Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield?

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.

Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for as much time as I may consume.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I intend to introduce some legislation dealing with violent crime. Before I describe that legislation, I want to speak briefly about another piece of legislation that I previously introduced called Jeanna's bill, named after an 11-year-old girl from Fargo, ND, who was brutally murdered some while ago. I will speak about that for a moment today because something has happened in the last couple of days of which we ought to be aware. This is a picture of a man named Kyle Bell. He is a child killer. He molested children. He was sent to prison for 30 years. He was eventually convicted of killing Jeanna North from Fargo, ND, and sent off to prison. As is too often the case in this country, Kyle Bell was remanded to the custody of a private company to transport him to a prison in some other part of America. That private transport company lost this child killer along the way. He escaped. He was not wearing red clothing or an orange jumpsuit that said: ``I am a prisoner.'' He was in civilian clothes. He was in a van with other prisoners. One of the guards of the company that was transporting him apparently went in to buy a hamburger or something at a gasoline stop, and the other was asleep in the van. Kyle Bell somehow got his shackles off, climbed up through the roof of the van, and was gone. Tragically, the guards did not notice they had lost a convicted child killer for 9 hours--9 hours. It concerned me when I saw what had happened to this child killer. This newspaper piece describes what happened and the manhunt around the country for Kyle Bell, a very violent career criminal. I put together a piece of legislation and was joined by Senator Ashcroft, Senator Leahy, and others, to say that if state and local authorities are going to contract with a private company to haul convicted killers and violent offenders, at least the company ought to have to meet some basic standards. That is just common sense to me. It is not now the case. Any retired law enforcement officer and their brother-in-law and cousin can buy a van, show up at a prison someplace and say: We are hired to haul your prisoners. In fact, it has happened all too often. I will give an example. A husband and wife team showed up at an Iowa State prison to transport six inmates, five of them convicted murderers. The warden looked at the husband and wife team and said: You have to be kidding me. But the prisoners were given to the husband and wife to transport, and, of course, they escaped. There is story after story of this same circumstance. The reason I mention it today is earlier this week in Chula Vista, CA, convicted murderer James Prestridge was being transported. He is a person convicted of murder and sentenced to life without parole. He was apparently, according to the Los Angeles Times, being transported from Nevada to North Dakota where he was going to be incarcerated under some kind of prisoner exchange. This is a convicted killer, to be incarcerated for the rest of his life. Guess what. Mr. James Prestridge, a convicted killer, is no longer in custody. The private company called Extradition International lost him. He escaped. They stopped at a bathroom and he overpowered a guard. He went back to the van, overpowered the other guard, and this guy was gone. He and another violent offender who was with him are on the loose today. Why is this happening? It does not happen when the U.S. Marshal Service transports violent offenders around the country. They are not losing violent offenders. But private companies have no standards to meet, none at all. Hire a couple of people, rent a van, get your brother-in-law, and you are in business. Some States will turn convicted murderers over to you to be transported to another part of the country. This makes no sense to me at all. Convicted killers are being transported around our country without the precaution one would expect in the transport of violent offenders. Under these circumstances, the American people are not safe. Again, the bill I have introduced will require any private company that transports a violent offender to meet basic standards established by the Department of Justice. That bill needs to be heard. We have asked for a hearing before the Judiciary Committee. It has bipartisan support. Congress needs to pass this legislation this year. The escape in Chula Vista, CA, of a convicted murderer is just one more example of many escapes from private prisoner transport companies. I could stand here for 20 minutes and describe the escapes that have occurred with private companies having access to violent offenders. That is not in the public interest. In my judgment, violent offenders probably ought to be transported only by law enforcement. But if some States decide they are going to contract with private companies to transport violent offenders around this country, then those companies ought to have to meet basic standards--standards on how you shackle a violent prisoner, standards on what that violent prisoner shall wear when being transported, standards on the experience and the training of the guards and the kind of equipment that is used. But those standards do not exist now. There is none. That is why people, such as James Prestridge, a convicted murderer, are on the loose. Let's hope no one else loses their life because of this kind of incompetence. (The remarks of Mr. Dorgan and Mr. Durbin pertaining to the introduction of S. 2317 and S. 2318 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me briefly comment on the remarks made by the senior Senator from West Virginia. I know from