Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, yesterday the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee spoke on the floor of the Senate on the subject of arms control. He is a distinguished Member of the Senate, someone for whom I have high regard, but someone with whom I have strong disagreement on this subject. I will speak this morning about the presentation he made yesterday and its relationship to a range of other issues we face. The front page of the Washington Post this morning has a headline: ``Helms Vows to Obstruct Arms Pacts, Any New Clinton Accord With Russia Ruled Out.'' It is a story about the presentation made yesterday by the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee in which he stated that any arms control agreement negotiated by this administration is going to be dead on arrival in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. With all due respect to the Washington Post, that is not news. The Foreign Relations Committee has been a morgue for arms control for a long time. In fact, this Congress has been a morgue for arms control. Everything dealing with arms control has been dead on arrival in this Congress and in that committee for several years. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference is now being held in New York. At that conference the world is looking to this country for leadership in stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons and stopping the spread the missiles, submarines, and bombers with which those nuclear weapons are delivered. Regrettably, this country has abandoned its leadership on the arms control issue. I will include in the Record several editorials: one is the April 26 edition of the Chicago Tribune entitled ``Russia Takes Arms Control Lead.'' It discusses the Russian Duma's approval of Start II and the approval of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban treaty by the Russians. Another is from the April 26 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel entitled, ``Will the United States Lead or Follow on the Issue of Arms Control.'' Another is from the April 27 Dallas Morning News with the title ``Arms Control, the Senate Needs to Stop Playing with Nuclear Fire.'' And the last is this morning's column in the Washington Post by Mary McGrory entitled ``Nuclear Family Values.'' Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent these four editorials be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my statement.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, this is a piece of metal that comes from the wing strut of a Russian TU-160 Backfire bomber. This bomber carried nuclear weapons during the height of the cold war. This bomber was a threat to the United States of America. How is it that I stand on the floor of the Senate holding a piece of a wing strut from a Russian bomber? Did we shoot it down? No. It was actually sawed off the wing. Giant, rotating metal saws cut the wings off this bomber. Why? Because we negotiated an agreement with the Russians to reduce the number of bombers and missiles and nuclear warheads in Russia. We reduced our stockpile and our delivery mechanisms, and they reduced theirs. So without shooting down a bomber that carried nuclear bombs that threatened America, I now have in my hand a piece of a wing from a Russian bomber--because arms control works. We know it works. This chart shows what arms control has done in recent years. In the 1980s we ratified the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, and in the 1990s we ratified the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START I. When we started the process in the mid-1980s, the Russians--or then the Soviet Union--had about 11,000 nuclear weapons on long range missiles. Today Russia has about 5,000. That means that 6,000 warheads are now gone. Many of those warheads were probably carried in the Russian Backfire bomber this piece comes from. So 6,000 warheads no longer threaten the United States of America. Do you know what that represents--6,000 warheads with the kind of strength and power of the nuclear warheads the Russians used to build? That is equal to 175,000 Hiroshima bombs. Let me say that again. We have actually negotiated the reduction of nuclear warheads in the Russian arsenal, and 6,000 warheads are gone. Those 6,000 warheads represented the equivalent of 175,000 atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima. That is quite remarkable. This is a small container of ground-up copper wire. This copper wire used to run through a Russian ballistic missile submarine. This type of submarine, a Typhoon class submarine that snaked under the waters throughout the world carrying 20 missiles, with 10 nuclear warheads on the tip of each of those missiles, aimed at the United States of America. This copper wire, before it was ground up, used to course through this Typhoon submarine. But now I have the wire from a Typhoon submarine ground up in a small vial. How did I get that? Did we sink this submarine? Did we go to war with Russia and sink this submarine? No. This was dismantled, brought up to the port, and then engineers, carpenters, and others took this apart piece by piece, and this submarine doesn't exist anymore. This submarine was taken apart as part of the Nunn-Lugar program to reduce delivery systems and nuclear weapons in the old Soviet Union and in what we now refer to as Russia. We have spent $2.5 billion on the Nunn-Lugar program. We have actually paid for the destruction of Russian bombers. We have paid for the destruction of Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles, 5,000 nuclear warheads, 471 ICBMs, and 354 ICBM silos, 12 ballistic missile submarines. I have had charts on the Senate floor that show a plot of ground in the Ukraine where a missile silo existed with a nuclear warhead aimed at the United States of America, and now the silo is gone. I have held up a piece of metal from the hinge of the silo on the floor of the Senate. That hinge and that missile silo are now scrap metal. The silo is gone, the missile is gone, the warhead doesn't exist, and there is now a plot of ground with sunflowers. Where a nuclear missile used to rest, sunflowers now grow. That is progress. That is real progress in reducing the threat of nuclear weapons. What about the future? If this is what has happened and this is success, what about the future? Well, this success occurred under decisions by Congress--not in the last several years, but years before that--in which we said: We are the leaders in arms reduction and arms control. Our country wants to provide leadership. We want to reduce the number of warheads, reduce the number of bombers and missiles, reduce the tensions. And we have done that. But in the last several years, something dramatic has changed in the Congress. No. 1, we saw the Senate defeat the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. It was almost unthinkable to me, but this Senate said: This country doesn't want to ratify a Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty even though we have already decided that the United States is not going to test nuclear weapons. We decided that unilaterally some 6 or 7 years ago. So we are not testing nuclear weapons. A treaty that has been signed by over 150 nations, negotiated over many years, ratified by most of our allies, was not ratified by the Senate because we have Senators who say, no, we don't think that is in the country's interest. Well, if it is not in this country's interest to reduce the stockpile of nuclear weapons and to stop the testing of nuclear weapons, stop the spread of nuclear weapons around the world, what on earth is in this country's interest? After the Senate failed to ratify that treaty, those who voted against the treaty blamed everyone but themselves. That treaty languished in the committee here in the Senate for over 2 years without a day of hearings--not one. Then it was brought to the floor on a preemptory basis, given short shrift in debate, and killed. Those who killed that treaty should not have taken much pleasure in putting this country in the position of failing to exert leadership with respect to the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons and the ban on testing nuclear weapons all around the world. Last week, the Russian Duma ratified START II. Prior to that, the Russians passed the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty. While that is happening, this country is talking about building a national missile defense system and trying to negotiate with Russia changes in the antiballistic missile system which in many ways is the linchpin for all of this progress in arms control and arms reduction. And what happens? Yesterday at the United Nations we have diplomats looking at Russia and saying: You are making a lot of progress here, Russia. You have passed the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty. You ratified that treaty, you passed START II, congratulations. And the United States: You have lost your edge, you are not doing much. You seem to be retreating on the question of whether you care about arms control. You seem to be stepping back from your commitment of stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and