Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the Senator from Pennsylvania is alluding to the analogy of the legislative process being akin to the making of sausage. Often, neither are a pretty process, so it is better, perhaps, to speak less of it. I say to the Senator from Pennsylvania that I am more concerned about the destination than I am about the route by which we get there. He has indicated that he supports the $100 million level in the House bill for the IDeA program. Senator Harkin has indicated the same. For that reason, I will not proceed with my amendment, with the understanding that their intention will be to reach that level in conference. My sense is that we are making a lot of progress. Before the Senator was in the Chamber a few moments ago, I said he and Senator Harkin will have the undying gratitude of the American people for their persistence and relentless work to increase funding at NIH. This is very important, not just for people who live here now but for generations to come. My concern, as we do that, is to make sure we get the full genius of all the American people working on these scientific inquiries into treating and curing these ravaging diseases. I want more funding in the IDeA program so that smaller States have the opportunity to access these grants and we can put to work their scientists and their medical schools and their communities to meet our nation's medical research goals. I appreciate my colleague's response. I will not ask for a vote on my amendment. What I will do is ask that we handle it in conference, as the Senator has suggested.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, if the Internet and E-commerce are to continue to grow and flourish then Congress must address the difficult tax issues that these have posed. To that end, Senator Voinovich and I, along with Senators Graham, Enzi, Breaux and six of our distinguished colleagues are introducing the Internet Tax Moratorium and Equity Act. First and foremost, this legislation extends for four additional years the existing moratorium on punitive and discriminatory Internet taxes, and on access taxes. Internet technology is becoming a real growth engine for our economy. Governments should not be allowed to impose new taxes on access, or to enact discriminatory tax plans that would apply to the Internet and E-commerce but not to other kinds of transactions. I believe that such policies could foolishly hurt the future growth of the Internet industry, and this legislation prevents that from happening anytime soon. At the same time, however, this legislation moves toward a solution to the growing web of tax compliance problems that faces virtually everyone who would do business across state lines --sellers and customers alike. Our approach also would help to create a climate in which Web-based firms and Main Street businesses can co-exist and compete on fair and even terms. Any new form of commerce presents a challenge to the rules and structures that have grown up around the old. The Internet is no exception. The Internet has raised vexing questions regarding both privacy and the protection of property rights in writing and music. It has raised similar questions regarding the revenue systems of the states and localities of this nation. Not surprisingly, the Internet simply does not fit neatly into these systems as they have evolved over the last two hundred years. This disconnect has created tensions on all sides. On one side are the vital new businesses--Internet service providers, Web-based businesses and the rest--worried that they will be singled out as cash cows and subjected to new and unfair taxes. On the other side are state and local governments worried about the erosion of their tax bases and their ability to pay for the schools, police, garbage collection and more that their taxpayers need and expect. In between are Main Street merchants who collect sales taxes from their customers and worry about unfair competition from Web-based business that avoid collecting these taxes. Let us not forget the citizens and taxpayers, who appreciate the convenience and opportunities of the Web but who also care about their Main Street merchants, and about their schools and other local services. All of these concerns are valid. There are no bad guys in the drama. Rather, it is the kind of conflict that a new technology inevitably poses. The automobile required the reform of traffic-control rules designed for the horse-and-buggy era. So today the rise of E-commerce requires an update of tax compliance rules designed primarily for local commerce. Our job in Congress is not to point fingers but rather to try to address the problem in a fair and constructive way. The solution must begin by putting the worries of Web-based entrepreneurs to rest. They should not be concerned about new and discriminatory tax burdens, and they should not be singled out as cash cows. Congress should make this clear. We have enacted a moratorium to prohibit state and local governments from enacting tax plans that discriminate against the E-commerce or impose a levy on Internet access. This existing moratorium is set to expire next year. We should extend that moratorium to December 2005. That will help clear the air and also make possible the development of a real solution for the sales and use tax compliance problems now facing many businesses and and their customers. The solution begins with a recognition of the problem. Collecting a sales tax in a face-to-face transaction on Main Street or at the mall is a relatively simple process. The seller collects the tax and remits it to the state or local government. But with remote sales--such as catalog and Internet sales--it's more difficult. States can not require a seller to collect a sales tax unless the business has an actual location or sales people in the state. So most states, and many localities, have laws that require the local buyer to send an equivalent ``use tax'' to the state or local government when he or she did not pay taxes at the time of purchase. The reality, of course, is that customers almost never do that. It would be a major inconvenience, and people are not accustomed to paying sales taxes in that way. So, despite the requirement in the law, most simply don't do it. This tax, which is already owed, is not paid. For years, state and local governments could accept this loss because catalog sales were a relatively minor portion of overall commerce. The Internet, however, will change that. Internet and catalog sellers argue that collecting sales taxes would be a significant burden for them. They contend that they would have to comply with tax laws from thousands of different jurisdictions--46 states and thousands of local governments have sales taxes. They would have to deal with many different tax rates and all of the idiosyncracies regarding what is taxable and what is non-taxable. They have a point. However, there are some remote sellers who know they enjoy an advantage over Main Street businesses and simply do not want to lose it. They can sell a product without collecting the tax, whereas Main Street businesses must collect the local sales tax. Main Street businesses claim that is unfair, and they have a point, too. As I said, all sides in this debate have valid points, and that is the premise of the bill we introduce today. There are three basic principles underlying the Internet Tax Moratorium and Equity Act. First, we believe that this new Internet technology is becoming a real growth engine for our economy. Governments should not impose access or discriminatory taxes that might jeopardize its growth. That's why the legislation we are introducing extends the current moratorium on Internet access and multiple and discriminatory taxes on electronic commerce for over four additional years. Second, state and local governments should be encouraged to simplify their sales tax systems as they apply to remote sellers. And third, once States have done this, then it is only fair that remote sellers do their part and collect any use tax that is owed, just as local merchants collect sales taxes. This simple step would free the consumer from the burden of having to report such taxes individually. It would level the playing field for local retailers and others that already collect and remit such taxes, and it would protect the ability of state and local governments to provide necessary services for their residents in the future. Specifically, the Internet Tax Moratorium and Equity Act would do the following: Extend the existing moratorium on Internet access, multiple and discriminatory taxes through December 31, 2005. Put Congress on record as urging States and localities to develop a streamlined sales and use tax system with the advice of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws. Among other things, such a system would include a single, blended tax rate with which all remote sellers could comply. It should also include within each state a uniform tax base on which remote sellers apply the