having visited with him about this subject over some long while that he found this to be a difficult subject, not a simple subject, not an easy issue to resolve. I felt the same way about this issue. He spoke about the U.S. Constitution at great length today and all Members of the Senate will learn from that speech. I have told my colleagues previously that on the 200th birthday of the writing of the Constitution I was one of the 55 Americans who went into that room where the Constitution was written 200 years prior to that, when 55 men went into that room and wrote a Constitution. Two- hundred years later, 55 people--men, women, minorities--went into that room. I was privileged to have been selected to be one of them. I have told the story before and people may get tired of hearing it, but I sat in that room--I come from a town of about 270 people, a small ranching area of Southwestern North Dakota. I sat in that room--the assembly room in Constitution Hall--200 years after the Constitution was written, the document that begins, ``We the people.'' In that room, George Washington's chair is still in front of the room, where he sat as he presided over the constitutional convention, and Ben Franklin sat over on this side, and there was Madison and Mason; Thomas Jefferson was in Europe, but he contributed through his writings to the Bill of Rights. I thought to myself that this is a pretty remarkable country where a fellow from a town of about 270 people can participate in a celebration of this sort. From that moment, I have been troubled by the proposition that some convey so easily of wanting to change the U.S. Constitution. I mentioned yesterday that we have had, I believe, 11,000 proposals to change the Constitution, 11,000. Among those, for example, was a proposal to have a President from the North during one term and then the requirement that the next term of the Presidency be filled by a President who comes from the southern part of the U.S. That was one idea. Fortunately, the Constitution is hard to amend. Since the Bill of Rights, only 17 times have we amended this document, and then in almost every case, it was to expand freedom and liberty. So I have had great difficulty with this issue. I love the flag and what it stands for. I am devoted to the flag and the Constitution and the principles on which this country was founded. I know the Senator from West Virginia is as well. I wanted to say how much I and my colleagues, I am sure, appreciate his presentations to the Senate not just today but on a recurring basis, reminding us of the timeless truths about who we are and about who we have been, about the rich and majestic history of our country and the principles that have allowed us to progress to the point now of the year 2000 as the oldest successful democracy in history. So I want to say thank you. As I say, this is a very difficult issue. I came to the same conclusion, that I did not feel I could amend the U.S. Constitution in this manner. It doesn't mean that I don't believe we ought to find a way, short of changing the Constitution, to provide sanctions for those who would desecrate America's flag. I just have not been able to make the leap of saying, yes, let's change the framework of the Constitution. I thank the Senator from West Virginia for his enormous contribution today.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Ten years ago the U.S. Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision struck down a Texas flag protection statute on the grounds that burning an American flag was ``speech'' and therefore protected under the First Amendment of the Constitution. I disagreed with the Court's decision then and I still do. I don't believe that the act of desecrating a flag is an act of speech. I believe that our flag, as our national symbol, can and should be protected by law. In the intervening years since the Supreme Court decision I have twice supported federal legislation that would make flag desecration illegal, and on two occasions I voted against amendments to the Constitution to do the same. I voted that way because, while I believe that flag desecration is despicable conduct that should be prohibited by law, I also believe that amending our Constitution is a step that should be taken only rarely and then only as a last resort. In the past year I have once again reviewed in detail nearly all of the legal opinions and written materials published by Constitutional scholars and courts on all sides of this issue. I pledged to the supporters of the Constitutional amendment that I would re-evaluate whether a Constitutional amendment is necessary to resolve this issue. From my review I have concluded that there remains a way to protect our flag without having to alter the Constitution of the United States. I joined Senators Bennett, McConnell and Conrad today to introduce legislation that I believe accomplishes that goal. The bill we offered today protects the flag but does so without altering the Constitution and a number of respected Constitutional scholars tell us they believe this type of statute will be upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. This statute protects the flag by criminalizing flag desecration when the purpose is, and the person doing it knows, it is likely to lead to violence. Supporters of a Constitutional amendment are disappointed I know by my decision to support a statutory remedy to protect the flag rather than support an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I know they are impatient to correct a decision by the Supreme Court that they and I believe was wrong. I have wrestled with this issue for so long and I wish I were not, with my decision, disappointing those, including many of my friends, who passionately believe that we must amend the Constitution to protect the flag. But