Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, during the first few months of the 106th Congress in early 1999, I introduced a pesticide harmonization bill--S. 394. Today, I am introducing a revised version of that legislation. The need for this legislation has not changed. Last year, I pointed out that when the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement came into effect, part of the understanding on agriculture was that our two nations were going to move rapidly toward the harmonization of pesticide regulations. However, we have entered a new decade--and century, no less--and relatively little progress in harmonization has been accomplished that is meaningful to family farmers. Since this trade agreement took effect, the pace of Canadian spring and durum wheat, and barley exports to the United States have grown from a barely noticeable trickle into annual floods of imported grain into our markets. Over the years, I have described many factors that have produced this unfair trade relationship and unlevel playing field between farmers of our two nations. The failure to achieve harmonization in pesticides between the United States and Canada compounds this ongoing trade problem. Our farmers are concerned that agricultural pesticides that are not available in the United States are being utilized by farmers in Canada to produce wheat, barley, and other agricultural commodities that are subsequently imported and consumed in the United States. They rightfully believe that it is unfair to import commodities produced with agricultural pesticides that are not available to U.S. producers. They believe that it is not in the interests of consumers or producers to allow such imports. However, it is not just a difference in availability of agricultural pesticides between our two countries, but also in the pricing of these chemicals. Just last spring, our farmers were denied the right to bring a pesticide across the border that was cleared for use in our country, but was not available locally because the company who manufactures this product chose not to sell it here. They were selling a more expensive version of the product here. The simple fact is, this company was using our environmental protection laws as a means to extract a higher price from our farmers even though the cheaper product sold in Canada is just as safe. This simply is not right. I have pointed out, time and time again, the fact is that there are significant differences in prices being paid for essentially the same pesticide by farmers in our two countries. In fact, in a recent survey, farmers in the United States were paying between 117 percent and 193 percent more than Canadian farmers for a number of pesticides. This was after adjusting for differences in currency exchange rates at that time. The farmers in my state are simply fed up with what is going on. They see grain flooding across the border, while they are unable to access the more inexpensive production inputs available in our ``free trade'' environment. And I might add, this grain coming into our country has been treated with these products which our farmers are denied access to. This simply must end. As I stated earlier, today, I am introducing a new version of legislation that would take an important step in providing equitable treatment for U.S. farmers in the pricing of agricultural pesticides. And I want to point out what has taken place since introduction of the original pesticide harmonization bill--or maybe I should say--what has not taken place. I wrote the chairman of the Agriculture Committee on more than one occasion requesting hearings about the original version of this legislation, but to no avail. I was disappointed, to say the least. Especially, as I stated, since the need for this legislation has not disappeared. On the contrary, it is still a hot issue along our northern border with Canada. This bill would only deal with agricultural chemicals that are identical or substantially similar. It only deals with pesticides that have already undergone rigorous review processes and whose formulations have been registered and approved for use in both countries by the respective regulatory agencies. The bill would establish a procedure by which states may apply for and receive an Environmental Protection Agency label for agricultural chemicals sold in Canada that are identical or substantially similar to agricultural chemicals used in the United States. Thus, U.S. producers and suppliers could purchase such chemicals in Canada for use in the United States. The need for this bill is created by pesticide companies which use chemical labeling laws to protect their marketing and pricing structures, rather than protecting the public interest. In their selective labeling of identical or substantially similar products across the border they are able to extract unjustified profits from American farmers, and create unlevel pricing fields between our two countries. This bill is one legislative step in the process of full harmonization of pesticides between our two nations. It is designed specifically to address the problem of pricing differentials on chemicals that are currently available in both countries. We need to take this step, so that we can begin the process of creating a level playing field between farmers of our two countries. This bill would make harmonization a reality for those pesticides in which their actual selling price is the only real difference.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, during the first few months of the 106th Congress in early 1999, I introduced a pesticide harmonization bill--S. 394. Today, I am introducing a revised version of that legislation. The need for this legislation has not changed. Last year, I pointed out that when the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement came into effect, part of the understanding on agriculture was that our two nations were going to move rapidly toward the harmonization of pesticide regulations. However, we have entered a new decade--and century, no less--and relatively little progress in harmonization has been accomplished that is meaningful to family farmers. Since this trade agreement took effect, the pace of Canadian spring and durum wheat, and barley exports to the United States have grown from a barely noticeable trickle into annual floods of imported grain into our markets. Over the years, I have described many factors that have produced this unfair trade relationship and unlevel playing field between farmers of our two nations. The failure to achieve harmonization in pesticides between the United States and Canada compounds this ongoing trade problem. Our farmers are concerned that agricultural pesticides that are not available in the United States are being utilized by farmers in Canada to produce wheat, barley, and other agricultural commodities that are subsequently imported and consumed in the United States. They rightfully believe that it is unfair to import commodities produced with agricultural pesticides that are not available to U.S. producers. They believe that it is not in the interests of consumers or producers to allow such imports. However, it is not just a difference in availability of agricultural pesticides between our two countries, but also in the pricing of these chemicals. Just last spring, our farmers were denied the right to bring a pesticide across the border that was cleared for use in our country, but was not available locally because the company who manufactures this product chose not to sell it here. They were selling a more expensive version of the product here. The simple fact is, this company was using our environmental protection laws as a means to extract a higher price from our farmers even though the cheaper product sold in Canada is just as safe. This simply is not right. I have pointed out, time and time again, the fact is that there are significant differences in prices being paid for essentially the same pesticide by farmers in our two countries. In fact, in a recent survey, farmers in the United States were paying between 117 percent and 193 percent more than Canadian farmers for a number of pesticides. This was after adjusting for differences in currency exchange rates at that time. The farmers in my state are simply fed up with what is going on. They see grain flooding across the border, while they are unable to access the more inexpensive production inputs available in our ``free trade'' environment. And I might add, this grain coming into our country has been treated with these products which our farmers are denied access to. This simply must end. As I stated earlier, today, I am introducing a new version of legislation that would take an important step in providing equitable treatment for U.S. farmers in the pricing of agricultural pesticides. And I want to point out what has taken place since introduction of the original pesticide harmonization bill--or maybe I should say--what has not taken place. I wrote the chairman of the Agriculture Committee on more than one occasion requesting hearings about the original version of this legislation, but to no avail. I was disappointed, to say the least. Especially, as I stated, since the need for this legislation has not disappeared. On the contrary, it is still a hot issue along our northern border with Canada. This bill would only deal with agricultural chemicals that are identical or substantially similar. It only deals with pesticides that have already undergone rigorous review processes and whose formulations have been registered and approved for use in both countries by the respective regulatory agencies. The bill would establish a procedure by which states may apply for and receive an Environmental Protection Agency label for agricultural chemicals sold in Canada that are identical or substantially similar to agricultural chemicals used in the United States. Thus, U.S. producers and suppliers could purchase such chemicals in Canada for use in the United States. The need for this bill is created by pesticide companies which use chemical labeling laws to protect their marketing and pricing structures, rather than protecting the public interest. In their selective labeling of identical or substantially similar products across the border they are able to extract unjustified profits from American farmers, and create unlevel pricing fields between our two countries. This bill is one legislative step in the process of full harmonization of pesticides between our two nations. It is designed specifically to address the problem of pricing differentials on chemicals that are currently available in both countries. We need to take this step, so that we can begin the process of creating a level playing field between farmers of our two countries. This bill would make harmonization a reality for those pesticides in which their actual selling price is the only real difference.