working as hard as you worked previously to reduce the number of delivery vehicles and reduce the number of nuclear weapons. I regret that is the case. That should not be the case. It cannot be a judgment of conservatives or liberals or Democrats or Republicans to believe that somehow it falls to someone else to be a leader in the world to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. Do we worry that the nuclear club--a rather small club in this world consisting of nations that possess nuclear weapons--do we worry that is going to proliferate, there will be more and more nations that possess nuclear weapons, and more and more nations that have the mechanism or the wherewithal to deliver those nuclear weapons? We should certainly worry about that. Even with START II, the U.S. and Russia will each have about 3,500 nuclear weapons. Hopefully we will begin negotiations of START III and agree to much lower levels. As we do that, we have people in this Chamber who want to focus not on arms control but on building some kind of a national missile defense system, some sort of a shield to prevent America from being attacked by a rogue nation. We need to understand the only country in the world that possesses the strength and the nuclear power to destroy our way of life is Russia. They still have thousands of nuclear weapons. We ought to engage with them in an aggressive START III negotiation and continue the progress of bringing down the number of nuclear weapons in the two major nuclear superpowers--Russia and the United States. We ought to continue that. I know we have people here who don't sleep at night because they are worried that North Korea might threaten a small slice of the United States. But they should realize that, No. 1 A national missile defense, if deployed, will be horribly costly. No. 2, it will not protect this country against this kind of a threat. Those people say to the American people that Congress will fund a national missile defense program to defend against a rogue nation--North Korea, they suggest, Iraq or Iran. The fact is, the least likely threat that a rogue nation would have access to is an intercontinental ballistic missile. If it acquires access to a nuclear weapon, it is far more likely to deploy it as a suitcase bomb put in the trunk of a rusty Yugo car at a dock in New York City, rather than putting it on the tip of an intercontinental ballistic missile and having any notion of being able to fire it with accuracy. It is much more likely they would acquire a cruise missile, which would be easier to acquire, much less costly, and not as technically difficult to deploy. Of course, the national missile defense system wouldn't do anything to defend against that. It is much more likely a rogue nation would find it more attractive to use a deadly vial of chemical or biological agents to threaten a superpower. We face a myriad of threats. There is no question about that. The biggest threat, in my judgment, is this country stepping away from its responsibility to lead and stop the spread of nuclear weapons around the world, and this country stepping away from its responsibility to decrease the number of nuclear weapons and decrease the launchers and delivery systems for those nuclear weapons. My fervent hope is that we will agree that last year's vote by which the Senate defeated ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty should not signal to anyone in the world that this country is no longer interested in these issues. We must decide again, even though there is not an appetite by some in the Senate to do so, we must decide again that leadership in arms control is this country's responsibility. It is upon our shoulders that this responsibility falls. No one else can exert this leadership with the capability of the United States. If we don't exert leadership, what we will end up building new nuclear weapons, building new defensive systems. We will start a new arms race. We will see more spending on nuclear weapons by China. We will see more spending on offensive weapons by Russia. We will see other countries joining the nuclear club because they will believe they should acquire nuclear weapons to represent their interests. We will see our allies depart from us on these issues because they believe abrogation of the ABM Treaty is very unwise. I think the majority of the American people believe the biggest threat to our future is the nuclear threat, the threat of a nuclear attack by an ever-increasing number of countries who acquire nuclear weapons. We know what works. Arms control works, negotiation works, destroying another superpower's bombers through negotiation by sawing off the wings, dismantling submarines that carry nuclear weapons: we know that works. It is far better to do that than to engage in the horror of a nuclear war from which this world will not, in my judgment, survive. Think for a moment about the devastation visited upon Nagasaki and Hiroshima and go back to what I discussed earlier--the reduction in 6,000 nuclear warheads that has been negotiated and accomplished. That is just the first step, a big step, but just the first step. It represents the reduction in nuclear warheads equivalent to 175,000 bombs the size of the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. The reason I come to the floor at the end of the day is simply to say we ought not take any pride as a country in seeing an article in the press of the United States suggesting somehow we have lost our will to lead on this issue. We can come to the floor and debate 100 things in 100 days. Some of them are big; some of them are small. None are more important, in my judgment, than addressing the issue of the spread of nuclear weapons. Just because we have people now serving in Congress who have an unending appetite to keep building new weapons, an unending appetite to spend more money on new weapons, does not mean those who believe in arms control and believe real progress in arms control will make this a safer world in which to live, should step aside and say: Yes, you win; go build your weapons. We ought not do that, but we ought to wage the fight for a safer world by having this country exhibit the leadership it needs to exhibit, that it should responsibly exhibit, for the safety of all the people who live in this world. I will have more to say about this subject at another time. But on the eve of the meeting of the NPT Review Conference in New York, I wanted to talk about these issues. I want to say that some in Congress believe very strongly and feel very deeply the future of our children and grandchildren and the future of this country rests on those who believe in arms control prevailing in this Senate, despite the recent events, despite the debate we have heard in the last couple of years. This issue is not over. Those of us who believe as I do are not going to go away. We hope this country will assume some sensible mantle of leadership in this important area.

Mr. DORGAN. Today, in the Washington Post, there was a story headlined ``U.S. Arms Policy is Criticized at the United Nations.'' The occasion of the criticism comes at the beginning of the conference to review the status of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which opened yesterday at the United Nations in New York. This conference occurs once every 5 years. It is a conference on the status of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. I would like to read the first paragraph of the story in the Washington Post because it is really quite a sad day when our country is described in the following way: After years of championing international attempts to halt the spread of nuclear weapons, the United States found itself on the defensive today as a broad alliance of arms control advocates, senior United Nations officials, and diplomats from nonnuclear countries charged that Washington is blocking progress toward disarmament. Well, that is not something any of us aspires to hear. I hope and I believe that many of my colleagues want the United States to be seen as a leader in trying to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and in trying to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in this world. Regrettably, others view the actions of the United States-- especially in the last few years--as actions that are not actions of a leader in trying to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. We have made some progress over recent years in reducing the number of nuclear weapons. I want to describe how because I think it is important to understand it. I ask unanimous consent to show two items on the floor of the Senate.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. DORGAN. I am happy to yield.