tax, as well as a uniform list of exempt items. Authorize States to enter into an Interstate Sales and Use Tax Compact through which member States would adopt the streamlined sales and use tax system. Congressional authority and consent to enter into such a Compact would expire if it has not occurred by January 1, 2006. Authorize adopting States to require remote sellers with more than $5 million in annual gross sales to collect and remit sales and use taxes on remote sales, once twenty States have adopted such Compact, unless Congress has acted to disapprove the Compact by law within a period of 120 days after the Congress receives it. Prohibit states that have not adopted the simplified sales and use tax system from gaining benefit from the authority extended in the bill to require sellers to collect and remit sales and use taxes on remote sales. In my view, it would be a mistake for Congress to adopt a lengthy extension of the current Internet tax moratorium without addressing the underlying problem. If we don't, then the growth of the Internet, which should be a benefit to Americans, will instead mean a major erosion of funds available to build and maintain schools and roads, finance police departments and garbage collection, and all the other services that citizens in this country want and need. One study suggests that states and local governments soon could be losing more than $20 billion annually if the Internet industry continues its rapid growth, and if sales and use tax collection rules are left unchanged. The competitive crisis facing local retailers is also growing more urgent. Testimony at a recent congressional hearing makes that clear: A representative of Wal-Mart testified recently that that company is incorporating a separate business to put Wal-Mart on the Internet. It will do so in a manner that will enable them to avoid sales and use taxes. The reason? Even though Wal-Mart has locations in every state and therefore would be required to collect such taxes on Internet sales, it recognizes that other large competitors will be making those sales tax-free. The company regards such avoidance as a matter of necessity to remain competitive. This scenario will play out over and over again. The large retailers like Wal-Mart will survive; the small Main Street businesses will struggle. And, there will be a massive loss of revenues to fund schools and other basic services. Mr. President, this is an important issue that Congress must address now. We believe that this legislation strikes a balance between the interests of the Internet industry, state and local governments, local retailers and remote sellers. It is workable and fair. I urge my colleagues to cosponsor this much-needed bipartisan legislation.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, if the Internet and E-commerce are to continue to grow and flourish then Congress must address the difficult tax issues that these have posed. To that end, Senator Voinovich and I, along with Senators Graham, Enzi, Breaux and six of our distinguished colleagues are introducing the Internet Tax Moratorium and Equity Act. First and foremost, this legislation extends for four additional years the existing moratorium on punitive and discriminatory Internet taxes, and on access taxes. Internet technology is becoming a real growth engine for our economy. Governments should not be allowed to impose new taxes on access, or to enact discriminatory tax plans that would apply to the Internet and E-commerce but not to other kinds of transactions. I believe that such policies could foolishly hurt the future growth of the Internet industry, and this legislation prevents that from happening anytime soon. At the same time, however, this legislation moves toward a solution to the growing web of tax compliance problems that faces virtually everyone who would do business across state lines --sellers and customers alike. Our approach also would help to create a climate in which Web-based firms and Main Street businesses can co-exist and compete on fair and even terms. Any new form of commerce presents a challenge to the rules and structures that have grown up around the old. The Internet is no exception. The Internet has raised vexing questions regarding both privacy and the protection of property rights in writing and music. It has raised similar questions regarding the revenue systems of the states and localities of this nation. Not surprisingly, the Internet simply does not fit neatly into these systems as they have evolved over the last two hundred years. This disconnect has created tensions on all sides. On one side are the vital new businesses--Internet service providers, Web-based businesses and the rest--worried that they will be singled out as cash cows and subjected to new and unfair taxes. On the other side are state and local governments worried about the erosion of their tax bases and their ability to pay for the schools, police, garbage collection and more that their taxpayers need and expect. In between are Main Street merchants who collect sales taxes from their customers and worry about unfair competition from Web-based business that avoid collecting these taxes. Let us not forget the citizens and taxpayers, who appreciate the convenience and opportunities of the Web but who also care about their Main Street merchants, and about their schools and other local services. All of these concerns are valid. There are no bad guys in the drama. Rather, it is the kind of conflict that a new technology inevitably poses. The automobile required the reform of traffic-control rules designed for the horse-and-buggy era. So today the rise of E-commerce requires an update of tax compliance rules designed primarily for local commerce. Our job in Congress is not to point fingers but rather to try to address the problem in a fair and constructive way. The solution must begin by putting the worries of Web-based entrepreneurs to rest. They should not be concerned about new and discriminatory tax burdens, and they should not be singled out as cash cows. Congress should make this clear. We have enacted a moratorium to prohibit state and local governments from enacting tax plans that discriminate against the E-commerce or impose a levy on Internet access. This existing moratorium is set to expire next year. We should extend that moratorium to December 2005. That will help clear the air and also make possible the development of a real solution for the sales and use tax compliance problems now facing many businesses and and their customers. The solution begins with a recognition of the problem. Collecting a sales tax in a face-to-face transaction on Main Street or at the mall is a relatively simple process. The seller collects the tax and remits it to the state or local government. But with remote sales--such as catalog and Internet sales--it's more difficult. States can not require a seller to collect a sales tax unless the business has an actual location or sales people in the state. So most states, and many localities, have laws that require the local buyer to send an equivalent ``use tax'' to the state or local government when he or she did not pay taxes at the time of purchase. The reality, of course, is that customers almost never do that. It would be a major inconvenience, and people are not accustomed to paying sales taxes in that way. So, despite the requirement in the law, most simply don't do it. This tax, which is already owed, is not paid. For years, state and local governments could accept this loss because catalog sales were a relatively minor portion of overall commerce. The Internet, however, will change that. Internet and catalog sellers argue that collecting sales taxes would be a significant burden for them. They contend that they would have to comply with tax laws from thousands of different jurisdictions--46 states and thousands of local governments have sales taxes. They would have to deal with many different tax rates and all of the idiosyncracies regarding what is taxable and what is non-taxable. They have a point. However, there are some remote sellers who know they enjoy an advantage over Main Street businesses and simply do not want to lose it. They can sell a product without collecting the tax, whereas Main Street businesses must collect the local sales tax. Main Street businesses claim that is unfair, and they have a point, too. As I said, all sides in this debate have valid points, and that is the premise of the bill we introduce today. There are three basic principles underlying the Internet Tax Moratorium and Equity Act. First, we believe that this new Internet technology is becoming a real growth engine for our economy. Governments should not impose access or discriminatory taxes that might jeopardize its growth. That's why the legislation we are introducing extends the current moratorium on Internet access and multiple and discriminatory taxes on electronic commerce for over four additional years. Second, state and local governments should be encouraged to simplify their