked to some of my colleagues who have hinted in recent weeks that they may hold up that farm bill, that they may block the motion to proceed. I encourage them not to do that. We have a farm law called the Freedom to Farm law that doesn't work at all. It is a terrible piece of legislation. Its premise was, let's not have a farm program and let's wean ourselves off it over 7 years, declining price supports over 7 years. During that period of time, what has happened is commodity prices have collapsed, family farmers are hanging on by their financial fingertips, and we must, it seems to me, write a better farm bill. The House of Representatives has done that. The Senate Agriculture Committee has done that. Now we have an opportunity to get it to the floor of the Senate late this week, perhaps tomorrow, and then pass the farm bill, get it into conference. I do not think it will be too hard to conference because it is not too different from the House of Representatives' bill. Different but not radically different. They are both a U-turn from the present Freedom to Farm law; they both recognize the need for countercyclical help for family farmers. It is very important to put a bill on the President's desk for signature to improve the farm law in this country and give family farmers a chance to make a living. It is very important that we have cooperation. I am not here to point fingers or say anything bad about anything or anybody. I am just asking everyone in the Senate to work with us. Let's not filibuster this. Let's not take ourselves down a blind alley with amendments that have nothing to do with it. Join us to stand up for family farmers. Join us to stand up for those farm families who have struggled so hard in this country to make it. When talking about security, food security is also part of our country's needs--the need for a secure food supply. Europe has understood that, and as a result of that they decided they would have a network of family producers across the land in Europe. They would stimulate the ability to retain family farms in Europe. That is good public policy. That promotes food security. We ought to embrace the same, in my judgment. My fervent hope is that by the end of this week we will have enlisted the cooperation of all of our colleagues so we can debate a farm bill, put it into conference, and next week we can have a conference with the House and hopefully put a bill on the President's desk for signing as soon as possible. I wanted to comment about those three items. All are timely and very important--energy, agriculture, and a farm bill. My hope is we will make progress on all of them in the times we have discussed, and I appreciate the cooperation of my colleagues as we begin to turn to this farm legislation. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I ask the majority leader, is it not the case that the stimulus bill was brought to the floor of the Senate by action of the majority leader and that it was subsequently taken off the floor by a vote of those who now inquire of its whereabouts?

Mr. DORGAN. If I might ask a question of the majority leader, this has been a very curious exchange because those who cast votes to knock the stimulus bill off the floor of the Senate are now inquiring of its whereabouts. This is not exactly a ``where is Waldo'' exercise. We know where the stimulus package has been and we know where it is. It came to the floor of the Senate and a point of order was raised against that stimulus package. That same point of order would exist against the Republican substitute. The same point of order would exist against the House stimulus bill, but the point of order was raised against the bill that the majority leader brought to the floor of the Senate. That knocked the stimulus bill off the floor of the Senate. Now the inquiry this morning, by those who voted that way, is, Where is the stimulus bill?

Mr. DORGAN. If the Senator will allow me to inquire a further time, is it not the case that the only way we are going to get this stimulus package completed is to have all of the parties negotiate this? After all, we are only a couple of weeks prior to the end of the legislative session. It is urgent we pass some kind of package to provide economic recovery and provide lift to this economy. All of the parties involved--the House, the Senate, and the President--proclaim we want to have some kind of stimulus package. Is it not the case that the best, most effective and perhaps quickest way to resolve this issue would be to have the affected parties begin to negotiate and begin to develop a compromise so the American people can get the feeling we are going to get this done; wouldn't that be the most effective way to proceed?

Mr. DORGAN. I will make it brief, if the majority leader will yield for one question. I know our colleagues are waiting. They certainly have the right to ask a question. I appreciate the majority leader allowing me to do that. We just heard a discussion about what we can't afford with respect to homeland security, something that the Senator from South Dakota believes very strongly ought to be a part of the stimulus package. Is it not the case that some of those same folks who say we can't afford to have homeland security spending in the stimulus package believe that we can afford retroactive tax cuts going back to the 1980s to provide up to $1 billion in checks to one company, for example, for alternative minimum taxes they paid in the last 12-13 years? The same people say we can afford that. That is OK. It is not stimulus, by the way. But we can't afford the investment in homeland security. Isn't it the case that there is a huge contradiction?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, will the majority leader yield?

Mr. DORGAN. That totals $23 billion.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be dispensed with.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, before we adjourn for the week, I want to comment about the Agriculture Committee's action yesterday here in the Senate. I'm very pleased that they passed the farm bill out of the committee, which will, I hope very soon, come to the floor of the Senate. I want to make a few comments about it, about the importance of it to family farmers. We deal with a lot of issues in the Senate. I know everyone has a favorite issue or a most important issue from their State or from their perspective. I come from a farm State. The subject of family farming is very important to me. I know some say: But the family farm in America is largely gone. In any event, the notion of family farms is just old nostalgia. It is not relevant to today. Today we need big, mechanized corporate agrifactories. The family farm is like the little old diner that got left behind when the interstate came through. It is kind of nice to look back at what it was and think about it, but it is really not relevant in today's terms. Those who believe that are just dead wrong. Family farming remains a critically important part of this country's economy. Will Rogers said, many years ago: You know, if one day all the lawyers and accountants in America failed to show up for work, it really wouldn't mean very much. But if one day all the cows in the United States failed to show up to get milked, now that would be a problem. He was in his own, simple, interesting way describing the importance of agriculture. It is the case, it seems to me, that our country has been blessed by not being hungry as a nation. We have had some pockets of hunger to be sure, but we have not been hungry as a nation for many decades. So we forget from time to time the contribution made by family farms. I think most people in a highly urban setting just think of butter as coming from a little box that you pick up at the grocery store. Cereal? Why that comes from a box as well. Pasta? That comes from a box with a cellophane window so you can see the size of the pasta you are buying. But, in fact, it all comes from a field somewhere, a barn somewhere. It comes from the sweat of the brow of a family farmer, often a man and woman who decided to latch their dreams to running a family farm, to being independent, and to producing from the land. It is true they have had a pretty difficult time in recent years. I have had calls from farmers over the years, especially in recent years. A woman called me. She said: My husband and I got married shortly after high school, and for 18 years we have run a dairy farm. We milk 80 cows, milk them every morning and every night. If you know anything about milking cows it is a tough job. She began to weep on the phone as she described the financial hardship they were facing and the fact they were going to have to sell their farm because they couldn't make their payments because the