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, let me try to summarize what brought me to the floor. A colleague arrived on the Senate floor and said the reason we are in the circumstance in which, at nearly the end of a legislative session and only 2 of 13 appropriations bills have been completed by the Congress, and not much of the major legislation we had hopes for in the 106th Congress has been passed, is that Senator Daschle is stalling, causing problems, is just not going to wash. It is sheer nonsense to suggest somehow that the minority leader of the Senate is determining the schedule of the Senate. There are times when one has to be repetitious in the Senate. Let me give an example: increasing the minimum wage. When it comes time for increasing the tax benefits for the highest income groups in America, we have people rushing to the floor, standing up and talking about tax cuts. Good for them. If you happen to be in the top one-tenth of 1 percent of the income earners, there are people here coming to the floor of the Senate saying: Let's give you a big tax cut. They won't call it that. They will say it is for the little guy. But just unwrap the package and see what is there. If you are in the top one-tenth of 1 percent of the income earners, good for you. You have great representation in the Senate. At least on a half dozen occasions this year, you had people coming over to vote for big tax cuts for you. But what if you are at the bottom of the economic ladder? What if you are a single mother, working the midnight shift for the minimum wage, trying to make ends meet, trying to pay the rent, trying to buy food and see if there is any way you can scratch out money to have health insurance for your children? What about you? Who is rushing to the Senate floor to say perhaps we ought to provide a small increase in the minimum wage? An increase in the minimum wage doesn't happen very often. Time and time again, we have tried to address the needs by increasing the minimum wage. It hasn't gotten done. We are near the end of the session. Is it repetitious to bring it back up? You bet it is. But some of us intend to be repetitious when it means standing up for the rights of the people at the bottom of the economic ladder who are working hard but who are losing ground because the cost of living is going up and their wages are not. How about the issue of trying to keep guns out of the hands of criminals? Let me describe that problem in this session of the Congress. Most everybody agrees--certainly the law requires--that we prevent criminals from having access to guns. If you have been convicted of a felony, you don't have a right to own a gun. The second amendment doesn't apply to you, but it applies to law-abiding citizens. Criminals have no right to have a gun. The NRA and virtually everybody else has agreed that we ought to have an instant check system where, if somebody wants to buy a gun, there name will be run through a computer check to see if this person is a convicted felon. If in running this check you discover the person has previously been convicted of a felony, that person has no right to a gun. At every gun store in this country, when you go in to buy a gun, that happens. Everybody supports that--the National Rifle Association, Republicans, and Democrats; everybody supports that. But there is a loophole. If you don't go to a gun store but instead go to a Saturday gun show, there is no requirement when you purchase a gun at that Saturday gun show that they run your name through an instant check. A fair number of guns are passing from one hand to another on Saturdays and Sundays at gun shows with no determination of whether the person buying the gun is a felon. So we in the Congress pass a provision that closes that gun show loophole. Is it erratic? Not at all. It is very simple, common sense. It says no matter where you buy a gun, a gun store or a gun show, your name has to be run through an instant check to determine whether you are a convicted felon. If you are not, you can buy the gun. If you are a convicted criminal, you can't because you don't have a right to a gun. That bill passed the Senate by one vote. It went into a piece of legislation and went to conference and never came back out. A week or so ago, an appropriations subcommittee was considering legislation that would have allowed the introduction of an amendment to close that loophole once again because that provision is on a bill that apparently is not going to move in this session. This would have provided an opportunity to offer an amendment to close the gun show loophole. Instead of allowing that, guess what? They took that appropriations subcommittee bill and moved it directly to conference. It never came to the floor of the Senate. Those who would have offered the amendment to close the loophole were never offered the opportunity to do that. That is not the regular process in the Senate, not the way things ought to be done. So there are reasons to insist on some of these issues from time to time. We wish, for example, that on many of these days when we weren't in session, we would have been in session. Perhaps we would have finished most of the appropriations bills. Perhaps we would have been able to reach agreement on issues such as education. We have had a fairly significant debate, over many months in the 106th Congress, on the issue of education. We know that smaller class size means better instruction and better education. We know that 1 teacher with 30 students is less able to teach those students than 1 teacher with 15 students. So we have a proposal to help in that regard by helping school districts and States have the resources to hire more teachers. Yet we are not able to get that completed because there is controversy in this Congress about that issue. There are also schools in this country that are crumbling. Anybody who visits any number of schools will recognize that there are a lot of schools in this country that were built after the Second World War when the folks came back from that war and got married and had families. They built schools in a prodigious quantity all across the country. School after school was built in the fifties, and now many of those schools are 50 years old and in desperate need of repair. Every Republican and Democrat, man or woman, ought to understand that when we send a kid through a schoolroom door, as I have described Rosie Two Bears going through a third grade door the day I was visiting her school, we ought to have some pride in that school, some understanding that every young ``Rosie'' who is walking through the school doors is walking into a classroom that is the best we can provide, that will offer that child the best opportunity for an education we can offer that child. But I have been to schools where 150 kids have 1 water fountain and 2 toilets. I have been to schools where kids are sitting at desks 1 inch apart, and there is no opportunity to plug in computers and get to the Internet because the school is partially condemned and they don't have access to that technology; they don't have a football field, a track, or physical education facilities. I have been to those schools. We can do better than that. There are ways for us to help school districts modernize, rehabilitate, and rebuild some of those schools, and proposals to do that have largely fallen on deaf ears in this Congress. Prescription drugs: We know what we should do on that issue. We know life-saving drugs only save lives if you can afford to access those drugs. The current Medicare program doesn't provide a prescription drug benefit. 12 percent of our population are senior citizens and they consume one-third of all the prescription drugs. The cost of prescription drugs increased 16 percent last year alone. It is hard when you go to the homes of older Americans or go to meetings and have them come talk to you about the price of prescription drugs and see their eyes fill with tears and their chins begin to quiver as they talk about having diabetes, heart troubles, and other problems. They say they have been to the doctor and the doctor prescribed drugs, but they can't afford them. They ask, ``What shall we do?'' It happens all across the country all the time. We know we should add a prescription drug benefit to the Medicare program. The Patients' Bill of Rights: If any issue ought to be just a slam dunk, it is this issue. Yet we are at the end of this session and can't pass a real Patients' Bill of Rights. The House passed one; it was bipartisan. And then the Senate passed a ``patients' bill of goods''-- well, they don't call it that, but that is what it is. It is just an empty vessel to say they have done something. We should pass the Patients' Bill of Rights and make sure that in doctors' offices and in hospital rooms across this country, medical care is administered by the doctors and by skilled medical personnel. I won't recite all the stories. One is sufficient to make the point. A woman fell off a cliff in the Shenandoah mountains and was in a coma. She had multiple broken bones. She was taken to an emergency room on a gurney and unconscious. She