sales tax systems as they apply to remote sellers. And third, once States have done this, then it is only fair that remote sellers do their part and collect any use tax that is owed, just as local merchants collect sales taxes. This simple step would free the consumer from the burden of having to report such taxes individually. It would level the playing field for local retailers and others that already collect and remit such taxes, and it would protect the ability of state and local governments to provide necessary services for their residents in the future. Specifically, the Internet Tax Moratorium and Equity Act would do the following: Extend the existing moratorium on Internet access, multiple and discriminatory taxes through December 31, 2005. Put Congress on record as urging States and localities to develop a streamlined sales and use tax system with the advice of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws. Among other things, such a system would include a single, blended tax rate with which all remote sellers could comply. It should also include within each state a uniform tax base on which remote sellers apply the tax, as well as a uniform list of exempt items. Authorize States to enter into an Interstate Sales and Use Tax Compact through which member States would adopt the streamlined sales and use tax system. Congressional authority and consent to enter into such a Compact would expire if it has not occurred by January 1, 2006. Authorize adopting States to require remote sellers with more than $5 million in annual gross sales to collect and remit sales and use taxes on remote sales, once twenty States have adopted such Compact, unless Congress has acted to disapprove the Compact by law within a period of 120 days after the Congress receives it. Prohibit states that have not adopted the simplified sales and use tax system from gaining benefit from the authority extended in the bill to require sellers to collect and remit sales and use taxes on remote sales. In my view, it would be a mistake for Congress to adopt a lengthy extension of the current Internet tax moratorium without addressing the underlying problem. If we don't, then the growth of the Internet, which should be a benefit to Americans, will instead mean a major erosion of funds available to build and maintain schools and roads, finance police departments and garbage collection, and all the other services that citizens in this country want and need. One study suggests that states and local governments soon could be losing more than $20 billion annually if the Internet industry continues its rapid growth, and if sales and use tax collection rules are left unchanged. The competitive crisis facing local retailers is also growing more urgent. Testimony at a recent congressional hearing makes that clear: A representative of Wal-Mart testified recently that that company is incorporating a separate business to put Wal-Mart on the Internet. It will do so in a manner that will enable them to avoid sales and use taxes. The reason? Even though Wal-Mart has locations in every state and therefore would be required to collect such taxes on Internet sales, it recognizes that other large competitors will be making those sales tax-free. The company regards such avoidance as a matter of necessity to remain competitive. This scenario will play out over and over again. The large retailers like Wal-Mart will survive; the small Main Street businesses will struggle. And, there will be a massive loss of revenues to fund schools and other basic services. Mr. President, this is an important issue that Congress must address now. We believe that this legislation strikes a balance between the interests of the Internet industry, state and local governments, local retailers and remote sellers. It is workable and fair. I urge my colleagues to cosponsor this much-needed bipartisan legislation.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I rise to support the amendment offered by Senator Dodd from Connecticut. Fidel Castro has no supporters in the Senate. I deplore the miserable human rights record of the Government of Cuba and the lack of freedom that is accorded the folks who live in Cuba. I deplore the conditions that have persuaded and forced so many people to leave Cuba. So there is no support for the Castro regime in the Senate. That is not the issue. The issue is an amendment that is a small step in the right direction to create a commission that will evaluate a series of things with respect to this country's policy about Cuba. The commission will look for the development of a national consensus. I say to my colleague from Connecticut, I frankly think a consensus pretty much exists, not necessarily in this Chamber, but most of the American people believe that after 40 years of an embargo against the country of Cuba--40 years of an embargo that has not accomplished anything in terms of dislodging the Communist government in Cuba--the embargo has failed, and that there might be an alternative that can be used to find a way to bring freedom to that island. Pope John Paul had some comments about these issues. I have been talking on the floor about the issue of continuing sanctions with respect to the shipment of food and medicine to Cuba. Just food and medicine, and that runs into great controversy. This is what Pope John Paul had to say: Sanctions . . . ``strike the population indiscriminately, making it ever more difficult for the weakest to enjoy the bare essentials of decent living--things such as food, health, and education.'' Everyone in this Chamber knows in their hearts that when we take aim at a dictator, we hit poor people, we hit sick people, and we hit hungry people. That is the absurdity of having food and medicine as part of the sanctions. Today in the Washington Times--and other newspapers--it says: ``White House ends embargo on trade with North Korea.'' We have decided we are going to trade with North Korea and not have an embargo or sanctions with respect to North Korea. We have debated in this Chamber permanent normal trade relations with China. China is a Communist country. North Korea is a Communist country. Cuba is a Communist country. Yet we have those who say we must maintain the embargo with respect to Cuba. That is not what this amendment is about. This amendment is about a very modest step in the right direction to study a series of options with respect to policies this country has on the subject of Cuba. I have been to Cuba. I have talked to dissidents in Cuba. Frankly, you will run into dissidents, the harshest critics of the Cuban Government, who will say: Fidel Castro uses current U.S. policy as an excuse for the collapse of the Cuban economy. If you say to Fidel Castro: Look around you, this economy has collapsed--he says: Yes, yes, of course it has collapsed. The American fist around the neck of the Cuban economy for 40 years, of course, is what caused that collapse. Current policy with respect to Cuba is the most convenient excuse Fidel Castro has for a collapsed economy and for a government that does not work. He continues to use it year after year. I happen to think, as some dissidents do, that a much different strategy with respect to Cuba would probably very quickly hasten the exit of Fidel Castro from the scene. I want to add another point. While we are, as a country, beginning to think more clearly about this subject of whether or not we should continue sanctions on the shipment of food and medicine--and we will remove those sanctions with respect to North Korea and many other countries--we have people rigidly insisting: No, we must maintain all of these sanctions with respect to Cuba. I ask them--aside from just the immorality of that policy, and I think it is basically immoral to use food as a weapon--I ask them to address family farmers. I ask unanimous consent for 1 additional minute.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask them to address, for example, farmers in America, and explain to them why the Canadian farmers will sell to Cuba, why the European farmers will sell to Cuba, why the Venezuelan farmers will sell to Cuba, but American farmers who see their prices collapse are told: No, these markets, including Cuba, are off limits to you; we have sanctions. We want to penalize those governments, and included in those penalties is a desire to say we will not allow food and medicine to move to those countries. I hasten to say I have no difficulty at all and fully support the proposition that our country should impose economic sanctions on countries that behave outside the international norm, but those sanctions should never, in my judgment, include food and medicine. That is, in my judgment, an immoral policy. The proposition offered by the Senator from Connecticut today is just the first modest step in beginning a national discussion about whether 40 years of failure with the current embargo ought to be continued, or whether there ought to be some new evaluation of new strategies dealing with Cuba. It is very simple.