price of milk had collapsed. She said: It's not our fault. We don't go to town on Saturday night. We don't spend money in a way that is extravagant. When my children say they need a new pair of jeans for school, I have to say we have to wait because we don't have the money to buy jeans right now. She said: The fact is, we have done everything we possibly can. We have worked as hard as we can to make this dream come true and we are losing our farm. And through tears she described the death of this dream that she and her husband had. That is happening across our country these days as the price of commodities collapse and families, one by one, confront this terrible dilemma. One fellow wrote to me and he said he was sitting at his dinner table at 1:30 in the morning. He said: I am writing this letter to you at 1:30 in the morning, telling you about where I live and where I farm. It is spooky quiet around here. Most of my neighbors are gone. They left family farming because they couldn't make it. I go to town, a small town, and the Main Street is spooky quiet. There aren't any vehicles on Main Street anymore. He described in a passionate way his belief about wanting to pursue his dream, of continuing to farm the land and raise America's food, but not being able to when the price of their commodities is below the cost of production when they take them to the elevator. We have passed a farm bill through the Agriculture Committee and we need to get it to the floor of the Senate. We need to get it to the President and he needs to sign it. Why? Because we need a farm bill that says to family farmers: During tough times, when you run into price valleys, we have a bridge that takes you across those price valleys. Why? Because this country believes you are an important part of our economy and because we believe both economic and national security rests on our having a network of people who produce our food across this country. It is true that we could probably have a country without family farmers and giant agrifactories would produce our food. From California to Maine, the largest agrifactories in our country would produce food. They would milk 3,500 cows three times a day, as some dairy operations do in California. They would drive tractors in one direction until they are out of gas and then gas up and drive back. We all understand about giant agrifactories It is just that family farms produce more than just food, and that is what people forget. The agrifactories produce just food. Family farms produce communities. They produce a culture. They produce family values. Those family values move from the family farm to small towns to big cities, nourishing and refreshing family values in America. It has always been the case, and it is not old-fashioned to think that should be part of our future as well. How do we make that a part of our future? We as a Congress and we as a country say to family farmers: You matter. You are an important part of our future. We are going to pass farm legislation that reflects the urgency, reflects our desire to address this problem of collapsed prices, this problem of tough times for America's economic All Stars. We produce the best quality food for the lowest percent of disposable income of anyone in the world. In the spring, family farms in North Dakota or elsewhere in the Farm Belt, they borrow money to buy the seed, the fuel and the fertilizer; fix up the tractor; and then plow the ground and plant the seed. Then they hope, hope above hope, that it won't hail, that it will rain enough, that it won't rain too much, that the bugs won't come, or disease won't hit. Finally in the fall, they grease up the combine and go out and take that crop off the field, put it in the back of a 2-ton truck and haul it to the country elevator. After all this, if everything falls into place and works, they are told by the grain trader: By the way, that food you have produced doesn't have value. And that family farmer scratches his or her head and says: Doesn't have value? A half billion people go to bed at night with an ache in their belly and the food we produce in such great abundance has no value? The farmer is told what they do is not valuable to this country. And the farmer wonders--in a country where the saying goes, two-thirds of the people are on a diet and a substantial portion of the world is hungry, and those who are producing America's food are told that their food has no value--farmers rightly wonder whether there is a connection missing someplace, whether there are some wires hooked up wrong. Clearly, if you look at this world and evaluate what this world needs to produce peace and stability, and to help people live a better life, the first item would be to say we need to alleviate hunger. Just as a note, One of my friends many years ago was a singer named Harry Chapin. Harry was a wonderful man. When I announced I was going to run for Congress, he flew to North Dakota and did a concert; wouldn't even allow me to pay for his airline ticket. He showed up, borrowed a Martin guitar from the local music store, and did a 3-hour concert to 2,400 people who filled the Chester Fritz Auditorium in Grand Forks, ND. What a wonderful guy he was. The reason I talk about Harry Chapin is that he donated one-half of the proceeds of his concerts every year to fight world hunger. He used to say that hunger is not headlines. It just isn't, because people die every single day. Every single day, 45,000 children die from hunger and hunger-related causes around the world, and you won't read a thing about it in tomorrow's paper. He said if 45,000 people died in New Jersey tomorrow from one terrible calamity or another, it would be headlines. But every day, the winds of hunger sweep across this globe, and children die, people die, and somehow it is not headlines. Then our farmers in North Dakota go to the elevator with a load of grain that they prayed they would be able to raise against all the odds to be told that grain has no value, that food has no value. They have a right to wonder whether the wires are not connected somewhere with respect to our priorities. In the midst of all that background, we wrote a farm bill. This Congress wrote a farm bill a while back called Freedom to Farm. It should have been titled ``freedom to fail.'' It was a terrible piece of legislation. It didn't work. We have done an emergency bill every year to try to fill the vacuum that was created by this piece of legislation that didn't work, and this law has one more year to go. Next year, the Freedom to Farm bill expires. We believe that this is the time to write a bill so that when farmers go into the field next year, they will know there is a better farm program. Congressman Combest in the House, against the advice of the White House and the President, wrote a bill. They said: Don't do it this year. He said: It doesn't matter what anybody says; I am going to do it; it needs to be done. Good for him. Senator Harkin yesterday in the Agriculture Committee said we are going to write a bill. It was reported out of the Senate Agriculture Committee, and now our challenge is to bring it to the floor of the Senate immediately when we return. I understand there are some here talking about blocking it. As we know, it takes 60 votes to overcome those who want to block legislation. I think we can do that, if we must, but I hope they will not try to block it. We have a responsibility. In my judgment, we ought to write this farm bill this year. Even if you do not care much about family farmers--I can't conceive of people who do not--you ought to care about food security in this country. How do you best provide food security in America? You do that by having a broad network of dispersed producers producing America's food. If you are concerned about bioterrorism harming America's food supply, you should be concerned about feedlots with 200,000 animals run by the big agrifactories. In contrast, widely dispersed family farms that dot the Nation and which represent the network of producers across the prairie, they are much less at risk, when it comes to bioterrorism. If this country wants to do something for its economic future, for economic recovery, for food security, for national security, then it ought to decide it will stand up for family farmers and pass a decent farm bill. Let me make a comment about the legislation that passed the House and the Senate Agriculture Committee. That legislation is not perfect. It is not what I would write were I to write it myself. However, it is better than the than Freedom to Farm. Each hurdle is a hurdle that we have to get past. We got past a hurdle yesterday by getting this out of the Senate Agriculture Committee. The next hurdle is to get it on the floor of the Senate. I urge my Colleagues to