in the end I know that our country will be better served reserving our attempts to alter the Constitution only for those things that are ``extraordinary occasions'' as outlined by President James Madison, one of the authors of the Constitution, and only in circumstances when it is the only remedy for something that must be done. More than 11,000 Constitutional amendments have been proposed since our Constitution was ratified. However, since the ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791 only 17 amendments have been enacted. These 17 include three reconstruction era amendments that abolished slavery, and gave African-Americans the right to vote. The amendments included giving women the right to vote, limiting Presidents to two terms, and establishing an order of succession in case of a President's death or departure from office. The last time Congress considered and passed a new Constitutional amendment was when it changed the voting age to 18, more than a quarter of a century ago. All of these matters were of such scope they required a Constitutional amendment to be accomplished. However, protecting the American flag can be accomplished without amending the Constitution, and that is a critically important point. Constitutional scholars, including those at the Congressional Research Service, the research arm of Congress, and Duke University's Professor William Alstyne, have concluded that this statute passes Constitutional muster, because it recognizes that the same standard that already applies to other forms of speech applies to burning the flag as well. This is the same standard which makes it illegal to falsely cry ``fire'' in a crowded theater. Reckless speech that is likely to cause violence is not protected under the ``fighting words'' standard, long recognized by the Supreme Court of the United States. I believe that future generations--and our founding fathers--would agree that it's worth the effort for us to find a way to protect our flag without having to wonder about the unintended consequences of altering our Constitution. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, today I am, along with Senator Daschle, Senator Baucus and Senator Johnson, introducing the Rural Broadband Enhancement Act to deploy broadband technology to rural America. As the demand for high speed Internet access grows, numerous companies are responding in areas of dense population. While urban America is quickly gaining high speed access, rural America is--once again--being left behind. Ensuring that all Americans have the technological capability is essential in this digital age. It is not only an issue of fairness, but it is also an issue of economic survival. To remedy the gap between urban and rural America, this legislation gives new authority to the Rural Utilities Service to make low interest loans to companies that are deploying broadband technology to rural America. Loans are made on a company neutral and a technology neutral basis so that companies that want to serve these areas can do so by employing technology that is best suited to a particular area. Without this program, market forces will pass by much of America, and that is unacceptable. This issue is not a new one. When we were faced with electrifying all of the country, we enacted the Rural Electrification Act. When telephone service was only being provided to well-populated communities, we expanded the Rural Electrification Act and created the Rural Utilities Service to oversee rural telephone deployment. The equitable deployment of broadband services is only the next step in keeping America connected, and our legislation would ensure that. If we fail to act, rural America will be left behind once again. As the economy moves further and further towards online transactions and communications, rural America must be able to participate. Historically, our economy has been defined by geography, and we in Congress were powerless to do anything about it. Where there were ports, towns and businesses got their start. Where there were railroad tracks, towns and businesses grew up around them. The highway system brought the same evolution. But the Internet is changing all of that. No longer must economic growth be defined by geographic fiat. Telecommunications industries and policy-makers are proclaiming, ``Distance is dead!'' But, that's not quite right: Distance will be dead, as long as Congress ensures that broadband services are available to all parts of America, urban and rural. I look forward to working with Senator Daschle, Senator Baucus, Senator Johnson and my other colleagues in the Senate to pass this legislation and give rural America a fair chance to survive.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Theresa Mullin be allowed floor privileges during my speech today.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I understand we have 45 minutes in morning business set aside.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, if I could be notified after 12 minutes.