Mr. DORGAN. I hope my colleagues will support this modest and simple amendment.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I commend the leadership of the Appropriations Committee, and particularly subcommittee Chairman Shelby and Senator Lautenberg for their work on the Transportation appropriations bill that the Senate passed yesterday. However, I am gravely concerned about the omission of an item included in the President's budget request for Three Affiliated Tribes on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota. The President included $5 million for the design and preliminary engineering of the Four Bears Bridge on Fort Berthold Reservation. This bill makes no reference to this funding request. I am concerned that this will provide the federal government with yet another excuse for not replacing a bridge that is clearly its responsibility to replace. This bridge, originally constructed in 1934 on another part of the reservation, was erected at its current site by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1952 during construction of the Garrison Dam. Because the Garrison Dam project created a permanent flood in the form of Lake Sakakawea on the Fort Berthold Reservation, the bridge became necessary to connect the west and the east sides of the Reservation. Mr. President, Senator Campbell, chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee, shares my concerns that the Four Bears Bridge was not included in the bill as requested by the Administration. The reason that this bridge is necessary is because the federal government created a lake bisecting the Reservation. Now there's a situation on Fort Berthold where emergency vehicles, school buses, police and general local traffic are forced to cross a bridge that is only 22 feet wide. This kind of a bridge was built for the small cars of the 1930s--not for the large vehicles common today. It is also important to note that this bridge is one of the few crossing points along the Missouri River in North Dakota, making it a vital connection for all traffic-- including large truck traffic--moving across the state.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I understand that. The two managers, Senator Warner and Senator Levin, are doing a remarkable job of trying to move this legislation forward. It is not my intent to cause difficulties, but I do not want one or two Senators holding up the will of 70 percent of the Senate, saying this country ought not use food and medicine in sanctions anymore. If I were assured by somebody that the efforts we have underway-- Senator Ashcroft, myself, Senator Gorton, Senator Dodd, and others--to strike these sanctions of food and medicine in other pieces of legislation that are coming to the floor were somehow protected, that would be one thing. It is quite clear to me, and the leadership said to me publicly: We intend to dump them; it does not matter how many people support it, we intend to dump them, get rid of them. The only opportunity I have is to force my way into this bill. If we have an up-or-down vote on this, 70 percent of the Senate and 70 percent of the House says this country will never use sanctions on the shipment of food and medicine, which is wrong, and the only chance I have to do that is on a piece of legislation such as this. As my colleague knows, we seldom have a piece of legislation on the floor that is open for amendment. This one is. I give the Senator my assurance that we do not need long debate on this at all. We can debate this in a very short order because we had extensive debate last year. Seventy Senators said let us not any longer use food and medicine on sanctions.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I agree with the comments that were made, and I know the desire is to move the Defense authorization bill forward with some dispatch. I indicated previously that I intend to offer an amendment dealing with sanctions on food and medicine. There are national security issues which have compelled us to impose sanctions, which include food and medicine, on countries. We have debated this at great length. We had 70 votes for this policy last year in the Senate. Seventy percent of the Senate said they want to strip out food and medicine sanctions. We also have this in our appropriations bill, but I understand the legislative leadership is going to strip it out, and they have the capability from a parliamentary standpoint to do that. The only option for those of us who want to get this policy done is to put it in a bill that is amendable, like this bill. It is my intention to offer an amendment. I will accept a short time limit when I do so. It is not my intention to hold things up. This has been debated at great length, and 70 percent of the Senators said we want to end sanctions on food and medicine with respect to sanctions that exist around the world.

Mr. DORGAN. I wonder if the Senator from Virginia will yield for a question.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, if I might continue, let me again speak of my admiration for the two managers. This isn't a case, however, of being either encouraged nor discouraged with respect to amendments. It is about the rules of the Senate. And I know the rules. I have the right to offer the amendment, and I will do that, but I will do that with consideration to the two managers, understanding that they have a job to do to try to get this bill out. So I will do it in a manner that says, let's have a reasonable time agreement. But this is about national security. The reason we have imposed sanctions on other countries is because we have national security interests about the behavior of these countries. And if, in the interest of national security, we have said this country shall continue to impose sanctions on the shipments of food and medicine, then I say this country is wrong, and we must change the law. We had been close to changing the law last year but failed, because there are only a few people--a handful of people; determined people--in the Congress who insist that they want to continue using food and medicine as a weapon. The absurdity of it, of course, is that Saddam Hussein has never missed a meal. Does anybody think Saddam Hussein has ever missed breakfast because we are not able to send much food to Iraq? Does anybody think that Fidel Castro has missed dinner because we have imposed sanctions on the shipment of food to Cuba? If either of them take medication, do you think they miss their daily dose of medication because we have sanctions? Of course they have not missed either dinner or medication. Saddam Hussein and Fidel Castro do just fine, thank you. It is hungry people, sick people, and poor people who live in their countries who are injured by this. It is not the best of America to say we want to include sanctions on the shipment of food and medicine to other parts of the world because we are concerned about the behavior of their leaders. That is not the best of what America has to offer. There are a couple of reasons I have to describe this issue in such repetitive terms. One is, I represent a farm State. Our family farmers say all the time: You tell us to go operate in the open market, to produce our grain and then go sell it in the open market. We have these folks who created this farm program called Freedom to Farm, but some of them have forgotten there also ought to be a freedom to sell. What about the ability to sell that grain to these countries? There are $7.7 billion in agricultural sales--nearly 11 percent of all the wheat purchases in the world--by the countries with which we have sanctions. So we say to farmers: You have the freedom to farm, but you do not have the freedom to sell. You cannot move your wheat to Cuba. We will let Cuba buy its wheat from other countries--from Europe, from Canada, from Argentina. They all sell, but the United States will not. Farmers have the legitimate right to ask the question: Why? Why would you do this to family farmers? Why would you penalize family farmers by making so much of the world's wheat market and so much of the world's grain market off limits to family farmers? This chart shows a list of farm groups that support lifting the sanctions on food and medicine. It is a list that includes virtually all of them. I do not know of any farm group that thinks this policy is smart, thoughtful, or reasonable. Every farm organization in the country representing family farmers believes we ought to discontinue using food as a weapon. What about medicine? Dr. Patricia Dawson, a breast surgeon from Seattle, WA, Providence Hospital, says: The embargo appears to have a disproportionate impact on women and children by limiting access to new medications and technology. In every one of these countries with which we have sanctions, I bet you will find a disproportionate impact on women and children. If anyone has the time, go talk to Congressman Tony Hall who went to North Korea and came back and made the report about hunger and malnutrition in North Korea. See what is going on in that country. Then ask yourself: Does it make any sense at all for this country to withhold food shipments to North Korea, or anywhere for that matter? The answer is a resounding no, of course not. As I indicated when I started, there are two reasons for me to believe so strongly about this. One, this country has developed a policy that is wrong at its core. It is wrong for America. It is wrong for our family farmers. It is morally wrong, in my judgment, for a country that is the breadbasket of the world and produces such a prodigious amount of food to be telling other countries that, by the way, we will use our food in a punitive way if you do not behave. Mr. or Mrs. Leader of Another Country, we will decide that food is off limits to those who want to purchase commodities for your country. What on Earth could provoke a country such as ours to believe that is a smart, sensible, or reasonable policy? It