bring this farm bill up as soon as we return from the Thanksgiving break. I hope to offer an amendment that will improve the safety net in this bill. I hope we pass this farm bill after some improvements on the floor. Then we can have a conference with the House, and then send the bill to the President. We cannot fail in this job. We have a responsibility to pass a farm bill, and to do it now and do it right. As I said, I know a lot of people have a lot of different interests. I come from a farm State. Yet I stand on the floor of the Senate and I say to people, I support Amtrak. I am a strong believer in Amtrak. Why? Because I think this country needs a rail passenger system. Amtrak comes to North Dakota, and it is important to us. But it is not the biggest issue in the world. To me, the national issue of having rail passenger service in this country is a very important issue. I support mass transit in the cities. We don't have mass transit in my home county. My home county has 3,000 people. I support mass transit because, as a national matter, this country needs it. I hope my colleagues will understand as well that when I support those issues for the major urban centers of America, they will do themselves and this country a favor by supporting the rural interests which also contribute to America's security and which contribute to America's enterprise and economic health. I thank the Senate Agriculture Committee, Senator Harkin and others who led the way to get a bill out of that committee yesterday, and their staff who worked so hard to get this done. Next week we will not be in session because of Thanksgiving. But the week following, it is the desire of Senator Daschle, myself and many others, including Senator Harkin, that we will bring that bill to the floor of the Senate. We very much want to put a farm bill on the President's desk and get that legislation signed. We want our farmers in this country to go into the fields next spring and plant next year's crops under a farm bill that has a better support level than the current bill, one that gives them the hope that if they do the right thing and things work well for them, they will be able to make a living on the family farm next year. Mr. President, I see colleagues waiting to speak. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I add my appreciation for the work of the Senator from South Carolina and Senator McCain of Arizona. As chairman and ranking member of the Commerce Committee representing our side on this issue, they did outstanding work. We do big and small things in the Congress. This is a big thing. This isn't testing the water. This is making waves. This is really a profound change in many ways with respect to security on airlines that serve our country. I rise to talk a bit about some of the things we are doing and why. First the why. We know that September 11 caused great concern among the American people about the risks of taking airplane flights. They saw jetliners used as bombs, as missiles full of fuel, taking down two of the largest buildings in our country. The site of that kind of tragedy, that act of mass murder, that terrorism has persuaded many Americans to feel queasy and jittery about flying. What kind of security exists with respect to the airlines? Then they read in the newspaper in recent weeks stories about a person who comes to an airport in Chicago and is screened. They discover two knives on the person. They send the person to the boarding gate, and they do an enhanced screening there. He has seven more knives, a stun gun, and a can of mace. People ask: How can this happen? It further erodes the confidence of the American people with respect to security. In the last couple days, a fellow with two meat cleavers gets through a screening process. Here we have nine knives, two meat cleavers, a can of mace, and a stun gun. The other day a woman is discovered to have a .22-caliber pistol in her purse. After she gets through the screening process, she says: I don't understand that. I got it through when I took other flights. She is walking through screening in other circumstances with a loaded .22-caliber pistol. Does it give people pause? Of course, it does. The screening that has existed by some of the companies has not been good at all. One of the companies named Argenbright was fined by the U.S. Government $1.5 million, put on probation and then violated their probation, hired people with criminal backgrounds, didn't train them properly, certified to the Federal Government false documents. It does not work. We know that. The question confronting Congress is, What do we do to give people some confidence about the system? The answer is obvious: improve security. How do we do that? This legislation puts sky marshals on airplanes in significant quantity. That gives people some confidence. It strengthens the cockpit doors, requiring airlines to take action to do so. That will give people some confidence, especially with respect to baggage screening, airport perimeter security, and a range of other things. This legislation says what we have been doing has not worked and we will do it differently. This establishes a process by which we have uniform standards. We will hire Federal screeners at airports. They will be managed and trained effectively and consistently. They will provide a level of security the country deserves and needs. Let me mention that in this legislation is a provision I added which I have been trying to add for some long while. It will finally become law with the President's signature. It deals with something called the advanced passenger information system. I have added it to three bills in the Senate. It has been kicked out because of jurisdictional disputes with one of the committees of the House of Representatives. I put it in this bill, and it will be signed by the President. It is going to get done. What does that mean? It means that airlines bringing people into this country as guests of ours with visas must provide us advanced passenger lists of who is coming so we can run those lists of passenger names against the FBI list, against the Customs list, and 21 Federal agencies that have lists about people that we don't want coming into this country, those who are terrorists, known or suspected, that we don't want to allow into this country. We have had, since 1988, something called the advanced passenger information system. Most airlines around the world comply with it. When they land in the United States prior to coming here, they have given us an advanced list of who they are bringing to the United States as guests with a visa. Some airlines have refused to comply. Some airlines refuse to comply with this voluntary system. Let me share which airlines: airlines from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait. Do we want to know the names of passengers coming from those countries? You bet your life we do. I have proposed an amendment that is now in this legislation that will require the advanced passenger lists be sent to this country. Our message is very simple: Do what all the other airlines have voluntarily done since 1988 or land somewhere else. Don't land in the United States. If you want to land here, send us the advanced passenger list of who is on the airplane so we can run them against the 21 Federal law enforcement agencies to see whether there is a passenger on this flight or that flight that is a known or suspected terrorist or someone who associates with terrorists who we have decided we will now not allow to visit the country. It is sensible. It should have been done before. It was not. As I said, this is the third time I have put it in legislation, and I put it on two other appropriations bills. This bill is going to get signed by the President of the United States. Finally, this will be done. It is not a small matter. It is a big issue and an important piece of adding security with respect to this legislation.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I agree to that request. I also want to speak on the bill. I understand when the bill arrives there will be comments by the chairman, by Senator Hutchison, and others. I want to make a comment about the farm bill. In fact, I will be glad to keep that to 10 minutes.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I understand the airport security bill is ready. I am going to be speaking on something else, but it is my intent to allow the committee to proceed so the Senate can consider this bill. I am going to speak on the airport security legislation, but I will make the remarks on the farm bill following this action.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield, I ask unanimous consent that this Senator be recognized following the remarks of the Senator from Montana.