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I appreciate the Senator yielding to me. This is a very sad chapter. It is a story of a 6-year-old child who has been used as a political football now for some many months--yes, by Fidel Castro, but also by some in this country--and it ought to stop. What happened the other morning in Miami is something none of us wants to see in this country, but it happened without violence occurring. No one was injured, and the fact is, a 6-year-old boy was restored to his father's care. I have heard all of the stories and all of the words. I watched television last evening. I heard irresponsible statements about Waco, about storm troopers, all kinds of conjecture about secret meetings between Fidel Castro and officials in this country. Look, those things serve no purpose at this point. This is a 6-year-old boy whose mother died and who now has been restored to the care of his father. Are there those here who believe that a 6-year-old boy whose father loves him should not be restored to the care of his father? If so, then let's have a long debate about parental rights. I suspect they do not want to restore this young boy to the care of his father because his father is a Cuban and he will go back to Cuba and that is a Communist country. But I do not see people coming to the floor of the Senate talking much about the fate of the children in Vietnam--that is a Communist country--or the fate of the children in China--that is a Communist country. All of a sudden, this one 6-year-old child whose mother is dead and whose father wants him, because he comes from Cuba, does not have the right to be restored to the care of his father? Something is wrong with this. I understand there is great passion on all sides. The Attorney General was faced with an awful choice, and she made a choice. The choice she made was to use whatever show of force was necessary--not force; show of force was necessary--to prevent violence while they were able to get this boy and restore him to the care of his father. The fact is, it worked. In a little under 3 minutes, they were able to get this boy. This boy, now we see in a smiling picture, is in his father's arms where he ought to be. I know we can criticize Janet Reno and others till the Sun goes down and every day thereafter, but it is not going to change the fact that this boy belongs with his father. We all know that. We should not use this boy for some broader political purpose of U.S.-Cuba relations, anti-Castroism, this, that, or the other thing. This is not about Fidel Castro. This is about a 6-year-old child and his father.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I have listened to the presentations on the floor. Let me say the passion with which the Senator from California, Mrs. Feinstein, and the Senator from Arizona bring this issue to the floor is a passion I understand. I certainly respect their views. I have studied this issue at some length. I must say the Senator from California visited with me, I guess, half a dozen times about this issue over the past year or so. But I have reached a different conclusion. It is a difficult trail to get to this point, but my view is the issue is not whether victims in this country have rights in court proceedings, but how we achieve those rights. It is true that criminals are accorded a whole series of rights in this country. I do not quarrel with that. I do not want us to put innocent people behind bars. It is difficult to convict in this country, and our Constitution establishes certain rights. We try, as a country, to make certain we only put those guilty of crimes, behind bars. It is also true--and I say this to the Senator from California and the Senator from Arizona--it has been a longer process and a more difficult track, to make certain that victims and victims' families have their rights protected in our court system. I have offered legislation on this issue previously. In fact, I authored language included in the 1994 crime bill, which is now law, that gives crime victims the right to testify at federal sentencing hearings. My provision gives crime victims and their families the right in Federal court to present testimony about ``What this crime meant to me or to my family'' and ensures that judges and parole boards formally consider the impact of a crime on its victims when making sentencing and parole decisions. I sat in a court at the manslaughter trial of the man on trial for the death of my mother. I am very sensitive to this issue. I understand--being a family member, sitting in a court, watching the trial of the man who was responsible for the death of my mother--I understand the concern a family member has about the rights of the victim and the rights of the victim's family to be present in that court. I understand the desire to present testimony during the sentencing phase, to have an understanding about when someone is let out of prison. I understand all that, and I am very sensitive to it because I have been through it personally, as a result of the tragic death of my mother. I come to the floor of the Senate today saying I strongly support victims' rights. We are moving in this country in a variety of ways to achieve those rights. Thirty-three States have now amended their state constitutions to specifically describe the rights of victims and their families. Some say that approach does not work very well and is not universal; that sometimes it does not achieve our goal. I understand that argument. I understand the argument that the perpetrator of a heinous and violent crime is brought into the court, now some months later after the crime was committed, and his or her hair is combed, they are in a new suit, they look as if they just finished singing in a church choir, and all their acquaintances testify to what a remarkable person this is. It happens all the time in trials. This animal who committed the violent murder on a Saturday night, in court 1 month or 2 or 6, or a year later, looks completely different and has a whole set of rights. I understand all that. My concern is about the Constitution of the United States, and whether we should address this by changing the U.S. Constitution, or whether we should address it by continuing to make the changes, both with respect to Federal law and also mandating changes with respect to State law and State constitutional changes that accomplish the same result. I have in my hand three pages of constitutional amendments that have been introduced in this session of Congress. We have had several of them, frankly, on the floor of the Senate. These are very important issues. Amending or changing the Constitution of this country ought to be done rarely and then only in circumstances where it is the only opportunity to achieve the change we want as a society. These are three pages of constitutional amendments that are proposed by my colleagues now. We have had over 11,000 proposals to change the Constitution since it was written; 11,000 proposals. One of them, for example, said let's have a constitutional amendment that provides the Presidency of our country should be rotated. One term it shall be held by someone who is a southerner, from the southern States, and the next term followed by someone who comes from a northern State. That was a proposed constitutional amendment. I could describe more, of course. 11,000 times, the Members of Congress have felt the need to change the U.S. Constitution--this document which begins: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union. . . . We all understand the words. It was written by 55 white men just over two centuries ago in a room called the Assembly Room in Constitution Hall. My colleagues have heard me talk about it before, but I will say it again. In that room, George Washington's chair is still sitting at the front of the room where he presided over the Constitutional Convention. Go there today in Philadelphia and look at his chair. Ben Franklin sat over there; there James Madison. Thomas Jefferson was in Europe at the time so he didn't participate except through his writings, which then became, as we know it, the Bill of Rights. But since those 55 men wrote the Constitution of the United States over two centuries ago, we have had so many proposals for change. I have mentioned to my colleagues on the 200th birthday of the writing of the Constitution, I was one of the 55 people who were authorized to go in for a ceremony, into this Assembly Room. This time, it was 55 men, women, minorities. I got chills sitting in this room because I had studied in a very small school the history about Ben Franklin, Madison, Mason, George Washington--the father of our country--and now I was sitting in the Assembly Room in Constitution Hall in Philadelphia where they wrote the Constitution of the United States. Since that experience, I have had difficulty coming to the conclusion that we can improve upon the basic framework of the Constitution of the United States. Other countries try to replicate this Constitution; we try to amend it. Some of my colleagues apparently think it is a rough draft available for amendment at the whim of someone's interest in the House or the Senate. It is much more important than that, and we ought to amend the Constitution, in my judgment, rarely, and then when it is the only solution. As I mentioned, 33 States have amended their Constitution to provide for victims' rights. We can provide for the Federal portion, and the Senators from Arizona and California are absolutely right, that is a very small portion of crime in the criminal justice system. We can also mandate--and I am perfectly prepared to do that--that the States must do the same in exchange for a certain number of