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, these are two pill bottles. They are a different shape, but they contain the same pill made in the same factory, made by the same company. This happens to be a pill most of us will recognize. It is called Claritin. It is commonly used for allergies. This bottle of 100 tablets, 10 milligrams each, is sold in the United States for $218. That is the price to the customer in the United States. This pill bottle is sold in Canada. It is the same pill made by the same company, in the same number of tablets and the same strength, but this bottle costs only $61. The same bottle of pills is $218 to the U.S. consumer; to the Canadian consumer, $61. By the way, the Canadian price has been converted into U.S. dollars. One must ask the question: Do you think the pharmaceutical manufacturers are losing money in Canada selling it for $61? I guarantee you they would not sell it there if they were losing money, but they charge 358 percent more to the U.S. consumer. I will demonstrate another drug. These two bottles contain Cipro. It is a common medicine to treat infection. This time, the drug is actually packaged in the same type of bottle, with the same marking, same coloring, and containing the same pills made by the same company. Incidentally, both were from facilities inspected by the FDA in the United States. Cipro, purchased in the United States, 500 milligram tablets, 100 tablets, costs $399. If one buys the pills in the same bottle in Canada, it is $171. The U.S. consumer is charged 233 percent more. We need to do something about two issues: One, we need to put some downward pressure on pharmaceutical drug prices and to ask the legitimate question: Why should the American consumer pay higher prescription drug prices than anyone else in the world? Is that fair? The answer, of course, is no. What does it mean to those who can least afford it? It means lifesaving medicine is often not available to those who cannot afford access to it. I can tell my colleagues story after story of folks who came to hearings I held in Chicago, New York, and all around the country describing their dilemma. There were people who had double lung transplants, heart transplants and cancers, talking about $2,000 a month in prescription drug costs. This is serious, and this is trouble for a lot of folks. We need to do something about putting downward pressure on prescription drug prices. I have a solution for that, and that is to allow US pharmacists and distributors access to the same drugs in Canada and to bring it down and pass the savings along to the US consumers. We have to pass a law to do that. We are having a little trouble passing that bill. Second, we need to add a prescription drug benefit to the Medicare program. I will now turn to the Patients' Bill of Rights, which is the second piece of legislation we ought to get done. The Senate has passed a bill, some call it the ``Patients' Bill of Goods'' because it did not do much and it covered few people. The House passed a bipartisan bill, the Dingell-Norwood bill. Democrats and Republicans joined to pass this bill. It is a good bill. The Senate and House bills are in conference. The House appointed conferees who voted against the House bill because the House leadership does not support the bipartisan bill that passed the House. We have a paradox of conferees from the House who, by and large, do not support the House bill, which is the only good bill called the Patients' Bill of Rights. I will describe a couple of the elements of the Patients' Bill of Rights, which are so important. First is the situation with Ethan Bedrick. One might say: You have done that before; that is unfair. It is not unfair. Health care denied to individuals is a very personal issue. When we have a framework for health care delivery in this country that denies basic health care services under certain HMOs and certain policies to people who need it, it is perfectly fair to talk to people in the Senate about the need to change public policy. This is little Ethan Bedrick from Raleigh, NC. When he was born, his delivery was very complicated. It resulted in severe cerebral palsy and impaired the motor functions in his limbs. As you can see, he has bright eyes and a wonderful smile. When he was 14 months old, his insurance company curtailed his physical therapy. Why? Because they said he only had a 50-percent chance of walking by age 5. A 50-percent chance of walking by age 5 is not enough, they said. This is a matter of dollars and cents, so Ethan shall not get his physical therapy. Is it fair to raise these questions? Of course it is. Should someone like Ethan with a 50-percent chance of walking by age 5 have an opportunity for the physical therapy he needs? You bet. Should we have a Patients' Bill of Rights that will guarantee him that access under an HMO contract? You bet. We have in the House of Representatives Dr. Greg Ganske, a Republican, and very courageous fellow, I might add. He is one of the key sponsors of the Patients' Bill of Rights in the House of Representatives. Dr. Ganske is also someone who has done a substantial amount of reconstructive surgery. He used this photograph, which is quite a dramatic photograph showing a baby born with a very serious defect, a cleft lip shown in this picture. Dr. Ganske was a reconstructive surgeon before he came to Congress. He said he routinely saw HMOs turn down treatment for children with this kind of defect because they said it was not medically necessary. I thought when I heard Dr. Ganske make that presentation the first time: How can anyone say correcting this is not medically necessary? Then Dr. Ganske used a picture which showed what a correction looks like when reconstructive surgery is done. Isn't it wonderful what can happen with good medicine? But it can only happen if that child has access to that reconstructive surgery. Is it a medical necessity? Is it fair for us to discuss and debate the Republican policy? The answer is clearly yes. Let me also mention a case I have discussed before on the floor of the Senate, young Jimmy Adams. Jimmy is now 5. When he was 6 months old, he developed a 105-degree fever. When his mother called the family's HMO, they were told they should bring James to an HMO- participating hospital 42 miles away, even though there were emergency rooms much closer. On that long trip to the hospital, this young boy suffered cardiac and respiratory arrest and lost consciousness. Upon arrival, the doctors were able to revive him, but the circulation in his hands and feet had been cut off. As you can see, he lost his hands and