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I request the Chair please notify me when I have used 4 minutes. Madam President, we need to decide what this debate is about and what it is not about. This is not a debate about a new tax. It is not a debate about a new tax. My colleague referred to that. That is not accurate, and I would be happy to have a long and extended debate about that. But let's understand what it is and is not. I support the Enzi-Dorgan substitute. I think it is an important piece of legislation. Let me describe what it does. We have two problems. One of the problems is that more and more sales in this country now are being conducted by remote sellers--Internet, catalog, and so on. On Main Streets of our communities we have sales being conducted by small business men and women. When they make those sales, they collect the tax. They compete against a remote seller who makes a sale but does not charge the tax, even though a tax is owed on the transaction. The tax is owed on a transaction with the remote seller, but it is never paid because it is a use tax and people don't file millions and millions of use tax returns. The result is State and local governments are losing a substantial amount of money--$13 billion it is estimated this year; by the year 2006, $45 billion, most of which goes to support local schools. So State and local governments are rightly concerned about funding for their schools. There is also the issue of fairness for Main Street. That is a problem: Lack of funding for schools, a tax that is owed but not paid, fairness for Main Street retailers. The second problem is a problem for remote sellers. A remote seller says: I don't want to have to collect a tax and submit it to 5,000 or 7,000 jurisdictions. That is a fair point. They should not have to do that. That is burdensome and too complicated. So we say solve both problems. Require State and local governments to make dramatic simplifications in their tax systems. When they do, through a compact, submit that compact to the Congress for approval or disapproval. If the Congress approves that, then allow them to require remote sellers to collect the tax that is already owed on the transaction, solving both problems and dramatically simplifying compliance for the remote sellers. And we will not approve it if it does not do that. Second, at the same time, collect a tax that is already owed and make it much simpler for those who owe that tax to comply with current law. We can do both of those. We can solve both of those by beginning with this substitute. This substitute itself doesn't solve the problem, but we have two choices. We can decide to ignore this problem and do nothing. But you know and I know it will not go away. We will be back here next year or the year after or 5 years from now. This problem is going to grow, not recede. We can solve this problem now or we can just do the moratorium, which, incidentally, I have supported and do support, but I support it with a solution to the other problem. We can do these in tandem by providing support for the Enzi substitute, saying we want to do a number of things. We want to extend this moratorium. We don't believe in punitive taxation. We don't believe in taxing access. We want to do all the things Senator Wyden talked about with respect to the moratorium, but we want to do more than that. We want to solve another problem out, festering, and growing. It is not a problem that deals with a new tax. Anybody who talks about that is just dead wrong. It is a problem dealing with school finance, with fairness on Main Street, a problem with ballooning revenues that need to come to support our schools, revenues that are now being lost because they are not being paid. That is the choice, and I hope we make the right choice tonight. Let me make one final point. When we pass the Enzi substitute, we have not done anything except say to the States: You go ahead and develop this process and submit it to us later, and we will then make a judgment on whether we will allow you to impose this collection. But our judgment will be based on whether you substantially have simplified your tax laws. That is what the Enzi substitute does, and that is why I support it. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. I thank the Senator for his observations. I agree with his interpretation that the requirement of State administration of sales and use taxes applies only to remote sales. While I believe that this is the intent of the current wording, I will work in conference to assure that this point is absolutely clear.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, while we are waiting for some intervening Senate business, I wish to make a couple of comments about international trade. I am inspired to do that by my colleague from Montana. Before I do that, let me compliment my colleague, Senator Baucus, on the work he has done on the stimulus package. I told him yesterday in a private conversation how impressed I was with what he brought to the floor dealing with taxation and other issues to try to provide some lift and recovery to this country's economy. I think it was the right bill. It was the right thing. I commend him for his leadership, and I appreciate his leadership on that. I was sorely disappointed that there was a point of order raised against that which prevailed last evening because I think Senator Baucus, along with Senator Daschle and others of us who were pushing very hard to get this done, had put together a piece of legislation that really would provide some boost to the American economy. We are not in a position where we can just decide to stand around and wait and see what happens. I mentioned earlier that we had a trade history during President Hoover's period where this country seemed to be sinking into a deep abyss. And the attitude was: Well, there is not much we can do about that; we will sit around here and wait and see what happens. That is not what should have been done then, and it is not what we can do now. What we did was positive; that is, try to put together a legislative program that does the best we can to say to the American people that we are trying to give lift and boost to this economy in a way that provides jobs. I say to my colleague from Montana that I thought he did a great job, and I appreciate his work.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me talk just for a moment about international trade because there has been a trade conference in Doha, Qatar. I expect the people who run the WTO chose that place largely because they did not want to have a trade conference where there were a lot of hotel rooms. Experiences in trade conferences in recent years have not been good. Thousands and thousands of people from around the world have come to demonstrate and express concerns about one thing or another. So they decided to have a ministerial conference in Doha. My understanding is there are so few hotel rooms in Doha that they had to bring in cruise ships in order to provide lodging for visitors to Doha. Because of other business this week, I didn't pay a lot of attention to what they did at Doha. I do know that all these trade folks converged and they had a long visit. I watched part of a similar visit in Montreal some years ago. I watched part of the visit they had in Seattle. So I know they all get together. They have the same backgrounds, and they talk the same language. They actually have shorthand for all the trade lingo that they develop. Apparently now, from the experience of recent days in Doha, they have decided they have reached some agreements on a new round, and so forth. So I want to point out just a couple of concerns I have about where we are with international trade. I have a chart that shows a series of balloons that represent the very serious trade problem confronting us in this country. It is a trade deficit that is ballooning, year after year after year. It is the largest trade deficit in human history. We spend a lot of time worrying about the fiscal policy budget deficit that about 9 years ago was almost $300 billion a year. There was hand wringing and teeth gnashing and people wiping their brow, and they would come to the floor of the Senate, saying they wanted to change the Constitution, they wanted to do this and that. Why? Because we had this growing budget deficit, this tumor that was growing in the fiscal policy of this country. It was going to hurt this country. It is interesting that there is a deafening silence in this country about the trade deficit. It, too, is growing, much more rapidly, in many ways, than the fiscal policy deficit did. It is much higher at this point than our budget deficit was at its height. One can make the case, as an economist, that the budget deficit is