was treated and eventually recovered. Her managed care organization said it would not pay for her emergency care because she didn't have prior approval to visit the emergency room. This is a person hauled in on a gurney, unconscious, and she was told she needed prior approval in order to have the emergency room treatment covered by her managed care organization. Examples of that sort of treatment go on and on and on. Patients should have a right to know all of their medical options, not just the cheapest. Patients ought to have a right to get emergency room treatment during emergencies. A patient ought to be able to continue treatment with the same oncologist. If a woman is being treated for breast cancer and her spouse has an employer who changes health care plans, she ought to be able to continue treatment with the same cancer specialist she had been working with for 3 or 5 years. Those are basic rights, in my judgment, which are embodied in the Patients' Bill of Rights. It is so simple and so straightforward and so compelling. Yet this Congress has not been able to get it done. The list goes on. Agriculture sanctions: We have sanctions prohibiting food shipments to so many countries--about a half dozen around the world. We have economic sanctions against them, and those sanctions include a sanction on the shipment of food. President Clinton has relaxed that some; he is the first President to do so, and good for him. But he can't relax it, for example, with respect to Cuba. That is a legislative sanction, and we have to repeal it. We ought not to use food as a weapon in the world. There should be no more sanctions on food shipments anywhere. The same ought to be true with medicine. The Senate has spoken on that by 70 votes. We said let's stop it. We are too big and too good a country to use food as a weapon. We try to hit Saddam Hussein and Fidel Castro and we end up hitting poor, sick, hungry people. It ought to stop. Yet we are near the end of this session and we don't seem to be able to do that. It does not wash for anyone to come to this Chamber and say the problem is the minority party. That is nonsense. The problem is we haven't been in session a majority of this year. These red dates are the dates in which we have not been in session. The problem is we have people who do not want to schedule debate on the floor of the Senate on amendments because they do not want to cast votes on those amendments. We ought to change that. Let's decide whatever the amendments are and whatever the policy is and debate it and vote and whoever has the votes wins. In a democracy, you don't weigh votes. You count votes. Whoever ends up with the most votes at the end wins. That, again, is not rocket science. But that is the way democracy ought to work. We have not been in session most of the year, and now we have people coming out suggesting that somehow the minority leader is responsible for the problems of scheduling in this session. It just does not wash. It is just not so. I hope perhaps in the coming 2 weeks that remain in this 106th Congress that we will have some burst of energy, some burst of creativity, and perhaps some industrial strength vitamin B-12 administered to the entire Congress as a whole that would make us decide to do the things we know need doing. As I indicated when I started, at the end of the day, the American people do not care much about who offered amendments and who didn't, and who brought legislation to the floor trying to shut debate off and who didn't. They are interested at the end of the day in whether this 106th Congress met and made much of a difference in their lives and in their families' lives. What people care about is the things they talk about around the supper table: Are my kids going to a good school? If not, what can I do about that? Do I have a good job that has some job security? Do I have a decent income? Am I able to believe that my parents and grandparents will have access to good health care? Do I live in a neighborhood that is safe? All of these are issues that affect American families. All of these are issues that we are working on. And, regrettably, in the 106th Congress we are not working on them in a very effective way because we have not been meeting most of the year. On those critical issues--health care, education, economic security, and a range of other issues--the things that will most affect working families in this country are things that this Congress is not inclined to want to work on, or are not inclined to want to pass. It would be one thing if we couldn't pass legislation addressing these issues because we had votes on these matters and we lost. But often we discover there are other ways to kill something by denying the opportunity to bring up the amendment for a vote. It is interesting. In this Congress, we have had something pretty unusual. We have actually had legislation brought to the floor of the Senate and then cloture motions are filed to shut debate off before the debate even begins. We have had legislation brought to the floor of the Senate with cloture motions designed to shut amendments off before the first amendment was offered. You wonder: How does that work? How does that comport with what the tradition of the Senate should be as a great debating society on which we take on all of the issues and hear all of the viewpoints and then have a vote about the direction in which we think this country should be moving? When I came to the Congress some years ago, one of the older Members of Congress was Claude Pepper, who was then in his eighties--a wonderful Congressman from Florida. He used to talk about the miracle in the U.S. Constitution--the miracle that says every even-numbered year the American people grab the steering wheel and decide which way they want to nudge this country. That is how he described the process of voting. That is the power that the American people have. The American people choose who comes to this Chamber. The rules of this Chamber provide that we do the same as the American people. We take their hopes and we take their aspirations and their thoughts for a better life and we offer them here in terms of public policy. Then we are supposed to vote. That is the bedrock notion of how you conduct democracy. Yet we are all too often getting in this rut of deciding that we don't have time; we don't want to have a vote on this; we want to sidetrack that; we want to hijack this. That is not the way the Senate ought to work. Again, I didn't intend to come to the floor this afternoon, but nor did I want to sit and listen to debate which suggests that the minority leader, or the Democratic caucus, or anybody else for that matter, is at fault for what is taking place. As the Senator from West Virginia indicated, there is perhaps sufficient blame to go around. I don't disagree with that. But I also know that we didn't win the election. I wish we had. We don't control the Senate. I wish we did. But between now and the date we finish in this session of Congress, let me encourage those who make schedules around here to heed the words of the minority leader, Senator Daschle. If we have a fair number of appropriations bills remaining and people are worrying about whether we are going to get them done, then what Senator Daschle suggests, and I firmly support, is to do one appropriations bill a day. Bring up a bill today. It is Monday. It is 3:30. Let's bring a bill up and debate it and stay here until it is done. That is a sure way of getting the bills done. It is a sure way of providing everybody with an opportunity to be heard. It is also a way perhaps to get the votes on the issues I described that I think this Congress ought to be doing. I assume we will have an interesting debate in the coming days. I hope Congress will be able to finish its work in the next 2 or 3 weeks. I hope that when we finish our work Democrats and Republicans can together say at the conclusion of the 106th Congress that we have done something good for America. But that will not happen unless things change, and unless we take a different tact in the next 3 weeks. There is a list of about 8 or 10 pieces that we ought to do. Bring them to the floor. Let's get them done, and then let's adjourn sine die feeling we have done something good for our country. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. I appreciate the comments of the Senator from West Virginia as well. It should never, ever be considered old-fashioned to have the Senate work in a manner in which it was intended to work; that is, to have debates and to have votes. That is not old-fashioned. That is a timeless truth about how democracy ought to work. A timeless truth here is that we will get the best for the American people by soliciting all of the best ideas that come from every corner of this Chamber. Those ideas come from every corner of our country. People come here not for their own sake; they come to represent the people of West Virginia and Maine and California and my State of North Dakota. The development of all of those ideas--through debate, through the offering of amendments, and so on--represents what I think can contribute best to America's well-being. There are so many things that I wanted to do this year that we are not doing. There is so little time left. We have a farm program that does not work. Families out on the land--family farmers are the best in America--are just struggling mightily. The farm program does not work. It ought to be repealed and replaced with one that does. That is not rocket science. Europe does it. We can do it. A Patients' Bill of Rights: We debated that forever. We ought to pass that. A prescription drug benefit in the Medicare program: We know we should do that and do it soon. Fixing the education system: Again, we know what needs to be done there. There is a whole series of things we ought to be doing that have not been done this year, let alone most of the appropriations bills, which we should pass.

Mr. DORGAN. I am happy to yield.

Mr. DORGAN. I am happy to yield.