feet. Why didn't they stop at the first emergency room or the second emergency room that was closer? Because the HMO said: We will only reimburse you if you stop at the emergency room we sanction. So 42 miles later, this young boy had these very serious problems and lost his hands and feet. What are we to make of all this? We have very significant differences in the Patients' Bill of Rights between the House and the Senate. The differences in the bill of rights in the House and the Senate are the differences dealing with medical necessity. As used in HMO contracts: Medical necessity means the shortest, least expensive or least intense level of treatment, care or service rendered or provided, as determined by us. The fact is, health care ought not be a function of someone's bottom line. Young Ethan, young Jimmy, or the young person born with a severe birth defect, like the cleft palate defect of the type I described, ought not be a function of some insurance company's evaluation of whether their profit or loss margin will suffer by providing treatment to these patients. A woman fell off a cliff in Virginia, dropped 40 feet and was rendered unconscious. She went into a coma and was brought into an emergency room and treated for broken bones and a concussion. They wheeled her into the emergency room on a gurney, while unconscious, yet the HMO later, after she survived, said: We will not pay for your emergency room treatment because you did not have prior approval. This is a woman, unconscious, in a coma, wheeled into an emergency room, but she did not get prior approval. That is the sort of thing that goes on too often in this country in health care. It ought to be stopped. It can be stopped if we pass a Patients' Bill of Rights. Not if we pass a patients' bill of goods that someone tries to misname to tell their constituents they have done something when, in fact, they stood up with the insurance companies, rather than with patients. We need a Patients' Bill of Rights that really digs in on these issues: What is a medical necessity? Do patients have a right to know all of their options for treatment, not just the cheapest? Do they have those rights? The piece of legislation that was passed in the House gives patients those rights. The piece of legislation the majority passed in the Senate does not. We are going to continue to fight to try to get something out of this conference committee that medical patients in this country, that the American people can believe will give them some basic protection, some basic rights, so that the kinds of circumstances I have described will not continue to exist in this country. Health care ought not be a function of someone's profit and loss statement. People who need lifesaving treatment ought to be able to get it. The ability to access an emergency room during an emergency ought not be something that is debatable between a patient and an HMO. Those are the issues we need to deal with in the coming couple of months--both of them health care issues, both of them important to the American people. I hope that as this debate unfolds, we will have some bipartisan help in trying to address prescription drugs in Medicare, No. 1, and, No. 2, passing a real Patients' Bill of Rights, to give real help to the American people. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I want to talk about two issues we must address in this Congress before the end of the year, both dealing with health care. I will describe very briefly why these are important and why many have been pushing for some long while to try to get the Senate to act on this issue. First is prescription drugs and Medicare. On Friday of the past week, I was in New York City with Senator Chuck Schumer holding a hearing on the issue of prescription drugs and Medicare. I have held similar hearings in Chicago, in Minneapolis, and various places around the country as the chairman of the Democratic Policy Committee. We have had virtually identical testimony no matter what part of the country we were in. Senior citizens say drug prices are very high. When they reach their senior years, living on fixed incomes, they are not able to access prescription drugs that they need. In Dickinson, ND, a doctor told me of a patient of his who had breast cancer. He told the woman after her surgery that she was going to have to take some prescription drugs in order to reduce the chances of the recurrence of breast cancer. When she found out what the cost of the prescription was, she said: I can't afford to take these drugs. The doctor said: Taking them will reduce the risk of recurrence of breast cancer. The woman said: I will just have to take my chances. Why did she say that? Because there is no coverage in the Medicare program for prescription drugs and because many of these prescription drugs cost a significant amount of money. Senior citizens in this country are 12 percent of America's population, but they consume 33 percent of the prescription drugs in our country. Last year, spending on prescription drugs in the United States increased 16 percent in 1 year. Part of this increase is the increase in drug prices and part is greater utilization of prescription drugs. What does that mean? It means that everyone has a rough time paying for prescription drugs, especially senior citizens who live on fixed incomes. Many of us believe that were we to create a Medicare program today in the Congress, there is no question we would have a prescription drug benefit in that program. Most of these lifesaving prescriptions were not available in the sixties when Medicare was created. But a lifesaving prescription drug can only save a life if those who need it can afford to access it. That is the point. That is why many of us want to include in the Medicare program a benefit for prescription drugs. We do not want to break the bank. We want to do it in a thoughtful way. We would have a copayment. We would have it developed in a manner that allows senior citizens to choose to access it or not. They could either participate in this Medicare prescription drug program or they could decide not to do it. In any event, we ought to do something on this subject. Those of us who have come to the floor over and over again saying this is a priority believe with all our hearts this is something we should do for our country. I will take a moment to describe part of the pricing problem with prescription drugs. The U.S. consumer pays the highest price for prescription drugs of anyone else in the world. I ask unanimous consent to show a couple of pill bottles on the floor of the Senate.