incentives which we in the Congress provide. I am perfectly prepared to do that. I do want to clear up a couple of misconceptions that have been part of the discussion with respect to the victims' rights amendment. The proposal to change the Constitution, in some measure, rests on the discussion about, among other things, the folks who were convicted in the Oklahoma City bombing case. I want to describe what happened in that case because like many others, I saw the initial ruling and comments of the judge in the Federal court in Denver, and was appalled. He essentially said that those who were victims or family members of victims who wanted to witness the trial would not necessarily then be granted the opportunity to testify during the sentencing phase of the trial. I was concerned about that. I felt that was an abrogation of victims' rights. What happened as a result of that is Congress passed a piece of legislation called the Victim Rights Clarification Act of 1997. We did that almost immediately. It reversed a presumption against crime victims observing any part of the trial proceedings if they were likely to testify during the sentencing hearing. This piece of legislation that was passed almost immediately after the judge's ruling prohibited courts from excluding victims from the trial on the grounds they might be called to provide a victim's impact statement at sentencing. The result of the legislation was that the victims in the Oklahoma City bombing trial were allowed to observe both the trial of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols and to provide impact statements through testimony. In this circumstance, the legislation we passed in Congress worked exactly as Congress intended it to work. The testimony by a former prosecutor at the Oklahoma City bombing trial, Ms. Wilkinson, is something I want to recount because it is important to understand what happened, inasmuch as this example has been used. It is important to look at how the Victim Rights Clarification Act was actually applied in the Oklahoma City case. On June 26, 1996, Judge Matsch held that potential witnesses at any penalty hearing were excluded from pretrial proceedings and the trial itself to avoid any influence from that experience on their testimony. That is what I described earlier, and I felt the same revulsion about that judge's decision as I think my colleagues did, and the result was that we passed the Victim Rights Clarification Act almost immediately. The President signed it into law on March 19, 1997. One week later, Judge Matsch reversed his exclusionary order and permitted observation at the trial proceedings by potential penalty-phase impact witnesses. In other words, the judge changed his mind immediately after the President signed the legislation. Beth Wilkinson, a member of the Government team that successfully prosecuted, said: What happened in [the McVeigh] case was once you all had passed the statute, the judge said that the victims could sit in, but they may have to undergo a voir dire process to determine whether rule 402. . .would have been impacted and could be more prejudicial. This is what the prosecutor said. It is important to say this: I am proud to report to you that every single one of those witnesses who decided to sit through the trial survived the voir dire, and not only survived, but I think changed the judge's opinion on the idea that any victim impact testimony would be changed by sitting through the trial. [T]he witnesses underwent the voir dire and testified during the penalty phase for Mr. McVeigh. It worked in that case, but it worked even better in the next case. Just 3 months later when we tried the case against Terry Nichols, every single victim who wanted to watch the trial either in Denver or through closed-circuit television proceedings that were provided also by statute by this Congress, were permitted to sit and watch the trial and testify against Mr. Nichols in the penalty phase--all without having to undergo a voir dire process. The point is, when the judge in the Oklahoma City bombing trial, which was conducted in Denver, made his initial ruling, there was a great amount of press about it, and all of us, including myself, was aghast at this ruling. Congress passed a piece of legislation almost immediately, the President signed it, and the judge reversed his ruling, and every single one of the victims or victims' families who wished to testify during the penalty phase was allowed to testify. That is critically important to be on the record. The urge to amend the Constitution ought to be an urge based on all of the information available, and there is plenty of information available, it seems to me, based on this case and also based on the fact that 33 States have now changed their constitution and more will do so. In fact, all could do so if we decided to provide a mandate that would require them to do so. We are making significant progress in this area. I understand, as I said when I started, the passions of the Senator from Arizona and the Senator from California. I have those same passions, and I want victims to have the same rights. I believe, however, that amending the Constitution should always be a last resort, not a first resort. I do not believe, despite all that has been said, that it serves this document very well to bring a piece of legislation to the floor of the Senate on a Tuesday and have a cloture vote on the motion to proceed. Presumably, we will have a cloture vote on the bill itself and probably have 8 hours, maybe 10 hours, maybe 14 hours, which would be a lengthy period of time for discussion in this Senate, and an attempt, I am sure, to stifle amendments, and then we would say: All right, now the Senate has considered changing the U.S. Constitution. I do not think that is what Washington, Franklin, Madison, Mason, or others would have wanted us to do in consideration of changing this sacred document. My hope is we will have an interesting and significant discussion about this and we will, from this debate, not only turn back the constitutional amendment but probably stimulate a great deal more activity on the part of the States. As I said before, I am willing to either offer an amendment or join others in offering an amendment that will require the States to make these changes. That would accomplish exactly the same thing without amending the U.S. Constitution. We can, in any event, make certain all this applies with respect to the Federal statute and Federal crimes. My hope is, at the end of it, we will not only have denied the impulse to change the Constitution, but we will have created new energy and new incentives to make certain that victims' rights gain ground in State after State across this country. I will be happy to join others in the coming days, weeks, and months in an effort to accomplish that, because I have strong feelings about this issue. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Might I offer a suggestion, briefly? Discussion earlier was, by Senator Reid: Why do we not just have it open for amendment? The leader objected to that. You did not want that to happen. Why don't we proceed and have it open for amendments and proceed on that basis?

Mr. DORGAN. I appreciate the majority leader yielding. I want to make an observation with the question: As I understand, the majority leader has sent to the desk two cloture motions, one on the underlying bill and one on the substitute, for purposes, as he described, to shut off a filibuster which I suggest does not exist. That is all right. That is within the rules. We have all read the rule book in the Senate. Circumstances in the Senate should exist in the following manner. You bring a piece of legislation to the floor of the Senate. Every Senator here has a desk. You come here and you have certain rights and certain opportunities. One of those is to offer an amendment to legislation brought before the Senate. As I understand the Senator from Mississippi, he is saying he wants to see amendments Senators are going to offer. He would like to see them before he makes a judgment about whether in fact they will be allowed to be offered. I say the reason there is a substantial amount of anxiety building up in this Senate is that people were not elected from various States to say: Go and do your thing in the Senate under the rules, and, by the way, we would like the majority leader to decide which amendments you offer shall be in order.

Mr. DORGAN. Except, if the majority leader will yield further, that is not what you are trying to do. What you have indicated is you want to limit the amendments. It is not a case of being curious to see what we are going to offer. This goes on bill after bill after bill that is brought to the Senate. You want to limit the amendments. My point is this. When we deal with legislation on the floor of the Senate, everyone here has a right, it seems to me, to come and offer amendments and have a debate on them. You have just filed two cloture motions to shut off debate on a filibuster that doesn't exist. This happens time and time again, and we are getting tired of it.

Mr. DORGAN. Obviously, Senator Daschle would like to propound a question.

Mr. DORGAN. Might I make a suggestion then?