something we owe to ourselves. This deficit we owe to others. This deficit will ultimately be repaid by a lower standard of living in the United States. My point is, this deficit is growing and growing and growing. After round after round of trade negotiations, we are in worse and worse shape. The question is, why? It is interesting, if you ask economists, they all give you different answers: It is because the dollar is too strong; the dollar is too weak; it is because our budget deficit is too high, not high enough; productivity isn't high enough. It depends on the economist that you ask. Having both studied and taught economics in college, I understand that the field of economics is certainly not a science. I consider it psychology pumped up with just a little bit of helium. All you have to do is ask, and you get an answer. It does not mean it is an informed answer. There are 100 different answers as to why our deficit is out of control. Ask any economist. They don't have the foggiest idea. We had a $449 billion merchandise trade deficit last year in this country. Now let me describe some of the details of trade. It is interesting that everybody talking about trade, especially those at the ministerial conferences, want to talk about the big picture: global trade. They never want to the talk about specifics. So here is a specific. We trade with Korea, which is a good friend of ours. This chart shows that last year Korea sent 570,000 automobiles to the United States to be sold in the United States. Do you know how many automobiles the United States sent to be sold in Korea? Was it 570,000? No, not quite. The answer: 1,700. So 570,000 cars coming our way and then we were able to export 1,700 cars to Korea. Get a Ford Mustang convertible here in the United States, send it to Korea, and it costs twice as much for a Korean consumer. Why? Because Korea does not want our cars. They do not want our cars coming in and competing. They have all kinds of mechanisms and devices to discourage our ability to move a car to Korea. The result is, 570,000 Korean cars in the United States; 1,700 United States cars to Korea. Fair trade? I don't think so. Is that something we ought to correct? In my judgment, it is because these numbers translate to jobs. A working family, a man or a woman getting a job on an assembly line in a manufacturing plant, a job that pays well, a job with security, a job with benefits, these are good jobs. This means we export these jobs to other countries that produce products and send them to us and then keep their market closed to our products, which means fewer manufacturing jobs in the United States. I have another chart I did not bring to the Chamber. It shows T-bone steaks in Tokyo. Do you know that 12 years after the last beef agreement we reached with Japan, the conclusion of which resulted in feasting and rejoicing by everyone engaged in the trade negotiations-- you would have thought they just won the gold medal in the Olympics. The headlines trumpeted the beef agreement with Japan. What a wonderful agreement. Twelve years later, by the way, every pound of American beef sent to Japan has a 38.5-percent tariff attached to it--every single pound. Is that fair trade with Japan? No. Fair trade would be more T- bone steaks to Tokyo, in my judgment. But we have a 38.5-percent tariff on every single pound. Going back to Korea: What about potato flakes to Korea? Up in my part of the country, in the Red River Valley, where the Presiding Officer also represents some potato growers, those potatoes are cut into flakes. Those potato flakes are sent around the world, and they are put into chips in fast food. Potato flakes are used for fast food. Well, that is probably a pejorative. I shouldn't say ``fast food.'' I should say ``snacks.'' Potato flakes are used for snacks. If you raise a potato in the Red River Valley and then turn it into potato flakes and send it to Korea, guess what happens to it? Korea slaps a 300-percent tariff on potato flakes. Are potato flakes going to threaten the Korean food market? I do not think so. Is it fair to an American potato farmer to confront a 300- percent tariff? Where I live, it is not fair. I could spend a lot of time talking about these things. China: We have a huge trade deficit with China. We also have a huge trade deficit with Japan. We have a big deficit with Europe. We have a huge deficit with Canada and Mexico. But China, we sent 12 American movies into China in the last year. Why? That is all China would let into their country, 12 movies. Fair trade? I don't think so. Or how about this? In the last trade agreement we negotiated with China, we sent our negotiators to China. Now, presumably, these are the best negotiators we have. We sent them to China. I do not know how we sent them there, probably not on a slow boat, as the saying goes; probably in an airplane. They got to China and negotiated a bilateral agreement with China, which was the precursor to allowing China to join the WTO. They brought back the bilateral agreement, which we did not vote on because we do not have a vote on a bilateral trade agreement with China. Guess what we discovered? Let me give you an example. Automobiles: After a long phase-in, we have decided--our negotiators agreed with the Chinese negotiators--we would have a 2.5 tariff on Chinese vehicles being sent into the United States, and China could have a 25-percent tariff on the United States vehicles sent to China. In other words, our negotiators sat down with the Chinese, with whom we had a $60 billion deficit, and we said to them: OK, we will agree to this deal. You go ahead and impose a tariff on U.S. cars sent to China that is 10 times higher than the tariff we will impose on any Chinese cars you send to the United States, and we will sign that agreement. That is what our negotiators said. So that is our agreement. I don't know, my feeling is these negotiators need to wear jerseys. They do in the Olympics. The jerseys should say: USA. At least they could look down, from time to time, and understand on whose behalf they are negotiating. They can say: Oh, yeah, that is who I represent. That is whose interests I represent, and not be bashful about standing up for our economic interests. By what justification ever should we agree to this sort of one-sided agreement: T-bones in Tokyo, automobiles to Korea, potato flakes to Korea, high-fructose corn syrup to Mexico, durum wheat to Canada. I could tell stories for an hour about this. In each and every circumstance, it is this country signing up to a trade agreement that is fundamentally bad for our producers. Our durum growers. I should, just for therapeutic purposes, spend 15 minutes to talk about unfair durum trade coming to us from the Canadian Wheat Board, which would be an illegal entity in this country, a state- sponsored monopoly that sends durum wheat into this country to undercut American farmers' prices, and then thumbs their nose at us when we say we want to see the prices at which you are selling because we believe they are violating our trade laws. I could spend a long time talking about that, about the day I went to the Canadian border with Earl Jensen in a 12-year-old, orange, 2-ton truck. All the way to the Canadian border we met 18-wheel trucks carrying Canadian durum south into the United States. So we got to the Canadian border, after meeting truck after truck, bringing Canadian durum south. We had 200 bushels of durum in Earl's little, orange truck, and the Canadians said: No, you can't come into Canada with 200 bushels of durum. Why not? Just because you can't. It is just the way life is. It is a one-way track across that border with durum wheat. I will not go on further. I know my colleague wants to speak. That is all a precursor to say this. My colleague, Senator Byrd, the other day, spoke about trade protection authority or fast track. In my judgment, what we ought to do is decide that we are going to stand up for this county's economic interests in international trade. Don't give anybody any fast-track trade authority. Say, go negotiate some good trade agreements, bring them back here, and we will sign up to vote for them. First thing in the morning, count us as supporters. Go negotiate bad agreements, which you have done time and time and time again, and understand they won't see the light of day here because we are sick and tired of it. I will not support fast track. We have been fast-tracked right into a huge hole, a trade deficit that has ballooned now to a $450 billion merchandise trade deficit. I will not support fast track. I agree with my colleagues, Senator Byrd and others: We need expanded trade. There is no question about that. I want to see global markets that are fair. I want to see opportunity for our farmers and our