is not reasonable. It is not moral. From a more selfish standpoint, I would say it is not fair to our family farmers. This morning someplace in my home State of North Dakota there is a family farmer who is driving a load of grain to a country elevator someplace. When that farmer gets to the country elevator, that farmer is going to be told that the food he produced--starting in the spring, gassing up the tractor, plowing a straight furrow, planting some seeds, and hoping and praying that seed is going to grow; and when it grows, finally being able to come out with a combine and harvesting the crop, and putting it in the bin, and then putting it in the truck, and then the elevator--that farmer is going to be told at the elevator that the food he produced from the work he did has no value; that food is food that does not have much value for the world at all. So the price is collapsed. And the farmer scratches his or her head and says: I don't understand that. We have more than half a billion people going to bed with an ache in their belly because they didn't have enough to eat yesterday. Every single minute, up to eight children, die--every single minute--because of the winds of hunger around the world. Yet our farmers are told somehow their food does not have value, and those poor people who live in these countries--Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Iraq--are told American food, by the way, is off limits to you because we do not like the way your leaders behave. So you poor folks in those unfortunate countries, you can't do much to kick Saddam Hussein out of Iraq, but we can prevent you from having access to American food. You can't even buy it. That is just wrongheaded public policy. I intend to change it. As I indicated, Senator Gorton from Washington cosponsored the amendment I offered on the Agriculture appropriations bill. Senator Ashcroft offered a nearly identical amendment on the floor of the Senate last year. The Senate will be dealing with this. Finally, as I conclude, I say to those Senate leaders who believe they are going to be able to strip it out of the legislation this year, strip it out of the appropriations bill where I added it to the Agriculture appropriations bill, I am not going to let you do that. You might have the capability of stripping it out of that bill. I have the capability and the right on the floor of the Senate to add it to this bill. Some say they don't want to do it because it does not pertain just to defense. It pertains to national security. I have a right under the rules to add it. I have to get a vote on it, but I have every right to offer it as an amendment. I intend to offer it. I will accept a short time agreement, but I intend that this Congress, with a wide majority of Senators and Representatives, will support this. I intend that this Congress will not be hijacked by a handful of legislative leaders who are trying to protect a dinosaur of a policy that represents the worst of America--the use of food and medicine as a weapon in economic sanctions. So if we have not gotten a decade past that mentality then something is fundamentally wrong with this country. This country should stand up for its family farmers, first, to say that you have the freedom to sell; and, second, it ought to stand up as a world leader to say that we will not use food as a weapon. Poor people around the world, people who live in countries that need our food, have the right to buy it, have the right to expect it, and have the right to have access to it under a range of programs. This country should no longer penalize those poor people and those hungry people. I came to the floor as I saw there was a morning business opportunity just to say to the two managers--I like them, they are good friends; and they will grit their teeth and wring their hands and mop their brows--but I intend to offer this amendment. I have a right to do so. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. DORGAN. I ask unanimous consent reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, it is my intention, just for purposes of understanding, to speak on this amendment for a few minutes. I understand that some will raise rule XVI on this issue. This is an important issue, and I want to have the opportunity, in this context, to discuss this legislation. This amendment is in the form of a bill that I have introduced with my colleagues, Senators Ashcroft, Grams, Leahy, and others. A bipartisan group of Senators introduced a bill dealing with the interstate transportation of violent criminals around this country. I want to describe why I think this is important. I have spoken about this on the floor several times in the past. I show you a picture of a man named Kyle Bell. Kyle Bell is shown standing in this picture in shackles and handcuffs. He is a man who murdered an 11-year-old girl in Fargo, ND. But that was not all of his crime spree. He has committed other unspeakable acts, criminal acts. His criminal behavior culminated in the murder of a young girl named Jeanna North in Fargo, ND. Kyle Bell was apprehended, sent to trial, and convicted of murder. When convicted of murder in the State of North Dakota, Kyle Bell was to go to the penitentiary to spend the rest of his life. But instead, Kyle Bell was put on a bus that was operated by a private company called TransCor. TransCor is a pretty good size company that hauls prisoners around America by contract. TransCor put Kyle Bell on a bus with about 12 other prisoners. He was being transported, under the Prisoner Exchange Program, to another prison in another State to be incarcerated. They got to New Mexico. In fact, he was not going south, he was going straight west, over to the State of Oregon. But they got to New Mexico, and this Kyle Bell escaped. The bus stopped for gas, apparently. One security guard from this private company was buying gas. Another two were asleep in the bus. And another was probably in buying a cheeseburger, as best we can tell. And so with both guards in the bus asleep--Kyle Bell apparently produced a key for his shackles and handcuffs, crawled out the roof of the bus, and while he was in civilian clothing being transferred in this bus, walked through the parking lot of a big shopping center, and they didn't see him again. Kyle Bell, this child killer, was on the loose for several months. He has now been apprehended and he is back in prison. But I started evaluating what happened. It sounds as if the three stooges were given custody of a convicted child killer: two guards asleep, another guard buying a cheeseburger. What happened here? The more I look at it, the more I understand that there is something fundamentally wrong on our highways. Do you know we have private companies taking possession of violent offenders, murderers, and others, to transport around the country, and there is not one regulation they must meet in order to hire themselves out as transport companies? You can be a retired county sheriff, and you and your brother-in-law and your wife can rent a minivan and say you are in business to haul prisoners, someone will turn a convicted murderer over to you, and away you go. Interestingly enough, when they were transporting Kyle Bell, this child killer--he escaped in New Mexico--do you know how long it took them to understand he was gone, that he was not on the bus anymore? Nine hours later they finally counted their prisoners on the bus, to discover they had lost a child killer--9 hours later. We have a circumstance in this country where when you pull up to the gas pumps next to a minivan or a small bus, you may not know it but you may be pulling up next to a minivan with four convicted murderers being transported by a retired police officer and his brother-in-law. In fact, in Iowa, a man and his wife, hiring themselves out as a transport company, showed up at a prison to take possession of five convicted murderers and a convicted kidnapper. And the prison warden said: You've got to be kidding me. You and your wife have come to take possession of five convicted murderers and a convicted kidnapper? The Warden said: You've got to be kidding me. But the warden turned the prisoners over to this man and his wife. And, of course, they escaped. It is absurd for us to be turning violent criminals over to private companies that do not have to meet any basic or reasonable standards. As I indicated, Kyle Bell is now back in prison. We do not know what he did when he was on the loose. He was on the loose for some long while. They apprehended him in Texas, as a matter of fact. Then, just a couple of weeks ago, I read in the newspaper that the State of Nevada was going to send a convicted murderer to North Dakota under the Prisoner Exchange Program, a man named James Prestridge. So Nevada was going to send a murderer to North Dakota. James Prestridge, along with an armed robber, escaped in California while being transported. The two of them were gone. Once again, we had apparently a kind of three-stooges approach by the people who were supposed to have been guarding these violent criminals. They found the armed robber who escaped with Mr. Prestridge just south of the Mexican border with a bullet through his head, dead. They apprehended James Prestridge recently. He is now back in prison. Here is a man who is serving a life sentence without parole for first-degree murder, and he is turned over to a private company and that private company loses him. Extraditions International is the name of that company. My proposition is this. When we in our criminal justice system convict violent criminals, convict people of murder, convict Kyle Bell of killing Jeanna North, I do not want those prisoners turned over to a private company that is going to put them in a minivan and transport them across the country with guards who are ill-prepared and ill- trained and follow no procedures. I do not want that to happen. The private companies, if they are going to transport