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, the Senator from West Virginia will recall that he told me a story some long while ago about this desk that I occupy in the Senate. This desk, as do all of these desks, has an interesting history. This desk was the desk of former Senator Robert La Follette from Wisconsin. It was Senator Byrd who informed me of something that happened 91 years ago, I believe, in late May in the year 1909. Senator La Follette was standing at this desk--this desk may not have been in this exact spot, but it was this desk--involved in a filibuster. During those days, this Senate had a lot of aggressive, robust debates. Senator La Follette was a very forceful man with strong feelings, and he stood at this desk engaged in a filibuster. As the story goes, apparently someone sent up a glass of eggnog for him to sip on during the filibuster. He brought that glass of eggnog to his lips and drank then spat and began to scream that he had been poisoned. He thought he had tasted poison in this glass of eggnog. The glass was sent away--I believe this was in 1909--to have it evaluated. They discovered someone had, in fact, put poison in his drink. They never found the culprit. I think of stories such as this one about this Chamber, what a wonderful tradition in the Senate of people who feel so strongly. We should not diminish the role of the Senate as the place of great debates. I served in the House. It is a wonderful institution. There are 435 Members. There they package their debates through the Rules Committee. They say: You get 1 minute, you get 2 minutes, you get 5 minutes. We will entertain these 10 amendments, and that is all. And if you are not on the list, you are not there. That is the way the House works because that is the only way it could work with 435 Members. But the Senate was never designed to work that way. It was never intended to work that way. The Senate was to be the center of the great debates, debates that are unfettered by time, unfettered by restriction. Is that in some ways inefficient? Yes. Is it cumbersome, sometimes inconvenient? Sure. It is all of that. But it is also the hallmark of the center of democracy. We ought not ever dilute that, nor should we ever dilute the opportunity of every single person who comes to sit and at times stand in the Senate to represent his or her constituents to make the strongest case they can make on whatever the issue is that day.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I was listening to the discussion among my colleagues, Senator Craig, Senator Byrd, and Senator Daschle was here earlier. I thought it would be useful to discuss the concept that has been discussed. In the end, it does not matter what is said one way or the other about who is at fault for this or for delaying that. The question people ask at the end of a legislative session is, Are things a little better in this country because those folks met and discussed things in the United States, what works, what does not, what we can do and cannot do? If the answer to that is yes, none of this matters much. But the Senator from West Virginia, in responding to some discussions earlier by the Senator from Idaho, makes a very interesting point. I have not been here nearly as long as the Senator from West Virginia has been. This is a calendar which shows this year, the year 2000. The red days on this calendar are the days the Senate was not in session. We will see the Senate was not in session a fair part of the year. In fact, another chart will show the number of days we have been in session. It is now the end of September, and we have been in session 115 days out of all of this year. Of those 115 days we were in session, on 34 of them, there were no votes at all. So we have been in session 115 days, but on 34 of those days, there have been no votes. There have been only two Mondays in this entire year in which the Senate has voted, and if I may continue with this chart presentation, there have been only six Fridays in all of this year on which the Senate has voted. Out of 13 appropriations bills, only two have been signed into law by the President. In the month of September, when we must try to finish the remaining 11 appropriations bills, we have not had any votes on Mondays, except for possibly today if we have a vote later today. And there have been no votes on Fridays in the month of September. I thought it would be useful to describe what is going on here. Let me read this statement from my friend and colleague, the Senate majority leader, earlier in the year. He said: We were out of town two months and our approval rating went up 11 points. I think I've got this thing figured out. I know Senator Lott wants this place to work and work well. I mentioned the other day to Senator Lott that there is a television commercial about these grizzled, leather-faced cowboys on horseback herding cats. It is actually a funny commercial because they even get those cats in a river and try to move them across the river. These big cowboys with these leather coats, the big dusters they wear for storms, are holding these little stray cats. I said to the Senate majority leader: That reminds me a little perhaps of the job you and others have of keeping things moving around here. The Senator from West Virginia makes a very important point, and I want to outline it. We have had plenty of time to get to work to pass this legislation. We just have not been in session in the Senate much of the year. Frankly, most people run for the privilege of serving in the Senate because they have an agenda, too, and they want to offer amendments. They want to offer ideas that come from their constituencies that say: Here is what we think should be done to improve life in this country; here is what we think should be done to deal with education, health care, crime, and a whole range of issues. When there are circumstances like we have seen this year where legislation does not even, in some cases, come to the floor of the Senate, but instead goes right to conference, it says to Senators: You have no right to offer any amendments. That does not make sense. The reason I came over, I say to the Senator from West Virginia, is that I heard the discussion by my colleague from Idaho saying Senator Daschle is to blame for all of this. Nonsense. Winston Churchill used to say the greatest thrill in the world is to be shot at and missed. The Senator from Idaho has just given all of us a thrill. But Senator Daschle is at fault? Senator Daschle does not schedule this Senate. We are not in charge. I wish we were, but we are not in charge. We are the minority party, not the majority party. I hope that will change very soon. What Senator Daschle said is clear. In fact, he said it again last week: If I had been majority leader, and I am not, today would be a day in which we take up an appropriations bill and we would be in session until we finish that bill and everybody has a chance to offer amendments. If it takes 24 hours, then we will not get a lot of sleep, but we will finish that bill. Senator Daschle said: My preference is to take these bills up individually. I would be willing to do an appropriations bill a day-- long days, sure; tough days, absolutely. But he said let's do them. Bring them to the floor. Open them up for amendment. Let's have debates, offer amendments, and then let's vote. Democracy, after all, is about voting. It is not always convenient. The Senator from West Virginia had a reputation for not always making it very convenient for people because he has insisted that appropriations bills be brought to the Senate floor and that they be debated fully and that everybody have the opportunity to bring their amendments to the floor of the Senate, have a debate, and then have a vote. Again, sometimes that is difficult. People want to be here and there and everywhere else on Fridays and Mondays and parts of the week. But the fact is, we are now in September, towards the end of the month, and 11 of the 13 appropriations bills are not yet signed. I am a conferee on at least two of them for which no conference has been held. I might mention to the Senator from West Virginia, I think perhaps you were referring earlier to the Agriculture appropriations bill. The House passed it July 11. The Senate passed it July 20. I am a conferee. There has been no conference. The House has not even appointed its conferees. In today's edition of the CQ Daily Monitor, one of my colleagues is quoted as saying that ``aides'' have worked out a compromise in the Agriculture spending conference report, and it will come to the floor on Wednesday. Now, that is a surprise to those of us who are supposed to be conferees. This is a bill on which there has been no conference, and someone in the majority party is saying aides have worked this all out, and it is going to come to the floor of the Senate on Wednesday. Boy, I tell you, this system is flat out broken. That is not the way this system ought to work. Aides do the work without a conference?

Mr. DORGAN. Of course, I yield.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I appreciate the Senator from Mississippi yielding to me. I wanted to propound a series of questions. First of all, let me say that I respect the difficult job the majority leader has. As we come to the end of the 106th Congress and try to put all the pieces together and make them fit, and so on, it is a difficult job. One specific piece of legislation that is very important to me--as are many others--is the Agriculture appropriations bill. I come from a farm State. This is a critically important piece of legislation. The House of Representatives passed an Agriculture appropriations bill on July 11. The Senate passed one on July 20. It is now September 22. I was appointed a conferee for this appropriations conference. I am on the subcommittee, and there has been no appropriations conference at all. We are toward the end of this legislative session, and I worry about the regular process. Will we have an appropriations conference? The reason I am asking this question is, as the majority leader knows, there are some very controversial things in this legislation. I understand there are, because the Senate by a majority vote said we want them. One of those controversial issues is a policy that says: Let us stop using food as a weapon. We want to abolish sanctions on food shipments all around the world. It is controversial. Some don't want to do that. Some want to continue to use food sanctions against Cuba and other countries. I don't. Seventy Members of the Senate voted not to do it. We want to abolish that approach. That is one. The other controversial issue is--Senator Jeffords and I offered the amendment on the reimportation of prescription drugs approved by the FDA. That was controversial. The reason I am asking the question of the majority leader is, yesterday someone from the news media called me and said another Member of the Senate indicated that next week the Agriculture appropriations bill will be coming to the floor of the Senate. This Senator asked: How will that happen? He said: By magic. By magic? I am a conferee. If there is a conference report on the Agriculture appropriations bill being brought to the floor of the Senate, it is not coming from a conference I was ever invited to attend. These are very important issues. I haven't mentioned the issue of crop loss and quality loss on crops in North Dakota and across the country where farmers have been devastated by disease and quality loss in their crops. We want to focus on that in this bill as well. I will not give a speech. But I want to ask the majority leader: Can he tell me anything about this conference or anything about this ``magic'' that one Member of the Senate suggested was going to happen? Do we expect to have a conference with the House on Agriculture appropriations? And will those of us who are conferees and who come from farm States and have an abiding interest in doing the right thing have the opportunity to pursue these policies and get votes on them?