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

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President I enjoyed listening to the majority leader. I have always worked well with him, although we have different perspectives and a different philosophy and opinion on some issues. I have worked with him both in the House of Representatives and here in the Senate. When I listen to him I am always reminded why I have always liked him personally. He is a good person. I appreciate his public service. There are some things on the agenda, however, that we might not agree about. I want to comment about a couple of those issues, especially with respect to an agenda item this week dealing with the repeal of the 4.3-cent-a-gallon gas tax, which is set for a cloture vote tomorrow afternoon here in the Senate Chamber. My expectation is that the cloture vote will fail. I am not certain of that, but that is my expectation. Just hearing some of the comments and some of the statements that have been made previously, I expect that cloture vote will fail, and I think justifiably so. Let me describe why. I think the price of fuel in this country is a pretty tough pill for the American people to swallow. What has happened is the price of gasoline has spiked up. It is not because the free market has caused that. It is because we have a cartel called the OPEC countries that are limiting production and increasing the international price for their product. That is not the free market. That is monopoly pricing. They have the strength and, I guess, the opportunity to do that. What they have done is, of course, impose a significant new charge on American families, on family farmers, producers, manufacturers, drivers, and others. There was no vote on that. That was something the OPEC countries did. We didn't have a chance to discuss that or vote on it in the Congress. The question I ask with respect to the repeal of the 4.3-cent gas tax--which is, after all, rather small in the scheme of what has happened to the price of gasoline--is who would get the benefit of that? Is there a guarantee of any kind that the American people would actually get the benefit of the gas tax reduction? The gasoline tax is not imposed at the pump. The gasoline tax is imposed up the line. There is no guarantee at all that if the Congress would repeal the 4.3-cent gasoline tax, that that savings wouldn't simply be blended into the profits of the large oil companies. There is no guarantee that the American driver is going to pull up to a gas pump and find that gasoline prices are 4.3 cents a gallon less. The other question is, What is going to happen to make sure we continue the building of the transportation infrastructure, roads and bridges, the programs we have already approved in the highway program that are done with this money? I am told by some: This money will be made up from the general fund. Where from the general fund? Where do we get that money? How do we know that will be the case? Someone once said you should never buy anything from somebody who is out of breath. There is a kind of breathless quality about bringing this bill to the floor of the Senate to repeal the 4.3-cent-a-gallon gas tax. One of the reasons we heard Members stand up last week and ask some very tough questions about this is, most of them understand, this is kind of an immediate, quick reaction that hasn't been thought through very well. It will not necessarily provide any relief to drivers. There is no guarantee this 4.3-cent-a-gallon reduction is going to show up at the pumps. Secondly, where is the money? Where are we going to make up the money? Which roads aren't we going to fix or which bridges are not going to be repaired? Those are questions that need answering this week. Because they cannot be answered, I think the cloture vote will fail. I think this is a pretty good discussion we are having with respect to energy policy. The majority leader indicated this country doesn't have much of an energy policy. I don't quarrel with that. We haven't had much under any administration, as a matter of fact. We are far too dependent on foreign sources of energy. There is no question about that. But in many ways this is a helpful discussion because we have had the discussion in recent years about the globalization of our economy. How can one stand in the way of the global economy? We are told this economy is a global economy. Understand it, they say. Well, where are people going to produce energy in this world? In a global economy, they will produce energy where it is least expensive to produce. You can bring up oil under the sands in the Persian Gulf for a fraction of the cost of bringing up oil in the United States. That is the global economy, I guess. That is a decision the global economy helps make. The majority leader asked the question--I think a very important question--do we have a national policy with respect to energy and our desire to be somewhat independent of foreign sources? That is a good question not just for oil. It is a good question for steel and for a whole series of things we know are important to the American economy. We have been told until this time there is nothing that is more important than globalization of our economy; if steel moves and is produced elsewhere, so be it. Do the people who say that feel the same way about oil? Because that is where we are. The oil we consume is produced elsewhere. We now discover that when a cartel manipulates artificially the price of oil by restricting supply, Americans get overcharged. That is part of a monopoly in the global economy that we do not control. We need to do a lot of things. This administration is proposing something I hope the majority leader and others will support in the area of domestic renewable energy. They are proposing significant new initiatives in wind energy, which I think make a lot of sense. We have new technology on wind-generation devices that is remarkable. If we put some in this Chamber on the right days, we could electrify New York. In my State, North Dakota, I grew up walking outdoors in the morning with the wind and the breeze. If you take a map and evaluate what is the Saudi Arabia of wind energy, it is North Dakota, and a lot of other northern border States are right behind. Some will say, listening to me speak, they would have known we ranked high on wind energy. But seriously, we have an opportunity, with new technology, to capture wind energy in many parts of this country and extend our energy supply. The same is true with biomass. The same is true with geothermal, and natural gas, which the majority leader suggested. Absolutely, we have wonderful new discoveries in natural gas and deep well finds. We are doing a lot of that. We do need to pay attention to the development of oil and the development of coal, which are important in this country. We also need to get behind the proposals coming from the Department of Energy and this President's budget that call for the development of renewable energy resources and what is called green power--environmentally friendly sources of power. I mentioned one: wind energy. We need to fully fund these initiatives. I hope no one comes to the floor later and says, ``We really care about our energy supply,'' if before that time they voted against these initiatives to extend our energy supply by investing in renewable energy sources. We need to do that. This, in many ways, is a wonderful discussion. What does the global economy mean? Does it mean we don't have to worry about dependence on anything? We are now discovering it means we have to worry about dependence with respect to oil. What about steel? What about a range of other economic activities without which a country such as ours will not long remain a world economic power? This is a great discussion to have. It is right on point and right on time. Yes, it is about oil and gas, but it is about much more than that. When we have this vote on cloture on the 4.3-cent gasoline tax repeal, I hope it will be preceded by a rather lengthy discussion of a whole range of these issues. I appreciate the majority leader raising them today. I don't intend to support cloture. As I said, there is kind of a breathless quality of coming to the floor with a 4.3-cent gas tax repeal that consumers will probably never see, even if we take the 4.3 cents off. I expect it is going into other pockets long before it gets to the consumer. If it gets done, dye the dollars green and then look around for green pockets someplace. You won't find green at the gas pumps. You will find it somewhere upstream. Some bigger enterprise will pocket that money.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I will discuss for a moment the issues that face the Congress, where we are and why we are here, and suggest perhaps a slightly more robust agenda for the next couple of months. It is now a Monday in April, and it is not quite clear to me what the agenda will be on the floor of the Senate this week. I guess it is not quite clear yet to anyone. We know that in the coming weeks we will do our work as appropriators. I am on the Appropriations Committee, and we will do our work as appropriators and bring appropriations bills to the floor of the Senate, and there are some authorization bills that must get done. But beyond that, it is not quite clear what the agenda is. Recognizing that my political party, the one I represent in this Chamber, did not win the election, it is also clear we don't set the agenda in the Senate. The political system has a unique way of describing who controls institutions such as this. And those who have the most members, who get the most votes in a general election, have the opportunity to control and create an agenda. That is as it should be. But it is perhaps frustrating for me and others that our agenda is not nearly as robust as it could or should be. Let me describe some of the things I think we ought to be doing and that I hope the majority leader and others will agree at some point in the coming weeks that we will do. First, we passed some long time ago a Patients' Bill of Rights. I didn't support the Senate version of it because I didn't think it was a good bill. But the House of Representatives passed a bipartisan piece of legislation coauthored by a Democrat and a Republican in the