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Kentucky and the Senator from Utah. This has always been a very difficult issue for me. I voted against a constitutional amendment to prohibit flag desecration both as a Member of the House of Representatives and also previously as a Member of the Senate. But it has been very difficult, largely because I believe, as do most Americans, that desecrating our flag is repugnant. It is an act that none of us would find anything other than disgusting. Yet the question is not that; the question is, Shall we amend the Constitution of the United States? As I said on two previous occasions, I have voted against a constitutional amendment to prohibit the desecration of the flag, not because I believe the flag is not worth protecting--I believe it is worth protecting--but because I believe the Constitution should be altered only rarely and only in circumstances where it is the only method available to achieve a desired result. The Constitution was written by 55 men over a couple of centuries ago. The room in which they wrote that document still exists, the assembly room in Constitution Hall. I was privileged to go back there for the 200th birthday of the writing of the Constitution. On that day, 55 of us went back into the chamber where they wrote the Constitution. Men, women, and minorities were among the 55 of us who went into that room. Sitting in that room, I got the chills because I saw the chair where George Washington sat as he presided over the Constitutional Convention. You can see where Ben Franklin, Mason, Madison, and others sat as they discussed the development of a constitution for this new democracy of ours. That Constitution begins with the three words: We the people. Then it describes the framework for self-government, representative democracy. That framework has served this country very, very well over a very long period of time. As I understand it, there have been over 11,000 proposals to change the Constitution since the Bill of Rights. There have been 11,000 different ideas on how to alter the U.S. Constitution. Fortunately, over two centuries, 17 have prevailed. The framers of the Constitution actually made it fairly difficult to amend the Constitution. They did that for good reason. Only 17 of the 11,000 proposals have actually prevailed. Those 17, of course, are significant. Three of them are Reconstruction-era amendments that abolished slavery and gave African Americans and women the right to vote. There have been amendments limiting the President to two terms and establishing an order of succession for a President's death or departure from office. We have had proposals, for example, to amend the Constitution to provide that the Presidency shall be rotated with one term by a President from the southern part of the United States and then the next term by a President from the northern part. That is just one example of the 11,000 proposals to change the U.S. Constitution. It has been done only very rarely. I indicated to those who support a constitutional amendment that when we are confronted with this question again--I greatly respect their views; I know they have great passion in doing so; they are patriots--I would do a significant review once again, and I have. I reviewed virtually all of the writings of the constitutional scholars on this issue. I read almost anything anyone has written about it, evaluated all of the research, and concluded once again that I think the best approach would be to pass a statute of the type described by the Senator from Kentucky and the Senator from Utah, and provide protection for the flag in that manner which constitutional scholars of the Congressional Research Service say will be upheld by the Supreme Court. I believe that is the more appropriate and right approach as opposed to amending the Constitution. I will read something from Gen. Colin Powell, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He puts it probably better than I can. I read it only to describe again that there are some who say, well, if you are not supporting a constitutional amendment to prohibit desecration of the flag somehow you don't support the flag or you are unworthy. That is not the case at all. I hope all of us will respect the various positions on this. Let me read the letter from Gen. Colin Powell. He said: I love our flag, our Constitution and our country with a love that has no bounds. I defended all three for 35 years as a soldier and was willing to give my life in their defense. Americans revere their flag as a symbol of the Nation. Indeed, it is because of that reverence that the amendment is under consideration. Few countries in the world would think of amending their Constitution for the purpose of protecting such a symbol. We are rightfully outraged when anyone attacks or desecrates our flag. Few Americans do such things and when they do they are subject to the rightful condemnation of their fellow citizens. They may be destroying a piece of cloth, but they do no damage to our system of freedom which