Mr. DORGAN. Things will slow down a lot if we have a process that tries to partition people off from this. These are important issues, and they are not done at the end of the session; they probably should have been done long ago. As we get to the end of the session, I am asking we have conferences. To the extent you are talking to the Speaker, I hope you will encourage them: Appoint conferees, get to conference, and get the business done. That is all I am asking today. I expect to be at a conference next week. Somebody in this Senate said yesterday to a member of the press--I assume it is probably printed today--that the conference report was going to come to the Senate floor by ``magic.'' Well, that is a magic carpet that will surprise a lot of Members, I suppose, and will cause a lot of problems. If the Senator will support us in regular order in having a conference in which we can all participate, that is what we expect to be the case in the Senate.

Mr. DORGAN. I know that. It is one thing for me to be mystified; that is probably acceptable, but I am worried when the leader is mystified.

Mr. DORGAN. If they get it ready, I hope it goes through a conference at some point. If I am a conferee, I hope I am invited. There is the television commercial where the cowboys are trying to herd cats.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield for one further point, I have consulted with the senior Senator from Mississippi, Mr. Cochran, someone for whom I have great regard. He has done a wonderful job as chairman of that subcommittee. He indicated, pretty much as the majority leader did, that the House didn't appoint conferees. The House passed the agriculture appropriations bill on July 11. It may be a stretch, but I think sometimes there are teams around here, and the team kind of gets together to talk about how they are going to do something. When teams huddle up, they do not call both a pass play and run play; they normally call one play. It may be a stretch on my part, but I figured there is a team that has huddled up and said: You know the play. We are not going to call on agriculture because we have a couple of things we don't want to have people vote on, and we are not going to have a conference. That is the only explanation I can have for being a conferee and never having a conference. I guess the easiest choice is the obvious choice. Let the House and the Senate vote on these controversial issues. Both of them that I mentioned would have passed by 75 percent of the House and the Senate easily. The reason the Senator from Mississippi, the majority leader, knows I have a little bit of tension about this is, last year we had the same issue on sanctions and food shipments. The same issue went through the Senate with 70 votes and went into conference. I was a conferee. The first order of business in the conference was to say: We insist on the Senate's position. Let's stop using food as a weapon. Let's stop having embargoes on food shipments. The Senate voted. The Senate conferees insisted on their position, and the conference was disbanded and never met again, because the House conferees were prepared to support us and the House leadership said: No. We are going to disband the conference and bring the conference report to the floor that we haven't had a chance to work on. My great concern is, that might happen again this year and maybe there has been no play called yet. But I hope that, really soon the majority leader will tell them that the easiest play for these controversial issues is to bring them back, and let's have votes in the House and Senate. I am willing to lose the votes if, after we count them, I am on the wrong end. But we won't lose on either of these issues. I finally say to the majority leader, it is true that we have suffered, and his State has suffered droughts and floods. We have had fires in my State and devastating quality losses on top of floods. We need to put a piece in this agriculture appropriations bill in response to those disasters as well. That is another significant part of it. I want to work with the majority leader. But my great concern is that there won't be a conference. If the majority leader is telling me he thinks there will be, I hope he will consult with the Speaker of the House. We both served in the House. I think it is unusual to have a bill passed on July 11, and now on September 22 they haven't appointed conferees.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, one of the things Americans like least about Congress is the way we wrangle over things we don't agree about instead of acting on things we can agree about. The estate tax is a case in point. There is wide agreement in the Senate that we should act to eliminate the burden of the estate tax on family farms and businesses. We could accomplish that this year--this week in fact--with little fuss or ado. I propose that we do just that, and save for later the parts of the estate tax that we don't agree on. We should not hold the family farms and businesses of this nation hostage to the heirs of multi-billion- dollar investment fortunes. We can address that problem right now so let's do it. We often forget in this country that a family is an economic unit as well as a social unit. This nation was built upon an economy of family- based farms and businesses. That is why the values of family--a commitment to community, a loyalty to place, a sense of tradition passing through the generations--were an important part of the economy in the formative days of our republic. Those values weakened as the economy became national and corporate. They have weakened further still as the economy has become global, and the cold calculus of the global marketplace has displaced considerations of family and community in our economic life. In this setting it is crucial that we strive to keep the family farms and businesses that we have, and to encourage new ones. Family-based enterprise provides a counterweight to the centrifugal forces of the global economy. It can help to anchor the market in values and concerns that the large impersonal corporation does not share, and we should encourage this form of enterprise whenever we can. Certainly the Federal Government never should force the sale of such an enterprise just to pay an estate tax. That does not happen often today. But not often is still too often. It should never happen, and that is why I am introducing a bill today to make sure it doesn't. Under this bill, the estate tax on farms and businesses under active family management would phase out over 6 years, until by 2006 it would be gone completely. This bill is different from the one that passed this Chamber earlier this year in one key respect: It applies onto family farms and businesses passed along to the next generation. It does not apply to the heirs of multi-billion dollar investment fortunes and the like. There was a strange disconnect in the debate over that earlier bill. Virtually all the talk from proponents was about family farms and businesses. Yet the bulk of the actual belief of their bill would have gone to the heirs of investment fortunes instead. That is why many of us voted against the bill. The walk didn't match the talk. And that is why I am proposing today that, for once, we move forward on what we do agree on instead of wrangling continuously, for political advantage, over what we don't. Large stock fortunes are not the same as family farms and businesses. They raise a different set of questions where the estate tax is concerned, and we ought to deal with those questions separately and at a later time. This is not the place to debate the merits of the estate tax as it applies to large fortunes as opposed to operating farms and businesses. I will just note briefly a few of the reasons why many of us could not support the previous bill. For one thing, the tax was enacted out of the conviction that those who have benefited most from our democracy in the past ought to contribute to its security and well-being in the future. That was true back in 1916 and it is equally true today. To repeal the estate tax completely would shift the burden of paying for the Federal Government even more onto the working men and women of this country. That is not fair. Second, the estate tax encourages people with large fortunes to make significant contributions to charity. If we are going to rely less on government in addressing our social problems, and more on the efforts of individuals and private nonprofit organizations, then we must not dry up a prime source of funding for these efforts. Third, the estate tax encourages the work ethic, as it applies to estates other than family-based farms and businesses. Those who might otherwise be able to live on inherited fortunes occasionally have to some useful work instead. I know that there is disagreement on these points. They deserve an honest debate. But as I said, we should not hold family based farms and businesses hostage to that debate. We can agree that help for these family based enterprises is the first priority of estate tax reform. We can agree that no family farm or family business should have to be sold to pay an estate tax. So let's do that now and save the rest for another day.