House of Representatives. It was a very vigorous battle in the House. They passed a real Patients' Bill of Rights bill. It says in this contest of wills between patients, doctors, the insurance companies, and HMOs, that there are certain rights that patients ought to have. Every patient in this country who seeks medical treatment ought to have the right to understand all of their options for medical treatment--not just what's the least expensive. Those who need emergency room treatment ought to be able to expect to have emergency room treatment when needed. When a woman falls off a 40-foot cliff and is hauled into an emergency room comatose, and then the HMO later says: We will not approve your emergency room cost because you didn't get preapproval for emergency room treatment--there is something wrong with the system. Are there certain rights that patients ought to have in this health care system? The answer yes. Among those are the rights embodied in the bill in the House of Representatives called the Patients' Bill of Rights. It is now in conference. It is not likely to produce 67 votes, unfortunately, under current circumstances because the House-appointed conferees, who in most cases didn't vote for the bill, sent it to conference. The Senate, of course, has a piece of legislation that does not do the job. But those of us who support a strong Patients' Bill of Rights remain hopeful that between now and the end of this legislative session we will pass a bipartisan piece of legislation called a Patients' Bill of Rights that really provides the rights and the assistance to patients in dealing with their insurance companies with respect to their health care treatment. Juvenile justice: We passed a juvenile justice bill in the Senate. That bill was passed in Senate legislation that many do not like. Among the two pieces of legislation that people do not like on that bill--and the reason I guess it is stalled--is some legislation dealing with guns. We provided two simple components to that piece of legislation. I come from North Dakota. I grew up hunting. I had a gun when I was a teenager. I pheasant hunted, I deer hunted, and practiced target shooting. I know about guns. I am not somebody running into this Chamber saying let's have gun control. That is not my orientation at all. But the two pieces dealing with guns that we added to the Juvenile Justice Act are so sensible. One is mandatory trigger locks for handguns. When 6-year-olds go to school and shoot another 6-year-old, ought we not to understand the need for trigger locks on handguns? It seems to me that is eminently sensible. Second, the issue of gun shows, and the question of whether at gun shows that people set up around this country on Saturdays or Sundays there ought to be an instant check when guns are sold to find out whether you are selling a gun to a convicted felon. Go to a gun store anywhere in this country and try to buy a gun. They are going to run your name through an instant check to find out if you are a convicted felon because if you are, you cannot buy a gun. But we have a loophole at gun shows which are big, and getting bigger. There are more of them. Many feel--including the Senate, incidentally, by a rather close vote--that we ought to have the opportunity to close that loophole and say if you are going to buy a gun, it does not matter whether it is in a gun store or at a gun show, you ought to have to have your name run through an instant check so we can make sure we are not selling a gun to a felon. Those two issues--trigger locks for handguns for the safety of children in this country, and closing the gun show loophole--have meant that the juvenile justice bill, which is so important, is now in conference, and apparently we can't get it out. I hope we can be more sensible about this and get that bill out of conference, bring it to the floor of the Senate and the House, and get it to the President for his signature. There are other items we continue to struggle with, such as the issue of school construction. I have spoken at great length about walking into the Cannon Ball School and seeing little Rosie Two Bears, a third grader, who says: Mr. Senator, are you going to build me a new school? I said: No, I don't have the money to build you a new school, Rosie. This is a school with 150 kids, one water fountain, two toilets, and closings of the school building which is not fit for classes, where sewer gas comes up and they have to evacuate the rooms. Rosie isn't getting the kind of education we want for her as an American. When we say let's help rebuild, renovate, and construct some of America's schools to bring them back up to standard, we are told, no. You can't do that. That is not the Federal Government's job. It is interesting. There was a piece in Newsweek by Jonathan Alter, a rather interesting columnist. He said about 4 or 5 years ago the Congress decided they were going to spend $8 billion to upgrade jails and prisons. The State and local governments absolutely spent the money for jails and prisons. The Federal Government can upgrade the jails and prisons but not the schools. Is it less important to bring schools up to standard than a jail or a prison somewhere? If we can spend $8 billion to improve places to incarcerate criminals, we ought to be able to spend a few billion dollars to help kids go into a classroom door in a school that we as parents could be proud of. That ought to be done in this session of the Congress as well. Judicial nominations, we want to get through. We don't have a committee in this Congress for lost and found. Almost everywhere else-- hotels, airports, every other institution--when you lose something and ask where the lost and found is, they send you there. There is a lost and found over there. In Congress there is no place you can go to the lost and found. Maybe we need a committee on the lost and found. When these policy issues leave here, you never hear from them again. I hope that in the coming days Republicans and Democrats together can decide that there are certain common elements to an agenda that will strengthen this country and make this a better place in which to live. I don't believe that we have a circumstance where one side of the political aisle is all right, and the other side all wrong. That is not the case. We have good men and women serving in this Chamber on both sides of the political aisle. But it remains a frustration that in some areas where we have passed legislation, it gets sent to a conference somewhere never to be seen again because a small minority refuses to accept sensible judgments of the majority in both the House and the Senate. I think that is the case with the Patients' Bill of Rights with respect to the vote in the House, and certainly is the case with juvenile justice and decisions in the Senate on things such as trigger locks and also closing the gun show loophole. I hope we can find a way to address some of these important issues in the coming weeks and months. I hope we can demonstrate to the American people that we care about education and health care, address the crime issue in a thoughtful way, get nominations through this Chamber, and appoint Federal judges to fill vacancies, which are things that represent part of the agenda that needs to be completed as soon as possible in the Senate. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I came to the floor today as we begin business this week to talk about two issues. First, let me describe what happened Saturday evening on the east coast. There was a hockey team from the University of North Dakota that went to the east coast to play in the NCAA Division I hockey championship. When they finished that competition, the North Dakota Sioux were Division I national champions once again. In fact, it is the seventh Division I national championship for the University of North Dakota hockey team. I am an alumnus of that great school, and it was with great pride I watched the game on television last Saturday evening and saw the North Dakota Fighting Sioux win that contest. We are the home of great skaters, great hockey players, and great tradition. This year, once again, we demonstrated that you don't have to have a 40,000-student population to be a Division I national champion. I called the White House this morning and asked if they would invite that team to the White House, as is often the custom for championship teams--college football, basketball, and other teams, including professional teams who have been invited to the White House by the President to say congratulations to them. I hope he will do the same for this wonderful group of young men from North Dakota who are now this Nation's champions in Division I hockey. So my hat is off to the University of North Dakota. It is a wonderful school. I am proud to have gotten my undergraduate degree there. I am increasingly proud year after year as I watch that school. Not only are they great athletes and hockey players, these are also great students and good young men. This is an athletic program without parallel around the country, in my judgment. Again, I congratulate those young men. I am very proud of them.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to restore the remaining, I believe, 15 minutes of the hour that was reserved on the Democratic side.