criminals across State lines in this country, ought to have to meet basic standards. The amendment I have introduced--again, a bipartisan amendment--says the Department of Justice should establish regulations that must be met by private companies that are going to haul violent offenders. The standards should be no more than the standards that exist for law enforcement when they transport the same criminals. I should mention, incidentally, the U.S. Marshals Service has a service, for a flat fee, of taking these child killers and violent offenders anywhere in the country. In fact, I don't believe State and local governments ought to contract with private companies to transport violent criminals, as they now do. The legislation I propose would require that a private company that is preparing to do this must meet basic safety standards with respect to training and other kinds of security circumstances that would give the American people some comfort that they are not in jeopardy by driving down the highway only to confront a minivan or a bus carrying 20 criminals coast to coast. It might be useful to read into the Record other circumstances that persuade me there is something wrong in this area. On January 22 of this year, three prisoners escaped while a van transporting them stopped at a minimart for a restroom break. While the two guards weren't looking, two inmates jumped into the front seat where the keys had been left in the ignition. How much judgment did that take? You are hauling criminals around the country. You stop at a gas station to go to the bathroom. You leave the keys in the vehicle. I am sorry; something is wrong. It is serious. On July 24, last year, two men convicted of murder escaped from a van while being transported from Tennessee to Virginia. The two guards went into a fast food restaurant to get breakfast for the convicts. When they returned, they didn't notice the convicts had freed themselves from their leg irons, possibly with a smuggled key. While one guard went back into the restaurant, the other stood watch--there is some improvement; at least they are standing watch--but he forgot to lock the van door. The inmates kicked it open and fled. On July 30, 1997, convicted rapist and kidnapper Dennis Glick escaped from a van while being transported from Salt Lake City to Pine Bluff, AR. While still in the van, Glick grabbed a gun from a guard who had fallen asleep, took seven prisoners, a guard, and a local rancher hostage and led 60 law enforcement officials on an all-night chase across Colorado. He was finally recaptured the next morning. I won't read all of these, but there are plenty of them. A husband-and-wife team of guards showed up at an Iowa State prison to transport six inmates, five of them convicted murderers, from Iowa to New Mexico. When the Iowa prison warden saw there were only two guards to transport six dangerous inmates, he reportedly responded: ``You've got to be kidding me.'' Despite his concerns, the warden released the prisoners into the custody of the guards when told the transport company had a contract. Despite explicit instructions not to stop anywhere but the county jails or State prisons until they reached their destination, the guards decided to stop at a rest stop in Texas. Of course, the rest is predictable. The six inmates escaped, stole the van, led police on a high-speed chase, and so on. My point is, I wasn't aware, and I will bet most Members of Congress are not aware, that State and local governments are routinely turning violent criminals over to the hands of private companies for transport across this country. Yet there is no basic standard, no set of regulations to guarantee the safekeeping of those violent offenders. I believe there ought to be. Republicans and Democrats who have joined us on this amendment believe there ought to be. That is the purpose of the amendment. I understand this will probably be subject to rule XVI. I also understand the chairman of the subcommittee, Senator Shelby, is trying to get this subcommittee markup moving. I sympathize with that. Senator Lautenberg wants the same thing. They want to get this through. I fully understand that. I hope the authorizing committee, where we hope to have a hearing on this legislation, will allow us to get that hearing and to advance this matter in another way, if in fact it is subject to rule XVI. It is my belief, and I think the belief of almost everyone, that something needs to be done in this area to set some commonsense rules. My first choice would be, if you have a violent offender, a criminal who has been judged violent by his or her behavior, they ought never leave the embrace of a law enforcement official. The address of someone convicted of murder ought to be their prison cell until the end of their term, with no time off for good behavior. Convict them and put them in prison. Instead, what is happening is, too often they are being convicted and then under prisoner exchanges turned over to a private company for transport, only to discover that it is not very secure with respect to this transport: Guards who are ill prepared, vehicles that are not sufficient, procedures that are nonexistent. Lest one doubt that, when Kyle Bell escaped in New Mexico, a child killer walked off the bus, a vicious child killer walked off the bus. The guards in that bus didn't count heads to find out that 1 of their inmates had escaped for 9 full hours. They didn't miss a child killer for 9 hours. Does anybody think this might be an area ripe for some thoughtful regulations and some thoughtful restraint? I think it is. That is why I offer the amendment. I thank the Senator for his indulgence. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, is it the case we are in a period of morning business?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me have consent for as much time as I consume in morning business.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, while we are waiting for the managers of the Defense authorization bill to continue--I understand they are trying to work out some arrangements on the bill itself--I wanted to make a couple of comments about an issue I intend to raise as an amendment on the Defense authorization bill. At the risk of being repetitious, which I think is probably advantageous in this Chamber, I want to speak again about the issue of using sanctions that are now being employed by the United States of America on the sale or shipment of food and medicine to other countries. Those sanctions are wrong. We ought not use sanctions on the shipment of food and medicine to other countries. Yet we are, so far, unable to repeal sanctions on the shipment of food and medicine. We almost got it repealed last year. Seventy Senators voted to repeal the use of sanctions by the United States on the shipment of food and medicine to other countries--70 Senators voted for that--but we went into a conference and we were hijacked, literally legislatively hijacked by the Members of the House. So we still have sanctions on the shipment of food and medicine to many parts of the world. I also have included this year in the Agriculture appropriations bill, a repeal of the use of sanctions for food and medicine shipments. That appropriations bill will come to the floor of the Senate at some point. But I understand, procedurally, the legislative leaders can hijack it once again with a number of parliamentary approaches. I may very well be in a situation where I, Senator Gorton, who cosponsored the bill in the Appropriations Committee, Senator Ashcroft, and others, would have a wide majority of Senators and Representatives who believe the sanctions that exist on the shipment of food and medicine to other countries in the world should be repealed. But despite the fact we perhaps have 60, 70, or 80 percent of the entire Congress who believe that, we have been unable to get it done. For that reason, I intend to offer it as an amendment on the Defense authorization bill. Let me describe just a bit what this issue is. First of all, this is very unfair to America's family farmers. I represent a farm State. Our family farmers are told you should have the freedom to farm. That is the title of the farm bill we have--Freedom to Farm. That all sounds good except farmers don't have the freedom to sell. Our farmers raise grain and they can't sell it in Cuba, they by and large haven't been able to sell it in Iran, they can't sell it in Libya, Iraq, Sudan, North Korea--why? Because we believe these countries are operating outside the international norms. We don't like these countries. We don't like what Cuba does. We don't like the behavior of Libya or Iraq or North Korea. So we say we are going to have a set of sanctions to penalize these countries--economic sanctions. That is fine with me. I am all for creating economic sanctions to try to hurt Saddam Hussein. But I would say this: Everybody in this Chamber knows when you take aim at a dictator by imposing sanctions on food and medicine, you aim at the dictator and you hurt hungry people; you aim at a dictator and you hurt sick people; you aim at a dictator and you hurt poor people. It is true in every one of these countries. Sanctions are fine, but we ought never include sanctions on the shipment of food and medicine. This country needs to understand that and learn that. The legislation I have introduced with my colleagues, Senator Gorton from the State of Washington, Senator Ashcroft, Senator Dodd, and others, is very simple. It says all current sanctions on the shipment of food and medicine shall be abolished within 180 days--gone. This country will not use food and medicine as a weapon. Second, no President will be able to impose sanctions on the shipment of food and medicine unless he comes to the Congress and gets an affirmative vote by the Congress to do so. In other words, this ends the sanctions on the shipment of food and medicine.

Mr. DORGAN. Of course, I am happy to yield.