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, one of the things Americans like least about Congress is the way we wrangle over things we don't agree about instead of acting on things we can agree about. The estate tax is a case in point. There is wide agreement in the Senate that we should act to eliminate the burden of the estate tax on family farms and businesses. We could accomplish that this year--this week in fact--with little fuss or ado. I propose that we do just that, and save for later the parts of the estate tax that we don't agree on. We should not hold the family farms and businesses of this nation hostage to the heirs of multi-billion- dollar investment fortunes. We can address that problem right now so let's do it. We often forget in this country that a family is an economic unit as well as a social unit. This nation was built upon an economy of family- based farms and businesses. That is why the values of family--a commitment to community, a loyalty to place, a sense of tradition passing through the generations--were an important part of the economy in the formative days of our republic. Those values weakened as the economy became national and corporate. They have weakened further still as the economy has become global, and the cold calculus of the global marketplace has displaced considerations of family and community in our economic life. In this setting it is crucial that we strive to keep the family farms and businesses that we have, and to encourage new ones. Family-based enterprise provides a counterweight to the centrifugal forces of the global economy. It can help to anchor the market in values and concerns that the large impersonal corporation does not share, and we should encourage this form of enterprise whenever we can. Certainly the Federal Government never should force the sale of such an enterprise just to pay an estate tax. That does not happen often today. But not often is still too often. It should never happen, and that is why I am introducing a bill today to make sure it doesn't. Under this bill, the estate tax on farms and businesses under active family management would phase out over 6 years, until by 2006 it would be gone completely. This bill is different from the one that passed this Chamber earlier this year in one key respect: It applies onto family farms and businesses passed along to the next generation. It does not apply to the heirs of multi-billion dollar investment fortunes and the like. There was a strange disconnect in the debate over that earlier bill. Virtually all the talk from proponents was about family farms and businesses. Yet the bulk of the actual belief of their bill would have gone to the heirs of investment fortunes instead. That is why many of us voted against the bill. The walk didn't match the talk. And that is why I am proposing today that, for once, we move forward on what we do agree on instead of wrangling continuously, for political advantage, over what we don't. Large stock fortunes are not the same as family farms and businesses. They raise a different set of questions where the estate tax is concerned, and we ought to deal with those questions separately and at a later time. This is not the place to debate the merits of the estate tax as it applies to large fortunes as opposed to operating farms and businesses. I will just note briefly a few of the reasons why many of us could not support the previous bill. For one thing, the tax was enacted out of the conviction that those who have benefited most from our democracy in the past ought to contribute to its security and well-being in the future. That was true back in 1916 and it is equally true today. To repeal the estate tax completely would shift the burden of paying for the Federal Government even more onto the working men and women of this country. That is not fair. Second, the estate tax encourages people with large fortunes to make significant contributions to charity. If we are going to rely less on government in addressing our social problems, and more on the efforts of individuals and private nonprofit organizations, then we must not dry up a prime source of funding for these efforts. Third, the estate tax encourages the work ethic, as it applies to estates other than family-based farms and businesses. Those who might otherwise be able to live on inherited fortunes occasionally have to some useful work instead. I know that there is disagreement on these points. They deserve an honest debate. But as I said, we should not hold family based farms and businesses hostage to that debate. We can agree that help for these family based enterprises is the first priority of estate tax reform. We can agree that no family farm or family business should have to be sold to pay an estate tax. So let's do that now and save the rest for another day.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I shall not object.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, and I shall not object to the request, I ask the Senator if he will be available to answer a couple of questions. I want to ask some questions following this discussion about the Agriculture appropriations bill, if the majority leader would allow that.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I mentioned earlier about the Vice President's proposal. I have not been a big cheerleader to move to SPR. By the same token, SPR is 570 million barrels of stored reserves. If we take half a million barrels a day, we could for 90 or 120 days, which is what we need at this point to get back into a supply equilibrium, provide some significant stability in energy prices just by taking a very small portion. So we take a very small fraction of the SPR and with it provide stability to oil prices. We need to work on the longer issues as well. There is merit in having this debate and discussion. The Vice President has raised a very important issue. Good for him. We have a short-term issue, intermediate issues, and long-term issues. In the short term, we ought to take a look at this issue. Maybe half a million barrels a day will be the catalyst to provide the stability we want in oil prices at this moment in order to get to the next intersection, which I think after the first of the year is an intersection of much more production. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. If I might respond, Mr. President, the folks in this country who are now worried sick about what is happening to energy prices are people such as senior citizens who know they are going to pay a home heating fuel bill that is multiples of what they paid last year. They are living on fixed incomes and do not have the money. They are saying: How do I do this? These are people who are living on fixed incomes, who drive up to the gas pump and now discover it costs a significant amount of money to fill their gas tank. Or small truckers-- I just make this final point. Mike and Jenny Mellick from Fargo, ND, called me. They operate seven trucks. It is a small company, a man and wife trying to run an operation with seven tractor-trailer rigs that haul loads across the country. They said the increase in fuel costs is devastating to them and they are worried about losing their business. This is having repercussions all across this country. This could tip the economy. We have to get ahead of this and say we need more production and more conservation and we need to care about these folks who are being dislocated by the significant energy crisis we face. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the Senator from Nevada is very generous. I must say the two things I came to talk about today are the energy problems that we have that are abiding and serious and that have a huge impact, not only on the State of North Dakota and the citizens I represent, but an impact on all Americans. And also the trade deficit, which has a similar impact on an agricultural State such as the State I represent. These are big issues, big challenges. Unfortunately, they are going unresolved. There is the old story about a Cherokee Indian chief who is reputed to have said at one point: The success of a rain dance depends a lot on the timing. That was tongue in cheek, I expect, but that is true also with Congress and what it is willing to address and not willing to address, what it is willing to bring out here and sink its teeth into and what it wants to put in a closet and pretend doesn't exist. These are big issues. We deal with a lot of small issues every day as well, but these are big issues and we have to deal with these issues. These issues will affect the economic lives of millions of small businessmen and women. It will affect the economic future of kids coming out of school, and they want a job and they need a good, growing economy to get a job. These issues are the kinds of things that can tip a growing economy over into a recession, or something worse. That is why it is important. When you see storm clouds gather on the horizon, you pay attention to them. These are storm clouds on the horizon. Things are good now. This is a blessing. We have a great economy. You wouldn't rather be anywhere than here because we have a wonderful economy and things are very good in a lot of areas of this country, but these are storm clouds and our job is to anticipate and respond to things that we know are going to have a significant impact on the future of this country--energy and trade. We better get busy. We better respond to these issues. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, as we look ahead, aside from the wrench in the crankcase here in Congress that prevents any kind of movement to get things done, one of the significant challenges for us both now and in the months ahead is this issue of energy. What is happening to energy prices? What is happening to the supply of energy? I want to talk for a minute about where we are. Go back a year, or maybe a year and a half, and the price of oil was $10 a barrel. In fact, in North Dakota it was $6 to $7 a barrel. The price of gasoline at the gas pumps was about 90 cents a gallon. The price of natural gas was about $2 per million cubic feet. Now, fast forward: What has happened is the OPEC countries have cut their production of oil. We have seen a circumstance in this country where the price of oil has spiked up on the spot market to $36 and $37 a barrel. Gasoline is anywhere from $1.50 to $2 a gallon. Natural gas prices have more than doubled from $2 per mcf, and in some cases $5 to $5.50. We have people frightened to death with the reports that home heating fuel costs are spiking way up. Those in my State and others-- particularly in the Northeast as they enter what could be a cold winter--are trying to figure out how they, on limited incomes, will pay for home heating fuel that is going to double, and in some cases triple in price. These are significant and serious issues. The question is, What do we do about it? What is causing all of this? And what can we do about it? We start out by understanding that it is complicated. It is not simple. One of the first and most important aspects of understanding this is our country is far too dependent on foreign sources of energy. We are far too dependent especially on the OPEC countries for our oil. When we have to send people from our country to the OPEC countries to beg them to open the faucets and produce more, it has a significant impact on our economy and our future and our economic growth. We ought to understand that this makes us far to vulnerable. We need in the long term to move away from that vulnerability. Second, with respect to consumers, they ask the question: Not only is OPEC cutting back, but why? The answer to that is, yes; OPEC is cutting back. Why? Because it is in their interest and they can do so. But they are also asking: Is somebody profiteering at the gas pumps? They see merger after merger in the energy industry. They see that British Petroleum and Amoco get married. They see Exxon and Mobil decide they are going to get hitched. All of