manufacturers around the world. But I also demand that we see trade agreements that step forward and protect this country's interests requiring fair trade. It is not fair trade with respect to movies in China, durum in Canada, high-fructose corn syrup with Mexico, cars in Korea, potato flakes in Korea and Mexico. It is not fair trade with autos in China. None of that is fair trade. There ought not be anybody who is nervous or worried about standing up and demanding fair trade with our trading partners around the world. I have not spent much time on this, but I intend to in the coming days, if the House and the administration, buoyed by the success in Doha, Qatar, decide they want to try to bring enhanced trade authority to the Senate. There is no problem at all negotiating trade agreements without fast track. The last administration wanted fast track. They didn't get it. But they said they negotiated 300 trade agreements. That means you can negotiate trade agreements without fast track. You just need to be careful to negotiate good ones because if you don't, you won't get them through the House and Senate. The inability to have fast track actually promotes more responsibility on the part of those who are required to negotiate these trade agreements. I wanted to follow on the remarks of Senator Byrd of 2 days ago on the subject of fast track. He and I and others will work very hard to try to see if we can't make some sense out of this mess, this trade problem that is now choking this country with very large trade deficits and is destroying manufacturing jobs and injuring this economy. We can do better than that even as we expand opportunities, even as we expand international trade. We can do better than that by standing up for fairness for American producers and farmers. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I was present for most of the presentation by my colleague from West Virginia, Senator Byrd. I will not repeat much of what he described as an emergency with respect to the provisions that he has offered dealing with homeland defense. But there is a time, it seems to me, for leadership. I recall reading in John Adams's book a letter he had written to his wife, Abigail, in which he described the difficult times in trying to form this new country and find leadership. He expressed great woe to his wife, Abigail, saying: Where are the leaders? Where are the people who will rise up and provide leadership at this urgent time in this country? Then he lamented: There is only us: Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison. Of course, over a couple of centuries we have discovered that the ``only us'' represented some of the greatest leadership in human history. But I think it is important to ask again, Where is the leadership when we need leadership? We have an economy that is in very difficult trouble. The economy was very weak prior to September 11. But on September 11, terrorist attacks cut a hole in the belly of this country's economy. The question for us is, What do we do? Do we do nothing? Do we say this is simply the normal movements of an economy, the expansion and contraction of an economy, or do we recognize that something different and unusual has happened that requires an urgent response by the U.S. Congress? I believe the latter is the case. We have an economy in which we have buyers and sellers, consumers and producers, demand and supply, and we have an economy in which for two centuries in a market system we have expansion and contraction. It is called the business cycle. No one has been able to interrupt the business cycle very much. We can establish some stabilizers here in Congress to try to even out some of the movement of the economy, but the business cycle is central. It is like the tide. But we are not here to talk about the business cycle. We are here to talk about an economy that was on a down cycle in the contraction phase when on September 11 it was dealt an enormous blow. As a result, we have had hundreds of thousands of people having to go home at night and say to their family: I have lost my job. Last month alone, 415,000 people had to go home and tell their family: I have lost my job. It wasn't my fault, I am sure they said, but I have lost my job. This economy is in very deep trouble. This Congress has a very substantial responsibility at some point to come together with this President and find ways to respond to it. There are a couple of proposals we have offered today. One is a set of proposals by Senator Baucus, and the other is a set of expenditures dealing with homeland defense offered by Senator Byrd. Both of them have the capacity to provide a lift to this economy. Both of them represent a menu of items that will be helpful to an economy during troubled times. Some others say: Well, this economy works only when you pour something in the top and it filters down to the bottom. That is trickle-down economics. Even during tough times, we see those who believe in the trickle-down theory at work to formulate a package to try to deal with what is called ``economic recovery'' or ``stimulus''-- kind of representing the trickle-down approach. Just pour something in the top and somehow it all comes down to the bottom. We have seen during tough times on other occasions where some had the responsibility and said: Let's do nothing. Let's just sit for a while and see what happens. Let's just wait and see. Herbert Hoover had that notion. He said: We will wait and see and let everything take its course. He felt there was no need for intervention. Of course, we sank deeper and deeper into a recession and then a depression. We know from those experiences that there are things we can do. We also know from the experiences of the past century or so that this economy rests on a mattress of hope and confidence. If people aren't confident, they do things that express their concern about the future. They defer decisions to make purchases of cars or homes or to take vacations and so on. If they are confident, they make exactly the opposite judgment. They feel secure about a job. They feel good about the future. They take that vacation, buy that car and invest in that home. This is all about confidence. I have said before that some view this system of ours like the engine room in a ship of state. If you just go to the engine room and take a look at all the gauges, dials, nozzles, and letters, then adjust all of them--M-1B over here, and investment tax credits over there, and accelerated depreciation--you just get all these knobs and letters and dials going just right and somehow the ship of state comes along. In fact, that is not the case at all. There is a lot we don't know about the economy. What we do know, however, is that engine room in the ship of state runs almost exclusively on the American people's confidence about our country and its future. How do we at this point in time respond when we had a troubled economy, then that economy took this horrible blow on September 11, and as a result of that we see a contraction, hundreds of thousands of families losing their jobs? How do we then respond? What do we do to offer confidence to the American people? The September 11 tragedy was followed by the anthrax attacks in several places in this country. It has been very unsettling to the American people--being attacked in this country through the mail and using the Postal Service as a delivery mechanism for terror. It has caused great concern to virtually everyone. In fact, a county sheriff in North Dakota called my office about a week or so ago and said someone in his county had called him. They had gotten a letter from me and wondered whether it was safe to open a letter from Senator Dorgan because they heard about all of this anthrax. All of a sudden, they get a letter from Washington, DC, in the mailbox. I was responding to their letter, perhaps. They wondered whether it was safe. In every part of the country people worry about these issues. You have the September 11 terrorist attack--this act of mass murder by mad men. Then you have the anthrax attack. Then you have an economy that is in very deep trouble. Last month's figures show 415,000 people are now newly unemployed. What do we do about that? The interesting thing about the newly unemployed is in almost all cases they are the people at the bottom going up the economic ladder. They are the people who know about secondhand, second shifts, second mortgages, and second jobs. They are the folks who deal with all of those issues in their daily lives. Now they deal with the issue of being laid off. The question for Congress from them is, What can we do here? What can we do to try to get them back on their feet? That is a way of saying that part of this stimulus package must be to address those issues. Addressing