Mr. DORGAN. The Senator from Virginia, of course, has been involved in this issue. I certainly agree the embargo has not worked. I mean, 40 years of embargo with respect to Cuba, speaking only now of Cuba, ought to tell us that when a policy doesn't work, you should change the policy--especially that portion of the policy that deals with food and medicine. It is immoral, in my judgment, for this country to use food as a weapon. It is not only unfair to our farmers--I have talked about that at some length-- It is unfair to say to farmers we have the freedom to farm but not the freedom to sell. But it is immoral for this country to use food as a weapon. I want to change it. The Senator from Virginia described the support for this. I don't know if he heard me say I intend to offer it as an amendment on the Defense authorization bill. That will not be deemed a great pleasure by the Senator from Virginia, I am sure, but the only opportunity I have to get this done is to put it in legislation that is going to go to the President. The legislative leaders have the opportunity in the appropriations process to strip this from the appropriations bill. They did it last year and they are going to do it this year. This year I am not going to sit back and say: That's fine; we do all this work and we get rid of the food and medicine sanctions in appropriations, only to have you hijack it in conference or with some parliamentary procedure, and at the end of the day this country still prevents the sale of food and medicine to the poor people in Cuba and Iraq and Libya. That is not something I am willing to accept. It is not going to happen anymore. I mentioned previously I sat in a hospital in Havana, Cuba, last year when I visited Havana--sat in a hospital in an intensive care room and watched a 12-year-old boy in a coma. His mother, at a bedside vigil, was holding this boy's hand--and in an intensive care room--there was no beeping going on because there was no machinery or equipment there. This hospital had no equipment for a young boy in a coma in intensive care. The doctor at that hospital said, ``We are out of 250 different kinds of medicine; we don't have it. We are just out of it.'' And our country says we cannot move medicine to Cuba? We cannot sell medicine to Cuba? We can't sell food to Cuba? It doesn't make any sense to me. I have been to many of the poor countries around the world. I do not want to be a part of a government that says we want to continue to use food as a weapon; we want to continue to use food and medicine as weapons. That is fundamentally wrong. It is a wrongheaded public policy. Again, I say to the Senator from Virginia, I do not think he heard me. He has been a strong supporter of these issues. I have great respect for him. He will not be pleased that I intend to offer this as an amendment to the Defense authorization bill at some point. I feel I must do that because it is the only way we will get it done. The legislative leaders intend to strip this out of the appropriations process. The only opportunity for the Members of the House and Senate to express their will is to put this in a bill that is going to be signed by the President. Do I understand the managers wish to do some business?

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, as I understand it, the Senate is in a period of morning business.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I rise to talk about the issue of sanctions on food and medicine shipments to other countries in the world. I know I have talked about this on the floor many times. At the risk of being repetitive, which I think is important in this body, I say again, it is immoral for this country to have a policy of imposing sanctions on the shipment of food and medicine to any other country in the world. We have decided to impose economic sanctions on countries whose behavior we don't like. We have decided that economic sanctions is the way to punish certain countries. We don't like what Saddam Hussein in Iraq has been doing. He is an international outlaw, according to our country's view. Therefore, we want to punish him. So we impose economic sanctions. We don't like Fidel Castro in Cuba, according to our public policy. So we want to impose an embargo that, by the way, has been existing for 40 years. We have sanctions against Iran, against North Korea. When we impose these sanctions, it is also included in those sanctions that we will not allow shipments of food and medicine to these same countries. As I said, I think it is fundamentally immoral for our country to decide what they will withhold and prohibit the shipment of food and medicine to any country in the world. It doesn't make any sense. I come at this from more than one standpoint. One, I represent a farm State. Yes, it bothers me that 11 percent of the international wheat market is off limits to our family farmers. We have folks that stand up here in the Senate and say: Well, we support the Freedom to Farm bill for family farmers. What about the freedom to sell bill? Why shouldn't farmers be free to sell into the marketplace where people are hungry and need food? What on Earth would persuade this country to have sanctions with respect to the shipment of food and medicine anywhere in the world? If my proposition is these sanctions are fundamentally wrong with respect to food and medicine sanctions, then let's change it. We have tried to change it. Last year, we had a bill on the floor of the Senate. Seventy Senators voted to get rid of sanctions on food and medicine shipments everywhere in the world. Seventy Senators said: Let's get rid of them. We got the bill to conference and it got hijacked because some people want to continue sanctions, especially on the country of Cuba. This year in the Senate Appropriations Committee on the Agriculture bill, I included an amendment that says: Get rid of all sanctions on food and medicine; get rid of them all with respect to Cuba and Iraq and North Korea. Get rid of all sanctions on food and medicine. That passed. It is in the Appropriations Committee. It will come to the floor on the Agriculture appropriations bill. Already we have some people in the Congress who are saying we are going to dump that. That is not going to become law. We are not going to get rid of sanctions on the shipment of food and medicine from this country to Cuba. As I have said before, I intend to push this issue very hard this year. It does not make sense to continue sanctions on the shipment of food and medicine to anywhere in the world. I want to read a couple of editorials that I think describe it as well. This is from the Seattle Post Intelligencer of May 28. This is an op-ed piece: Economic sanctions against nations are long overdue for a critical appraisal. They make an appealing weapon. They are a way to hurt people without shooting at them. Done in the extreme, they inflict sickness and death. Sanctions have been used for many years--more than 40 years against Cuba and 10 years against Iraq. Lesser sanctions have been set against Libya, Iran and Burma. Threats of sanctions are annually made, but not acted upon, against China. In any case, economic sanctions have never removed a tyrant and they will never remove, for example, Saddam Hussein. In all likelihood, he will be in power until he dies. What sanctions have done is to further impoverish the Iraqi people. Here is an excerpt from the Washington Times, an op-ed written by Steve Chapman: Things have changed a lot since 1990. The Soviet Union no longer exists. The Federal budget deficit has vanished. But two things remain the same. Iraq is under international economics sanctions, and the sanctions are a failure. I don't have any great truck for Iraq or Saddam Hussein. I think he is an international outlaw. He operates well beyond the norms of international behavior. But it is also true that economic sanctions that include food and medicine represent an attempt to take aim at a dictator and hit hungry people, sick people, and poor people. It happens all the time when we impose food and medicine as part of economic sanctions. This is from the Charleston Gazette, June 1, 2000: Let's see if we've got this straight. Free trade with China will help export American values, paving the path for the end of communism in that nation. That is according to Republican House Whip Tom DeLay from Texas. However, free trade with Cuba can't be allowed because that would be rewarding a Communist regime. That is also according to DeLay, who simultaneously pushed for normalizing trade relations with China, while trying to stop a bill that would allow the sale of food and medicine to Cuba. A piece in the Seattle Post Intelligencer, penned by my colleague on the House side, Congressman Nethercutt, who, incidentally, offered the same amendment in the House Appropriations Committee that I offered in the Senate. He was successful, and they are going to try to dump that provision in the House of Representatives before we get to conference. He says: This week, Trent Lott, Majority Leader, defended the position. He said, ``It is very easy to see the distinction between China and Cuba. If you can't see it, maybe you are just blind to it.'' Well, I am not blind and I can't see it. I have been to Cuba. I was in Cuba last year. All I see in Cuba are people living in conditions of poverty. I see a country 90 miles to the north that has decided as a matter of public policy, because we don't like Fidel Castro, that we cannot move food and medicine to Cuba. Why? Because we have an embargo that includes the shipment of food and medicine. That is not fair to our farmers or to the poor people in Cuba. I visited a hospital in Cuba one day. I was in the intensive care ward. I was there for a few days. In the hospital there was