these big companies gather together, and then at a time when we have an energy crisis, we have a circumstance where the largest 14 oil companies show profits of over $10 billion in one quarter--up 112 percent--and those who drive to the gas pumps, those who are buying home heating fuel, and those who are paying for natural gas prices are asking the question: Is somebody profiteering at my expense? As I say, this is a complex issue. But all of these questions need to be answered. The Federal Trade Commission has a current investigation going on. I hope they can wrap that up soon and tell the American people what is happening with respect to prices. The issue of supply and demand in energy is something I want to talk about just for a moment. There has been a lot of discussion in the last few weeks on this issue of energy. We have some people saying in the last 6 to 8 years we have seen a decrease in production. That is causing our problem. We have been talking about energy supplies. Let's talk about the production of oil. Let's take a look at this line of production and what you see going back to about the late 1960s or 1970s. There has been a continual and diminished production. That has happened under Republican administrations and Democratic administrations. That has happened under a series of administrations over many years. You see the line on the chart. There is no change in it at all. There is a systematic reduction in the production of energy. With respect to the consumption of energy, we also see what has happened. In the 1970s, we had this energy scare for a number of reasons. We had a very brief reduction. We had a significant conservation movement in this country to conserve energy. We had some brief reductions. But the fact is, we have begun to trend upward once again in a significant way. You will see that imports are continuing now to increase once again, which makes us much more dependent on foreign source energy. This is important to everybody. I am a Senator who represents the State of North Dakota. It is important to us. When the price of gas at the pump spikes way up, or the price of diesel fuel begins to spike way up, this is what it means to a State such as North Dakota. We have farmers who are heavy users of fuel in order to put the crop in and to get the crop off the field. Higher prices for fuel means real trouble especially at a time when we have collapsed grain prices. It means people living in North Dakota, or other State such as ours, who drive a lot just to get places, that we pay a much heavier burden than others do. Do you know that North Dakotans drive almost twice as much per person as New Yorkers just to get to a grocery store? Why? Because we are a very large State with a sparse population and you have to drive long distances to get to places. I have a friend in New York. They have relatives in New Jersey 50 miles away. I am told they pack an emergency kit in the trunk, put blankets in the car, and plan for 6 months to take a little trip to see their relatives 50 miles away. I don't know if that is true. But on the east coast, you don't travel as much. Populations are near. In North Dakota and Montana and States like those, we have to travel a lot. Therefore, we pay twice as much for our energy and for our transportation needs. There is a significant interest in what is happening. The consumption is going up. Our production has for 25 years been trending down, and imports are moving up. Here is the consumption by sector on the chart: Transportation, industrial, residential, and commercial. What we see is a significant trend up in transportation. It is interesting as we talk about all of these issues, one of the things happening in the Congress is a consistent resistance in Congress to ask anybody to work on vehicles that are more efficient. We have had these issues called CAFE standards, and I know it is very controversial. Does anybody think it is prudent for this country to resist trying to get more efficient automobiles? It makes sense to begin to continue to apply pressure to say we need more efficiency in our vehicles. We can see what is happening in transportation consumption of energy. Yet this Congress continues to demand we not try to establish some new goals with respect to fuel efficiency. I have not been the biggest cheerleader on these issues because we drive a lot of pickup trucks. We have to make accommodations for that in sparsely populated areas, but we ought to expect the auto industry and others to join in trying to move in a relentless way toward more efficient vehicles and toward trying to provide some balance in this top line. More efficiency will result in less consumption on the transportation side. That is one way to deal with this. We need to respond to this issue, to respond on two sides of this coin; one is production, and one is consumption. I will describe both quickly, especially in the context of the discussion of the last couple of days. Vice President Gore says we ought to consider taking some oil out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. They call that the SPR. We have over 500 million barrels of oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and Vice President Gore says we should take some out to provide stability in oil prices. Frankly, I have not been the biggest fan of moving to SPR anytime quickly. We have had this discussion before--8 or 9 months ago. There is a circumstance today with the intransigence of the OPEC countries in being unwilling to increase production sufficient to provide some short-term balance in energy supply. We could, it seems to me, take half a million barrels a day out of SPR for 6 months, 9 months, 120 days, without dramatically diminishing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and at the same time contribute stability to international supply in a way that brings prices down and provides people the ability to see over this hump. When we get over the heaviest use of supply in this fourth quarter and get into the next year, we will see more production because $35 and $36 a barrel has moved all kinds of rigs into areas where we have not had production before. A year and a half ago, we had zero production rigs drilling for oil in North Dakota; today, we have 20. I am told if there were enough workers, we would probably have 30 rigs in North Dakota. That is just a small amount compared to what is happening all over the world relative to today's oil prices. My point is, what will provide some stability in the next 2, 3, 4 months? We have an economy that is a blessing. This has been the longest sustained economic growth in this country's history. It doesn't take much to tip an economy. We saw that in the early 1990s with some energy price spikes. Now it seems to me we ought to engineer a serious public discussion about the value of using, in a very cautious and conservative way, a portion of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve--only a very small portion--to come in and provide a cushion for the daily needs, as of yet unmet, that will provide some stability in energy prices. This will then provide, in my judgment, the opportunity to not have to worry quite so much about having these price spikes in energy, tipping this economy out of balance and moving toward a slowdown and a recession. Vice President Gore talks about SPR. I say again, I have not been a big cheerleader for saying let's run into tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Normally, the use of the SPR is for national security interest reasons. We have barrels of oil put away for emergencies. Given the production that exists in OPEC, the amount we are short on a daily basis, and the production we expect to come in around the corner sometime beginning January of next year because of the new rigs, it seems to me we can provide some filler with a small amount of inventory from the SPR in a way that provides stability to this market. In providing stability to the market, we will provide some insurance for this economy. I think that would be very important. We must, however, understand this is a wake-up call for our country. We cannot allow this moment to pass without understanding we are far too dependent on foreign sources of energy. We need more production at home, we need more conservation at home, and less dependence on foreign energy. In production in this country, I have favored some ability to use royalties as well as the Tax Code to provide some stabilization of prices with respect to production. Ten dollars a barrel for oil was too low; we all understood that. When oil went to $10 a barrel, nobody was drilling anymore; $10 a barrel was too low. We need some price stability for that industry; I understand that. Even as we work on price stability and to encourage greater production in this country, we also need to understand the issue of conservation is a critically important issue, because in this consumption line we have to understand part of our balance is a production line that we need to get up, and the other part of our balance is a consumption line that we need to trend down, if we can. We face serious challenges. This is the moment for our country to stop and think a bit about how we get over this short-term problem. I think we ought to have a good discussion about the short-term use of SPR in a very cautious and conservative way to stabilize these markets. This ought to spark a good discussion about conservation and greater fuel efficiencies in our vehicles. It ought to spark a significant discussion about conservation. Even as we do that in the short run, we need to understand in the long run, we can't sustain an industrialized economy--the strongest, biggest economy in the world--the economy with the longest sustained economic growth in the world, we cannot sustain that with the vagaries of production decisions made by oil sheiks in other countries. We are too vulnerable to allow that to happen. I make an additional point on a related issue. A part of the problem of these increasing oil imports--but only a part and really not even the largest part--is what it is doing to our trade deficits. When I talk about challenges we face, aside from the fact that this process around here is broken, and we are not passing appropriations bills when we should, and we are in a state of confusion on how to get this 106th Congress adjourned, there are two larger challenges about which we need to be very concerned. One I just mentioned, and that is the oil issue, the energy issue, and what has happened to energy prices, what might happen to our economy as a result of what is happening in energy