those issues, according to almost all economists, is to provide stimulus to this economy. Nearly one-half of the people who have been laid off don't have unemployment benefits at all. Providing unemployment benefits and extending it for those who do have it is a certain way to put some money into this economy. It is important to do so. These are folks who were working and who were laid off through no fault of their own. They, too, are victims of terrorism. When we debate these issues, we have some who do not think those folks are very important. They say that is spending. Just spending on those folks is not the right thing. During every economic downturn we have had, our first responsibility was to help those who needed help-- to provide a helping hand, to reach out and say they are not alone. Will Rogers talked about the inclination of some with whom we serve. It has been ageless, of course. He said: The unemployed here ain't eating regular, but we will get round to them as soon as we get everybody else fixed up OK. It seems to me, part of a package to provide hope and encouragement to this country and to try to stimulate this economy is to take a look at those who have been victims of these terrorist attacks and victims of a downturn in this economy and say to them: We can give you some help. Nearly every economist in this country says when you extend unemployment benefits to help to those people who have lost their jobs, this is money that goes right into the economy. Some have said--in fact, I have heard it in recent days--if you provide unemployment benefits, it reduces the urge for those folks to look for work. Look for work? They were working. They lost their jobs because of the economy. Does anybody think any one of these people would have chosen not to work? Half of them do not have unemployment benefits. Does anybody here think they would have chosen that unfortunate circumstance where they have to go home after work some night and say, ``By the way, I want you to know, I have lost my job?'' I do not think that is something that someone would choose. We have a responsibility to help. So Will Rogers described the circumstances that still exist. Fortunately, it exists only in a small pocket here in the Congress. Most people understand the responsibility to do this. We need to extend unemployment benefits. We need to provide some short-term help with the health insurance needs of those unemployed folks called COBRA. We can do all of that. Now let me turn, just for a moment, to the remarks of Senator Byrd, because what he said is very important. Part of economic recovery in this country is, as I said, giving people confidence about this country, where we are headed, and what kind of security exists. So the package that Senator Byrd offers today is one that deals with homeland defense, bioterrorism prevention and response, and food safety. I went to a dock in Seattle, WA, one day just to see what happens at these docks. I come from a State that does not have dock facilities. We are a landlocked State right in the middle of our country, the State of North Dakota. So I was at the Seattle docks, talking to people about what is coming into our ports and how they deal with it. I saw these container ships being unloaded with these large cranes. Then they took me over to an inspection site. They opened the back of one of these containers, which was now resting on an 18-wheel truck, because they just drive these trucks underneath and drop the container, and then run the trucks off someplace to the rest of the country. What they had opened was a container of frozen broccoli from Poland. It was bagged in, I believe, 100-pound bags. They took a knife and opened a bag of this frozen broccoli from Poland. I asked the people who were showing me all of this: Do you know where this broccoli was produced in Poland? Do you have any idea? They said: Oh, no, we wouldn't have any idea about that. I asked: Do you have any idea what kind of chemicals were applied to this frozen broccoli from Poland? They said: No, we wouldn't have any notion of that. I asked: How many of these containers with frozen broccoli or frozen asparagus or peas, or whatever else is coming in in our food supply, are actually opened? The one you open, you do not know much about. All you can tell is it is green and frozen and it is a vegetable, but how many of these containers actually get opened? They said: Oh, probably just 2 or 3 percent. The rest of them just move right on through. It is a steel container with frozen vegetables, and it hits these shores. It is put on top of 18-wheelers, and off it goes someplace to a distribution center and then someplace to a restaurant and then someplace to a dinner plate. And we do not have the foggiest idea how it was produced, what chemicals were used or whether someone deciding to introduce bioterrorism in America's food supply found a way into that container. We do not have the foggiest notion about what the circumstances are with that broccoli. Senator Byrd, in his proposal, says that, too, is an issue of homeland defense, protecting America's food supply. Should American consumers, with the threat of bioterrorism, inspect more than 2 percent of the food coming into this country, of those commodities coming into this country? I believe they should inspect more than that. So that is homeland defense. Senator Byrd's homeland defense proposal also invests in State and local antiterrorism law enforcement. Investing in that kind of law enforcement is not only necessary, it also improves confidence. It also will stimulate confidence in this economy. Remember, on September 11, while we all watched television, with great horror, others in this country were doing something quite different. Men and women, making $40,000 and $50,000 a year, wearing the badges of law enforcement and firefighters, were running up the stairs of the Trade Center. They were running up the stairs on the 20th, 30th, 40th, and 50th floors. And as people evacuated those buildings, they saw the first responders--the firefighters and law enforcement folks--going up. They did not do it because of their salary. They do not make much money. They did it because they were the first responders required to protect this country and their city. State and local antiterrorism law enforcement, Senator Byrd says in his proposal. Do we need that kind of investment? You bet we do in virtually every reach of this country. FEMA firefighters grant program: Absolutely necessary. The Federal antiterrorism law enforcement, border security, airport security: I've been very concerned about the northern border. I am concerned about all of our borders around this country. You cannot provide security in America unless you have security of your borders. You must know who is coming in, and make sure those who are associated with terrorists or known terrorists are not allowed in. On the northern border we have a wonderful, long 4,000-mile border with a great neighbor, the country of Canada. We are so fortunate to be able to share that border with a good neighbor. But it is true, on 4,000 miles of border, we have 128 ports of entry, and over 100 of them are part time. In most cases, at 10 o'clock at night, the security between the United States and Canada is an orange rubber cone that someone puts in the middle of the road as they shut the station down. That orange rubber cone that cannot shoot, cannot think, cannot talk, and cannot tell a terrorist from a tow truck. It is supposed to be security. Do we need to do something about that? The answer is, clearly, yes. And Senator Byrd, in his proposal of homeland defense, does that. Airport security, mass transit security, Amtrak security, nuclear powerplants: I will not go through all of it, but I think Senator Byrd did it in a very thorough way. I will only say this: Can anyone come to this Senate and tell us this is not a set of emergency needs that are required at this point in this country? Does anybody really believe these are not emergency needs? I do not believe that someone can make the case that, A, this is not an emergency; and, B, these are not necessary. Let me turn for a moment to the proposals on taxation. One way to provide economic stimulus and recovery and confidence is to get the economy moving again through tax incentives. We have done that before. Some are more successful and some are less successful. There are some common provisions in both the House and the Senate bills that makes sense. Additional expensing makes sense. Some bonus depreciation makes sense. I happen to think a targeted investment tax credit would make some sense. I want to make a couple of points about some provisions that have been kicking around here that are in either the House or the Senate Republican