a little boy lying in a coma. He was about 12 years old. There was no equipment. This was an intensive care ward with no equipment at all. There wasn't a beeping sound because there was nothing to beep. There were no cords hooked up because they didn't have equipment. He was lying in this room with his mother holding his hand, lying in a coma. I asked the doctor: You have no basic equipment here? He said: No, we don't have any equipment. The doctor said: We are out of 250 different kinds of medicines. I asked the question again when I came back to this country: Why is it that we have prohibitions against being able to send medicine to Cuba? Is sending medicine and food, or being able to sell medicine and food to Cuba, Iraq, North Korea, and Iran going to make this a less stable world? I don't think so. Let me end where I started. This is an immoral policy. Yes, I come at it from a selfish perspective. I represent farmers who ask a question that cannot be answered: Why, if we raise food in such abundant quantity, are we told that those who need it so badly can't have it because this country wants to punish their rulers and leaders? I can't answer farmers when they ask that question. It doesn't make sense. It is a policy that is bankrupt. We ought to change it. We have 70 votes in the Senate to change it, and they won't allow a vote in the House of Representatives. If they did, they would have 70 percent voting in favor to change it. So we are going to see in the coming weeks whether, once again, for a second year in a row, we have just a handful of people trying to hijack this effort to eliminate food and medicine from sanctions we impose on other countries around the world. When the roll is called, I think 70 Senators will vote, as they did previously, to say food and medicine sanctions anywhere in the world are not good public policy. They are not the best of America. Let's eliminate them. Let's abolish that mentality. You can punish foreign leaders whose behavior we don't like without hurting poor and hungry people. The only conceivable reason this gets held up--and it got held up last year--is a few people decided that because Fidel Castro sticks his finger in America's eye from time to time, they want to continue this 40-year-old embargo. And they darn well want to insist on keeping food and medicine as part of the sanction because if they don't, they will be considered weak on Cuba. Well, being considered weak because they pursue a public policy that is wrongheaded is not, in my judgment, a model of consistency. Let us, in this session of the Congress, decide that at least on this marginal step forward, we will decide we will never again use food and medicine as part of economic sanctions, both in our interest and in the interest of poor, hungry, and sick people all around the world. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, this afternoon, according to the news accounts released earlier today, the Environmental Protection Agency is calling on major oil refiners to meet in Washington, DC, to explain the price hike phenomenon, as it is called. This is not a phenomenon. It is a pain in the wallet what is happening with respect to the price of gasoline. I want to talk a little about that, and talk a little about the problems that may be causing it. It is not lost on the American people that when they drive to the gas pumps these days they are discovering, once again, another price spike in the cost of gasoline. In North Dakota, for example, the North Dakota Petroleum Marketers Association provided me with current gasoline prices in North Dakota: Minot, $1.79 a gallon today; Fargo, $1.64 a gallon; Devil's Lake, $1.69; Bismarck, $1.68 a gallon. Interestingly enough, the current price in Bismarck of $1.68 is nearly a 30-cent-per-gallon increase in just the last couple of weeks since the previous price spike. Earlier this year, the price of petroleum spiked up and came back down. Now it has spiked up again, a nearly 30-cent-per-gallon increase in a very short period. The EPA is asking for a meeting with the major oil refiners to evaluate what is happening with respect to the price of gasoline. Some indicate an EPA rule that describes the base fuel that must be used in certain cities in the country with respect to oxygenated fuel or ethanol as a circumstance where certain base fuels are kind of a narrow commodity and are not readily available and so it is pricing gasoline very high. That may be one case. I don't know the answer to that. I assume the EPA and the refiners will have that discussion. It is quite clear there are other things at work. No. 1, this country gets a substantial amount of its energy from the OPEC countries. In a global economy, the OPEC countries are producing an ever-increasing amount of the energy the United States needs. Does this put us at the mercy of the supply coming from the OPEC countries? Of course it does. When the OPEC countries cut supply, as they did, and then increase it marginally, but not increase it to the level where they had previously been producing, that is going to have some dislocation in this country. The result is an increase in gasoline prices. It is probably also the case, from hearings I have been involved with, that the refiners in this country were refining heating fuel for much longer than they normally would have and probably didn't switch over to gasoline quite quickly enough. Therefore, we are going to continue to see these price spikes. The news reports talk about volatility. Well, volatility is a euphemism for the price spikes that are jumping up and around with respect to the price of gasoline when we don't have sufficient supply of crude stock coming into this country which refiners need to produce and turn into gasoline. What we have are three possibilities. The most obvious is, we are seeing an ever-increasing dependence on the OPEC countries. They cut back supply, then increased it some, but not nearly enough. The result is increased prices for petroleum products in this country. It ought to be a wake-up call for all of us. We are too dependent on foreign source energy. We ought to make certain we have a national energy policy that includes incentives for producers here at home, includes additional incentives for renewable energy. There isn't any reason we ought not be doing much better with respect to renewable energy in this country. The other possibility, aside from the OPEC industry, as I mentioned, is the potential of EPA recommendations or requirements that have created dislocation in certain markets in terms of the base supply that can be used with respect to ethanol. I don't know what the outcome of this meeting will be, but I will be very interested to see what the EPA has done, whether that has caused some dislocation and some price spikes as well. Third, it is not unlikely and certainly wouldn't be without precedent to have had the petroleum industry play some of their own games with respect to supply, the movement of supply and the pricing of supply. Some would say: Gosh, how could you think that? Well, history would bear out how I might be able to think that would be the case. We ought to look at all of these issues and evaluate exactly what is causing this price spike and what impact it is having and what we can do about it. I come from a State that is 10 times the size of Massachusetts. North Dakota is a big old State. It takes a lot of driving to get around my State; 640,000 people live in a land mass that is equivalent to 10 times the State of Massachusetts. Our predominant industry is farming. In order to seed a crop in the spring, it takes a lot of fuel. In order to get the crop off the fields in the fall, it takes a lot of fuel. Those family farmers, with the kind of depressed grain prices we have seen in this country, don't need further increases in input costs placed upon them by these increases in gas prices. We have to get some answers from the EPA, the petroleum refiners, the major oil companies, and from those who are supposed to be involved in the development of an energy plan for this country to answer what kind of dependence do we have on the OPEC countries and what could the consequences be in the longer term, if those countries decided to have a much tighter supply of petroleum going to Western nations, including the United States. I was reading a briefing memo this morning about this issue. I thought a couple of pieces of information were interesting. OPEC officials contend that prices are only marginally above the stated ban and ``the price rise is more due to a tight gasoline market in the United States where new environmental regulations are reducing volume.'' That is according to OPEC. OPEC is saying: It's not us. The fact is, OPEC cut supply, increased it some but not nearly back to where they had originally been producing. The Saudi Arabia oil minister also pegged the recent price movement on tight oil products markets; that is, oil products markets, not a shortage of crude oil itself. One source indicated that the increase in prices on certain world oil markets, notably in the U.S., has no relation to the volume of international crude output. That is an interesting theory. That would stand all logic on its head. Prices in the United States with respect to crude oil have no relationship to international crude oil production. I think that is not likely to be something that would be believed by anyone who is thinking. The point is this: This is a significant and important issue to many areas of our country. We need to understand the consequences of it, what is causing it, and what we can do about it. I hope all of us working together can rely on not only the Energy Department, the EPA, but the Congress itself to evaluate all three of the suggestions I have just made.