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. There is no disagreement in the Senate about the marriage tax penalty, that it ought not exist. We should change it. There are several different proposals to change it. We ought to come together with respect to one of those proposals. I will describe one approach to address the marriage tax penalty. I am going to be introducing a piece of legislation at some point in the days ahead with my colleagues, Senator Judd Gregg, a Republican, and Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat, and perhaps others, that would dramatically change the income tax system in this country. This approach would eliminate for a large number of Americans the marriage tax penalty. I have been working on this a couple of years and appreciate the work of Senator Gregg and others. Over 30 countries that have an income tax system allow people to comply with their income tax without having to file a tax return. How do they do it? They just manipulate their W-4 that is filed with the employer to provide a little more information, and their actual withholding becomes their exact tax liability--no questions. That is your liability, no return filed, no searching for records, no long line at the post office on April 15. Our country can do that. Our country can do it in a way that will allow 70 million Americans to comply with their income tax responsibilities on April 15 without having to file an income tax return. How do we do it? You take the W-4 form when you sign in with your employer and you say: I have four children. I own a home--check that box. Check about three or four boxes. From that, you provide opportunities for the deduction for, on average, a mortgage interest deduction, and a couple of other things. A table is then provided by the Internal Revenue Service that sets forth the exact amount of taxes that the employer will withhold and send the IRS, and that is the end of the transaction. You are not going to be hassled or forced to search for receipts; you are not going to wait in a long line at the post office to get your income tax return postmarked by April 15. Now, in doing that, this plan will also eliminate the marriage tax penalty. But the plan only applies to people making $50,000 a year or less in wages, if they are single, or $100,000 a year or less, if they are married filing jointly. If they have less than $2,500 in other income such as interest, dividends or capital gains if they are single, or $5,000 or less in such other income if they are married and filed jointly, they are eligible to check the box that says, yes, I want to use the Fair and Simple Shortcut Tax plan, the FASST plan, which means I don't have to file a tax return. My withholding will be adjusted at my place of work, and the withholding will be sent to the IRS and there is no tax return. Simple, yes. It is the only plan I know of that discusses simplicity. Everybody who talks about simplifying the tax program, in most cases, ends up proposing things that will make it horribly complicated. This will simplify it--but not for everybody. Some people have unusual income characteristics, with four different jobs, and investments, and capital gains of $20,000 or $40,000 a year. It won't work for them. For the majority of the American people whose only income is their wage at work and they have a de minimis amount of other income in capital gains or interest--$5,000 a year if they are married and filing jointly--all that other income will be tax free. So that is the incentive for savings and investment; that is the right incentive. All of the wage income--after several major deductions--up to $50,000 single and $100,000 married filing jointly--will be taxed at the single lowest rate. This plan extends the bottom rate and provides a de minimis amount of income tax free and you don't have to file a tax return anymore. That makes a lot of sense to me and a fellow named Bill Gale at the Brookings Institution, who has done a lot of work on this issue of return-free filing. We are going to introduce legislation, which has been underway for a year and a half, I hope within the next week. As I indicated, Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire has agreed to cosponsor, and Senator Durbin and, I hope, others, so we can begin discussing real simplification for tens of millions of Americans who always do the right thing. They always file a tax return, they always fill it out correctly, and they believe as an American it is their responsibility because we do things, as a country, to provide for a common defense, to build roads and schools, and to provide for a whole series of things. They understand their obligation to pay for the cost of a civilized society, to pay for the cost of democracy. But they ought to be able to do it in a way that is far simpler than the current system, and that is what we intend to accomplish with this legislation. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, this budget is brought to the floor as part of an annual ritual. The ritual in the Senate is to debate budget priorities. It is about making choices. One hundred years from now we will all be gone. We will not be around, but historians can look back at this day, and by evaluating what we viewed to be important and what we wanted to spend money on, they can evaluate what our priorities were. Did we feel health care was a priority? Was education a priority? Were tax cuts a priority? Let's look at the choices. This budget is brought to the floor suggesting that a significant priority is to provide tax cuts, the benefit of which go largely to upper-income folks in this country. The Senator from Virginia, Mr. Robb, offers a different set of priorities. He says: Let's not have these tax cut proposals move forward until and unless there is a prescription drug benefit added to the Medicare program. I happen to think we ought not have tax cuts until we have made a significant payment toward reducing the Federal debt. I also believe, with the Senator from Virginia, that we ought to have a benefit for prescription drugs in the Medicare program. That is what this debate is about--it is about making choices. What are the right choices? I have held hearings in six States with the Democratic Policy Committee on the issue of prescription drugs and Medicare. Let me tell Members about choices senior citizens are making. The Senator from Virginia suggests we are about to make the wrong choice unless we adopt his amendment. I agree with him. Let's make the right choice. Let me describe the choices senior citizens are making. At a hearing in Dickinson, ND, Dr. James Baumgartner told me of a patient of his on Medicare who had surgery for breast cancer. He told her about the prescription drug she would have to take to reduce the chances of recurrence of breast cancer. She said: Doctor, I can't do that. I don't have the money to buy those prescription drugs. I'm just going to have to take my chances. That is a choice. Not a good choice, but a forced choice because there is no coverage for prescription drugs in Medicare. How about the choice of buying food? At another hearing in Illinois, a woman told me that where she goes to the grocery store, the pharmacy counter is at the back end of the store. She must go to the rear of the store to buy her prescription drugs, first, because only then will this older woman know how much money she has left for food. She must buy her prescription drugs first because only then will she know what she can afford to pay for her food. That is a choice she had to make. At another hearing, a fellow told me that he pays $2,400 for medicine. He is living on a fixed income in retirement. He said: I eat spaghetti sometimes 8 and 9 days in a row because I can't afford anything else, and still be able to pay for my prescription medicine. That is a choice. Not a good one but a choice. Or transplant recipients at a hearing in Illinois. We had two people with heart transplants and one with a double lung transplant. One of them said her prescription drugs costs $24,000 a year. That person could probably make a choice of having the rejection of her transplants, but that is not much of a choice either, is it? Or the woman in New York at the hearing I held. Connie, from Rye Brook, NY, has no prescription drug coverage and is forced to pay out- of-pocket costs she cannot afford. She said: I cut the pill in half and take half the dosage so it lasts twice as long. That, too, is a choice. Not a good choice. All over the country, senior citizens are having to make these choices. They are not good choices because we don't have a prescription drug benefit in the Medicare program. Senator Robb from Virginia has said in his amendment that we ought to make it a priority to do the right thing. He is dead right. We have a responsibility to add a prescription drug benefit to this Medicare program. This is the time and the place to make that choice. This vote will determine what that choice is going to be. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I have been listening to this debate, and it is fascinating. Some things that are debated in the Senate are complicated. This is not. The question proposed by Senator Conrad is: Will we devote more money to reducing the debt? If during good economic times we have a surplus and we cannot reduce the debt we have accumulated during tough economic times, when are we going to see real debt reduction? I do not think there is any Senator who ought to be voting against Senator Conrad's second-degree amendment. With respect to the point he made about the use of Social Security funds, he and I, the Senator from Nevada, and others have been on this floor for, I guess, 5 or 6 years talking about this very issue. We cannot use these funds as offsets for something else and then say: No, we didn't use them; in fact, we created a lockbox. Some lockbox. Somebody got away with the key in the middle of the night, apparently. Back to the point. The issue here, offered in the second-degree amendment, is, if during tough economic times we ran up this Federal debt to $5.7 trillion, will we, during good economic times, when we have a surplus, begin to make significant payments to reduce that debt? Is there any greater gift we can give to America's children to reduce that burden on their shoulders of this Federal debt? The answer is no. This second-degree amendment is an amendment every single Senator ought to be supporting if they believe in basic conservative principles of, during good times, paying back what you had to borrow during tough times. That is what this second-degree amendment is all about. It is very simple. As I said when I started, there are a lot of things that are frightfully complicated on which we vote on the floor of the Senate. This is not. This is incredibly simple. We ought to support the second-degree amendment. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I offer legislation today that I introduced previously but on which I was not able to get action during a previous Congress, and that is legislation dealing with truth in sentencing. Let me talk about some folks who have committed violent acts in this country. Recently, I read in a local paper here that a man named Kenneth Lodowski is walking around this metropolitan area. He was sentenced to die in 1984. He murdered two people--one an off-duty police officer, and the other a clerk in a convenience store. He was sentenced to die in 1984 for two murders. The prosecuting attorney called the murders ``as vicious a crime as I have experienced in my 24 years as State's attorney.'' That is the crime. After a series of appeals, this man, who was sentenced to death for two murders, had the sentence changed to life imprisonment without parole, then changed again, then changed again. Finally, the sentence was 25 years in prison. After 16 years in prison, this person is walking around the streets of this metropolitan area--free. Why? Here is the reason. If you commit murder in this country, on average, you are going to be sentenced to about 21 years in prison. On average, a murderer will be sentenced to about 21 years in prison but will serve, on average, only 10 years behind bars. Most people will be startled to hear that. But let me say that again. The average sentence served by a murderer in this country is about 10 years. Why? Because people are let out early. Murderers go to prison, and they get ``good time,'' time off for good behavior: If you want to get out early, just be good in prison, and we will put you back on the streets. What happens when you are put back on the streets? You read the stories. I have spoken a number of times about Bettina Pruckmayr, a young woman who moved to town with great expectations, a young lawyer. She was abducted in a carjacking, then taken to an ATM machine to extract cash, and then stabbed 30 times in a horrible death. This young, 26-year-old attorney who was just beginning her career in this town, was stabbed 30 times by a man who had previously been convicted of rape, armed robbery, and murder. That man was on the streets legally, let out by a criminal justice system that does not keep people who we know are violent behind bars--let out early. Or Jonathan Hall, about whom I have spoken in this Chamber, 13 years old, stabbed by a man who moved into his neighborhood, stabbed 60 times with a screwdriver, thrown down an embankment into a pond. When they found young Jonathan, after being stabbed 60 times, they found dirt and grass between his fingers because even though he had been stabbed 60 times, this 13-year-old boy had tried to crawl out of that pond into which this fellow had thrown him. His clenched fists described his will to survive. But he did not; he died. Jonathan's murderer was a career criminal. He had been convicted previously of kidnapping and murder, but let out, and was living in the neighborhood and able to murder this 13-year-old boy--paroled just 1 year before he took Jonathan's life. And Julie Schultz from ND, a woman whom I know fairly well, the mother of three, who stopped at a highway rest area one day on a pleasant, tranquil afternoon in North Dakota. She was attacked by a man who tried to rape her, slashed her throat, cutting her vocal cords, and left her for dead at a rest area on Highway 2 in northern North Dakota. She survived the attack. In fact, I saw Julie just 2 weeks ago at the Minneapolis Airport. She survived the attack but has lasting scars and difficulties as a result of that attack. Who attacked Julie? The same kind of person who attacked others around this country--people who we knew were violent, were put behind bars, and let out early because the criminal justice system says: You only have to spend 10 years, on average, in jail if you commit a murder in this country. We will sentence you to 21 years, but you only have to spend 10 years behind bars because we will let you out early if you are good. The fellow who slashed the throat of Julie Schultz served 7 years of a life sentence in the State of Washington before being released, before being on Highway 2, on an afternoon in North Dakota, able to do what he did to Julie Schultz. Sara Paulson, 8 years old, went out for a bike ride one day and never came back. Her body was found under a pine tree less than 200 yards from her home. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled to death. Her murderer had been previously sentenced to prison for rape but was paroled after serving less than half of his sentence. I am introducing legislation today, cosponsored by Senator Craig of Idaho, and another piece of legislation cosponsored by Senator Craig of Idaho and Senator Robb of Virginia. The point of it is very simple. I believe in the criminal justice system we ought to have different standards for those who commit acts of violence. Everyone in this country who commits acts of violence ought to understand: You go to prison, and your address is going to be your jail cell until the end of your sentence. Do you know what the prison folks say to us? We need mechanisms by which we can persuade inmates to behave in prison. The mechanism is to dangle before them an early-out, time off for good behavior. So if we are able to reward them for behaving in prison, we are able to manage them. I say to them, what about managing them on the streets? As I stated, there is a fellow who is walking the streets in this metropolitan area now, after 16 years, who killed a policeman and killed a clerk in a store, because he was released early. What about the people on the streets who are going to meet that fellow? What about their safety? Who is managing that violent offender now? Who managed the violent offender who viciously attacked Julie Schultz? Who managed the behavior of the man who violently attacked Jonathan Hall? Who was watching the fellow who violently attacked Bettina Pruckmayr? The answer is, nobody. Let us segregate and separate those who commit violent acts in this country from those who are nonviolent offenders. Let's incarcerate them all. I do not mind early release for nonviolent offenders. But for violent offenders, we ought to have a society in which everyone understands: If you commit an act of violence, the prison cell is your address to the end of your sentence. No good time off for good behavior, no getting back to the streets early. You are going to be in prison to serve your term. It is the only way, it seems to me, to protect innocent folks, such as Bettina Pruckmayr and Jonathan Hall and Julie Schultz, and so many others who have been victimized by people we know were violent and should have been in a prison cell but, instead, were on the streets early because prison authorities let them out early with ``good time'' credits and ``good time'' releases. Let's stop it. My legislation will do that. It says to the States: You must do it. If you do not, you are going to lose certain grants under the Criminal Justice Act. Is that tough? Yes. But we must, it seems to me, take these steps to change this. Again, let me conclude. My colleague from Illinois, I know, wants the floor. But early releases--these are State prisons, incidentally-- sexual assault: Sentenced for 10 years, on average, and you are out in 5; robbery: Sentenced for 8 years, on average, and you are out in 4; murder: Sentenced for 21 years, on average, and you are out in 10. Everyone in this Chamber knows the horrors of crime, if not personally with them and their family, then a neighbor, a friend, a relative. We know the current system isn't working. Too many violent offenders are sent back to America's streets. There is a way to stop that. Yes, I know we have too many people in prison; But the way to be smart about it is to segregate those who are violent offenders from those who are nonviolent. This piece of legislation would start us doing that. If any of us, God forbid, would lose a loved one or relative because of a vicious crime committed by someone who should have been in prison but was let out early, we would spend the rest of our days trying to pass legislation like this. We ought to do it. Let me again say, the piece of legislation I began to talk about today, because of the escape in Chula Vista, CA, has resulted in a convicted murderer walking around on the loose, a man named Prestridge. A violent murderer supposed to be spending the rest of his life behind bars is now loose because he was being transported by a private company and incompetence allowed these violent offenders, two of them, to escape--if we pass Jeanna's bill, named after the young 11-year-old who was violently murdered by Kyle Bell, if we pass that piece of legislation, I won't be here speaking about those circumstances again because they won't happen again. I hope we will be able to address both of those pieces of legislation in the remaining months of this Congress. I thank my colleague from Illinois. I wanted to introduce this legislation and talk about it at some length today. I know he is here to talk as well. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I agree with what the Senator has said. Nearly half of the people incarcerated in this country are violent offenders, half are not. It seems to me we ought to be smarter in the way we incarcerate them, those half whom we know are violent. For those we know are violent, we should not be incentivizing them to move to the streets earlier. We ought to try to find ways to keep them in prison to the end of their term. Those who are nonviolent they have to be punished, serve their time. But they are not violent and are not a threat to people. Senator John Glenn used to talk about this in the Senate. He used to bring with him a model of a Quonset hut, apparently made in Ohio. He said: This is the kind of place I lived in during the Korean war. My wife and I lived in one of these huts various places around the world. It was Marine housing, among other things. He said, for nonviolent offenders, we could put up some barbed wire and build Quonset huts. It doesn't take a fortune to create incarceration compounds for nonviolent offenders. We don't have to put them in lockups that are massively secure, lockups that cost a fortune. Use those lockups for violent offenders; then give yourself enough space to keep violent offenders behind bars to the end of their term. That is the point I was making. I don't disagree with anything the Senator from Illinois said about the crime factor inside the prisons and about the circumstances these days of mandatory sentencing and crimes that have been nonviolent that have crowded the prison system. I thank the Senator for his comments.