prices. The second is our trade deficit. It relates to the energy issue, as well. This is the second challenge to our economic opportunities in the future. Our trade deficit is spiking up, up, up, way up. Importing more oil, obviously, is causing part of this, but it is just part. Our trade deficit is a very serious, abiding, long-term problem. We are now headed toward a yearly merchandise trade deficit that is going to be around $430 billion in the year 2000. In July, the overall trade deficit in goods and services was $31.9 billion. The merchandise deficit was $38.7 billion. That is unsustainable. A $7.5 billion monthly trade deficit with Japan, a $7.6 billion trade deficit with China, a $6.3 billion trade deficit with the European Union, $4.7 billion with Canada, $2.2 billion with Mexico--we can't sustain that. That cannot continue. The merchandise deficit with Japan for the first half of 2000 was nearly $40 billion; with China, $36 billion; Europe, $26 billion; Canada, $23 billion. Not many people seem to care much about this. Nobody talks much about it. But this is a deficit that must be repaid. It regrettably will be repaid in the future with a lower standard of living in this country, and the higher the deficit, the more difficulty we will have to respond to this obligation. This results from a wide range of things. It results from China, Japan, Europe, Canada, Mexico--which have the largest bilateral trade deficits--deciding they should sell more to us than they are willing to buy from us. This cannot continue. Even Alan Greenspan, with whom I have had substantial disagreements for a long period of time, says something has to give; this trade deficit is unsustainable. I was intending to speak at greater length about our trade deficit, but I will save that for a later time. Suffice it to say that if this trade deficit continues to spike up, we could very well see it undermine confidence in the U.S. dollar and we could see the dollar begin falling on international currency markets. That could cause all kinds of problems for our country's economy. There are two challenges we must meet--dealing with an energy policy both short term and long term that makes sense, and the challenge of dealing with a trade policy that begins to straighten out this trade mess. I know other colleagues have things they want to talk about. I will come back later to talk about the specific trade issues we have with China and Japan and Canada and Europe. But it is my hope to end where I began today. It is my hope, in the next 2 weeks or so when the 106th Congress is expected to adjourn, that we can decide to bring the issues I have discussed to the floor for a vote. If someone believes we should keep using food as a weapon, good for them. They are dead wrong, but they have a right to think that. Everybody has a right to be wrong. The point is, if 75 percent of the Senate and 75 percent of the House believes we ought to stop using food as a weapon and stop holding our farmers hostage by preventing them from shipping food to other countries, and stop hurting poor and sick and hungry people in Cuba and Iran and Libya and other places, if you believe that, then let us have a conference and cast a vote to stop it, as the Senate has done with over 70 percent of its Members. But those who bottle this up and try to hijack it by saying, ``We are not going to allow you to vote on this,'' that is not the way the system is supposed to work. If they try to do that in a dozen or so areas--where we have already passed legislation but they are trying not to have a conference and are trying to hijack the process--this place is going to slow way down in a big hurry. Let me ask for cooperation on the part of the majority leader, the majority party, and my colleagues on my side and let's get this done. Let's do it right. Another thing, we can't end this session without dealing with the issue of the minimum wage for the people at the lowest rung of the ladder in this country. We have an obligation to do that. That has been kicking around like a Ping-Pong ball for months. We can't end this session without passing a Patients' Bill of Rights. Of course we ought to do that. That just makes sense. There are the votes to do that, in my judgment. It passed the House. We have the votes in the Senate. If we get it back up, we will win it by one vote. There are a series of important things we should do, we ought to do-- things the American people should expect us to do--and we only have a couple of weeks. I say to the people who run this place: Let's go back to regular order. If you don't like a provision, fine, try to kill it. But at least give us a vote on it. We will see, how the American public feels about it, how our colleagues feel about it. The way they are killing things these days is by putting them in a closet someplace and hoping nobody will see. It is happening to the issue of reimportation of prescription drugs, to the issue of food as a weapon in international sanctions. Frankly, that is the wrong way to legislate. If you have the votes, beat us. If you do not have the votes, give us the chance to win on the floor of the Senate and House as well on these important issues.

Mr. DORGAN. I am happy to yield.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, we are nearing the end of the session of the 106th Congress. I believe we have 13 appropriations bills that we are required to enact and required to be signed into law to provide funding for all of the various things that are done in public policy and by our agencies of Government. Out of the 13 appropriations bills, 2 of them have been signed into law by President Clinton. Now this process is broken. It is quite clear. We have come to the end stage of this session. Most of the appropriations bills are not yet completed. Most of the very difficult and complex issues are as of yet unresolved. I say to my colleagues that all we have to do to resolve all of this is to vote--only vote. I will give you an example of why this process is broken. I serve on the agriculture appropriations subcommittee. We passed a bill in July that appropriates money for agricultural functions. Now, the Senate passed its bill in mid to late July. The House passed its bill on July 11. I am a conferee in a conference between the House and Senate. There has never been a conference. We have never met. There have been no discussions, and no Senator or Congressman has been involved in any way to try to move this legislation forward. Why? I am not sure exactly the reason why. I suspect the reason why is that this issue--this Agriculture appropriations bill--has some very complicated and controversial matters involved in it and some don't want to vote on them. So if you don't want to vote, don't call them up, don't have a conference. Just dig in your heels and stall. That is what happened. One of the controversial issues on that bill--and it is appropriate that it should be on that bill--is the question of whether this country should allow the sale of food to certain countries with whom we have economic sanctions. Our country has had a policy, believe it or not, of saying we will use food as a weapon. We don't like Saddam Hussein, so we impose economic sanctions against him and his country. We impose economic sanctions against the country of Iraq. We impose sanctions against Iran. We impose sanctions against Libya, North Korea, and Cuba. Included in those economic sanctions are provisions that say we will not allow the shipment of food or medicine to your country. That doesn't make any sense to me. We ought never use food as a weapon. We ought never under any condition say that we will prevent the shipment of food to anywhere in the world. This is a policy that takes aim at dictators whom we don't like, and it ends up hitting sick, hungry, and poor people. That makes no sense. So the Senate passed my amendment that is now in conference. The amendment says let us stop using food as a weapon; no more sanctions on food shipments anywhere in the world. That passed the Senate. It is in conference. We are not meeting in conference. Do you know why? Because some in this Congress do not like that provision. They want to retain sanctions on food. They want to continue to use food as a weapon. They want to prevent us shipping food, for example, to Cuba and other countries. Because they don't have the votes to prevent it if we had a vote on it, they say let's not have a conference. So there is no conference. We are now just days from the end of the session, and the Agriculture appropriations bill is not passed. It is in conference. There is no conference meeting and no House conferees appointed. So there are some who think they will do what they did last year. The Senate passed that same provision last year by 70 votes, and the conference got hijacked by House leaders. When we met, the Senate conferees said we insist on our provisions to stop using food as a weapon. At that moment, there was an adjournment by the House conferees, and it never again met. Why? Because the House conferees would have supported us, and the House leaders wouldn't let them do it. In order to prevent a vote, they adjourned the conference, and it never again met. We come to the end of this session in total chaos in all of these bills because some want to prevent a vote. This is the center for democracy. The process of democracy is to vote, even if it is controversial--vote, and then count them, and the winning side wins. That is what ought to happen here. This isn't rocket science. I say to those putting this schedule together to remember the old days. Did you get a tinker toy set or an erector set when you were a kid? You put it together piece by piece. That is the way this should work. There are 13 bills. There is a sequence by which you pass the bills, put them in conference, have votes, resolve the controversial issues, get them done, get them to the President, and meet the deadline. But I fear what is going to happen in the next week or two is that the same people who tried to hijack this process last year could do it again this year. The losers will be the American public--the American people and family farmers who rely on us to repeal this provision that says let's continue to use food as a weapon. It is immoral. It is wrong for our family farmers. It is immoral for our country, and a terrible thing for our family farmers. It hurts hungry, sick, and poor people around the world. We ought to stop it. I will have more to say about that next week.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Am I recognized in morning business under a previous order?