proposals that make no sense at all. What we have to do is get to the core of what works, to provide some help to this country's economy. One of things that happened--this is in the House of Representatives stimulus bill--is they decided to give retroactive tax cuts in the form of payments to some of the largest corporations in the country, retroactively refunding the alternative minimum taxes that were paid by the companies. I was in the other body, and I was on the House Ways and Means Committee when we wrote the 1986 Tax Reform Act. I was one of those who helped write the alternative minimum tax. It has turned into something that we did not intend back then, but, nonetheless, the reason we did it is we had all these stories. I recall one of them was General Electric making $1 billion and paying zero in taxes--zero. We decided that was not fair and it was not something we wanted to see happen. So we thought, if someone is able to zero out their tax liability with all kinds of other devices, let's have an alternative minimum tax, so those who have earned substantial profits will at least pay some taxes. That is called the alternative minimum tax. The stimulus package enacted by the House of Representatives says that we are going to give back immediate tax refunds for all the alternative minimum taxes paid back to 1986. So we will send IBM a check for $1.4 billion, Ford Motor a check for $1 billion. Can you imagine that? How is that going to stimulate the economy? Tom Paxton once wrote a song, when Chrysler got a bailout, saying: ``I'm changing my name to Chrysler.'' Now maybe he would write a song saying: ``I'm changing my name to Ford.'' Are we going to give refunds of billions of dollars to refund the alternative minimum tax that corporations pay? How does that help this country's economy? In the Washington Post this past weekend, there was a fascinating op- ed piece written by a Nobel Prize-winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz. He wrote: What worries me now is that the new proposals, particularly the one passed by the Republican-controlled House, are also likely to be ineffective. The House plan would rely heavily on tax cuts for corporations and upper income individuals. The bill would put zero--yes, zero--into the hands of a typical family of four with an annual income of $50,000. Giving tax relief to the corporations for past investments may pad their balance sheets but will not lead to more investments now when we need it. Then he wrote: The Senate Republican bill, which the administration backs, in some ways would make things even worse by granting bigger benefits to very high earners. For instance, the $50,000 family would still get zero but this plan would give $500,000 over four years to families making $5 million a year and much of that after (one hopes) the economy has recovered. It directs very little money to those who would spend it and offers few incentives for investment now. The point is, we are required to not only do something but to do the right thing. This economy is contracting. The economy declined by .4 percent in the third quarter. The new figures will likely show we are in a recession. Almost everyone in the field of economics believes that. It could very well be a very deep recession. Factory orders dropped 5.8 percent in September, the lowest level since March of 1997. Corporate profits dropped 72 percent in the third quarter. Unemployment is 5.4 percent, up a percent and a half from last year; 415,000 job cuts in the month of October alone. Consumer confidence is way off. Consumer spending has plunged. We have substantial excess capacity in our economy. That is why putting substantial money into the top in the form of a billion dollars here and a billion dollars there to one corporation is not going to do very much if you have substantial excess capacity. The problem is that the economy is in deep trouble. The question is, What do we do? The answer is, What we do ought to be temporary, No. 1; No. 2, it ought to be immediate. The legislation brought to us from the House fails on both counts. The proposal that is offered by Senator Baucus and Senator Byrd succeeds on both counts. I mentioned a moment ago the alternative minimum tax retroactive refund, $7.4 billion for 16 large companies. Senator Byrd talked about the need for investment in this country, the need for helping people who are out of work with extended unemployment benefits during tough times. That amount, $7.4 billion, could help State and local governments hire the first responders, fire and police protectors, and training. It could help deal with the U.S. Postal Service needs. I did not mention but Senator Byrd talked about the need that is required now by the Postal Service to find the technology to irradiate the mail, make sure the mails are safe. It is a whole series of things dealing with the use of money. Bioterrorism, if we are going to pass a bioterrorism bill, how do we pay for that? Law enforcement, infrastructure, all of these are needs that we must address. Some believe this is not an emergency. I very seriously disagree with that. Clearly, this country is facing an emergency situation with an economy that is in a very steep decline. My hope is that we will decide in the coming week or so that there is a way for the Republicans and Democrats, for the House and Senate and the President, to engage in the kind of negotiations that will lead to an economic recovery or stimulus package that, A, is immediate and, B, is temporary, one that recognizes the requirement that we have to do this now. I regret very much that a point of order was just raised. I understand why it was raised, but I regret it was raised because I believe a point of order also exists against the underlying Republican bill that is at the desk. The bill that came over from the House also has a point of order against it. It substantially delays things here in the Senate to begin battling points of order. Either we are going to do a stimulus package or we are not. If we are going to do a stimulus package or an economic recovery package, let's get serious about it. What I see in some of these bills, especially the one at the desk from the House, reminds me of what my mother used to call supper. When asked, ``What is for supper?'' she often would say, ``Leftovers.'' We all knew what leftovers meant. It meant whatever else was left in the refrigerator. That is what we got from the House in their so-called stimulus package--all the leftovers they hadn't gotten done in previous bills, having nothing to do with making something immediate or temporary, just leftovers, just the old things they always wanted to do. Give a refund of $1.4 billion to IBM because they paid an alternative minimum tax since 1986. That doesn't make any sense. That is not going to stimulate the country. It is just the same old nonsense. I started talking about John Adams in his book lamenting to Abigail about, where was the leadership? Where is the leadership? he said, during the formative time of this country when they needed leadership. He said: Regretfully, there is only us, Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Madison. Of course ``only us'' turned out to be quite substantial leadership, the greatest leadership certainly in this country's history, perhaps in the history of the world, the organization of free government. The question is, Where is the leadership now? The leadership offered by Senator Baucus and Senator Byrd, assisted by Senator Daschle, in trying to put together legislation that will give hope and confidence to the American people--I hope as well the leadership of the President and others who will join us in very serious negotiations in the coming days--will allow us to pass legislation that will give us the opportunity to say, as Churchill asked the English to say, ``this was our finest hour.'' We need to do this in a serious way. This country faces a serious challenge. My hope is we do it sooner rather than later. Again, I regret very much a point of order was raised because there is not only a point of order against the legislation that has been offered today, there exists a point of order against the underlying House bill; there is a point of order that lay against the Senate Republican bill; there is a point of order against all of this. The question is, Do we have an emergency in this country or don't we? Those who, like Herbert Hoover, want to sit around and say, let's just wait and see what happens, will do this country no service. Let's decide we will take action now. We will do it on a bipartisan basis, with Republicans and Democrats in cooperation with the President, and do it in a way that will make this country proud of the service given by Congress and the President. I yield the floor.