tolerates such desecration. If they are destroying a flag that belongs to someone else, that's a prosecutable crime. If it is a flag they own, I really don't want to amend the Constitution to prosecute someone for foolishly desecrating their own property. We should condemn them and pity them instead. I understand how strongly so many of my fellow veterans and citizens feel about the flag and I understand the powerful sentiment in state legislatures for such an amendment. I feel the same sense of outrage. But I step back from amending the Constitution to relieve that outrage. The First Amendment exists to insure that freedom of speech and expression applies not just to that with which we agree or disagree, but also that which we find outrageous. I would not amend that great shield of democracy to hammer a few miscreants. The flag will be flying proudly long after they have slunk away. Finally, I shudder to think of the legal morass we will create trying to implement the body of law that will emerge from such an amendment. If I were a member of Congress, I would not vote for the proposed amendment and would fully understand and respect the views of those who would. For or against, we all love our flag with equal devotion. I think this letter from Gen. Colin Powell says it well, particularly when he says: I would not amend that great shield of democracy to hammer a few miscreants. The flag will be flying proudly long after they have slunk away. The statute that has been introduced by my colleagues from Utah and Kentucky, cosponsored by myself, Senator Conrad and others, is a statute that offers some protection. I am convinced that it would be upheld constitutionally, and the constitutional scholars of the Congressional Research Service have written us with their opinion that it would be upheld as well. I believe in every circumstance we ought to find ways to do that which is necessary and which is important without the resulting desire to change the framework of this democracy, the Constitution. I greatly respect those who disagree with me, but I believe that over a long period of time--a decade, a half a century, a century--America will be better served if we resist the impulse to amend the Constitution in ways that will create unintended consequences. Once again, that room in which George Washington, Madison, Mason, Franklin, and others wrote the Constitution of the United States with the advice and consent of Thomas Jefferson, who was serving in Europe at the time and contributed most to the Bill of Rights, contains a great sense of history for those of us who have been there, as well as an understanding that the framework for our democracy, the U.S. Constitution, is a very special and very precious document. It should be changed only in rare circumstances, and even then only when it is the last method available for achieving a result we deem imperative for this country. I believe the statute that has been offered as an amendment is a statutory approach that will solve this issue in an appropriate way, and will at the same time preserve the Constitution as intended, especially with the Bill of Rights and most especially with the care that Congress and the American people have nurtured over nearly two centuries. Mr. President, let me commend the Senator from Kentucky. I know this amendment has been offered before on the floor of the Senate. I heard the debate by the Senator from Kentucky and the Senator from Utah. I concur with that discussion and hope we can achieve a positive vote on this proposal when it is voted on. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. If the Senator will yield, I didn't realize I was speaking on Senator Wellstone's time. I ask the chairman if the Senator needs more time, I am sure he will be accommodating. I appreciate the generous opportunity.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me begin by thanking the Senator from Kansas, Mr. Roberts; Senator Kerrey from Nebraska; my colleague, Senator Conrad from North Dakota, and others, for their excellent work in bringing this legislation to the floor of the Senate. It is my intention to support this legislation. I also say that I think the sense-of-the-Senate resolution offered by the Senator from Minnesota, Mr. Wellstone, is certainly thoughtful and worthy of support, as well. I, too, join him in saying to my colleague, Senator Lugar, that I have always believed he is a major contributor to most every public debate in this Senate, especially on foreign policy, and a range of other things. But it is true, we disagree on farm policy from time to time. We recently had an exchange of letters about that disagreement. But that does not, in any way, diminish my respect for him as a leader and a legislator. My fervent hope is at some point I could reach over and reach out to Senator Lugar and convince him that we need to--tomorrow or Thursday-- start a series of hearings and change the farm bill. But I do not expect that will be the case. He will certainly explain his position on these issues in an articulate way soon. But let me describe some of my feelings about where we are. Let me start with this: I say to my friend from Minnesota, this morning for breakfast I had something called Cream of Wheat. I do not know how many servings of Cream of Wheat are served in America every morning or every year but a lot of them. Cream of Wheat, if you want to know the origin of it, just for fun--I notice the Presiding Officer is hanging on my every word here--came from Grand Forks, ND, in the year 1893. A little old mill called the Diamond Mills was not doing very well. They had a scientist who was sort of moving around and trying to figure out what he could do with various parts of the grain. He used what are called the middlings of wheat, and he concocted what he called a ``breakfast porridge.'' So a man named Tom Amidon from Grand Forks, ND, in 1893, concocted what he called ``breakfast porridge'' with the middlings from wheat, and it is what is called Cream of Wheat. It is what I ate for breakfast this morning. Cream of Wheat comes from the wheat fields in North Dakota and other places in the country. A farmer gases a tractor, buys the seed, plants the seed, and does all the work to produce this wheat. Then it is ground up. Among that grinding you get some middlings. Somebody produces breakfast food with those middlings. Cream of Wheat does not come from Grand Forks, ND, I must say with disappointment. Cream of Wheat is owned by Nabisco Company. It happens to be produced in my colleague's home State of Minnesota. The middlings, the wheat, the Cream of Wheat, the jobs, do not belong to the folks that gas the tractor and plant the seed and harvest the grain. No, that is not the way it works in agriculture. Our farmers go out and plant a crop--corn, wheat, barley--and then someone comes along and buys it. They take a look at that kernel and say: You know what we ought to do. We ought to puff that up and then put it in a bright-colored box, and we will take that wheat and call it puffed wheat. Guess what that costs. Go to the grocery store and buy puffed wheat, puffed rice. They puff it; they shred it; they crisp it; they manipulate it in a hundred different ways and send it to the grocery store shelf in bright-colored boxes. The farmer gets a pittance for that grain because the farmer is told that grain does not have any value anymore. At the grocery store shelf it costs a fortune because now it has been puffed. So the puff is apparently more valuable than the grain that is produced out of the ground from the tireless work of a family farmer. That describes part of the problem in this system of ours. We had a couple thousand people come to town, as the Senator from Minnesota described. They are the ones who could afford to come. I am sure it was a struggle for many of them. Folks from my State--400 of them--got on buses, seven buses. I think they will have traveled close to 6 days--they are still on a bus, I am sure--traveling to Washington and back to North Dakota. The fellow from just west of Valley City would not have been among them because he stood up at a meeting I had some while ago, and his chin began to tremble, and he had tears in his eyes--a big, husky guy with a beard. He said his granddad farmed his farm; his dad farmed his farm; and he farmed it for 23 years. Then his chin began to tremble, and he said: But I can't do it anymore. I'm being forced off the farm. You could see that for him it was not about dollars and cents; it was the loss of a dream--a broken heart and broken dreams. I am sure he did not come out here because he is not farming anymore and could not afford it. He is probably struggling, after 23 years on a farm, trying to find something else to do--another job to try to make some income. He made a point, as so many farmers do, that he was a good farmer. He did not waste money. He did not go to town on weekend nights. He did not buy new clothes. He told the kids they could not afford a new pair of jeans for school because they did not have the money. He said: This isn't my fault. Collapsed prices are not my fault. Bad trade agreements are not my fault. Monopolies that press their boots down on the chests of family farmers are not my fault. He was right about that. He didn't cause these problems. Somewhere in the crevice between mathematics and virtue rests a blindness that somehow refuses to recognize value and values. We tend to think of all of this in the context of economics and numbers, not understanding, apparently, that family farmers produce something more than a crop. Yes, a farmer produces wheat in the fields of North Dakota. That family living on a farm also produces a social product that most economists and most others believe has no value whatsoever in our country, a social product called community, called family values, called part of our culture that all of us understand, an environment that is good, a neighborhood that is free of crime, a lifestyle in which neighbors help one another. When Ernest had a heart attack at harvest time in my hometown, his neighbors took the crop off the field. Why? Because they were competitors? No, because they were neighbors. That is a social product, but economists say it has no value. The Europeans say it has value. In fact, in the trade negotiations between Europe and the United States, they say they want something called multifunctionality considered. Our trade people scratch their heads and say: What on Earth are you talking about, multifunctionality? The Europeans say: This is an important element of farming that you are missing when you just look at the hard numbers. What is missing is community, values, a certain culture we want to retain and sustain in our future. Our trade negotiators just can't understand that. They say: We don't understand that. This is all about dollars and cents. This is about markets. My point is, family farms produce more than just grain. They produce something very important for this country. It is a social product that this country ought to want to retain and keep. There are a series of things we must do to respond to the urgent needs of family farmers. We must repair a safety net that does not now provide the kind of assistance family farmers need when prices collapse. Family farmers can't make it across the valley when prices collapse without some kind of safety net to bridge that valley. That is No. 1. No. 2, we must have better trade agreements. Family farmers cannot compete with one arm tied behind their backs. It is not fair. The Canadian trade agreement wasn't fair to our family farmers. It sold out family farmers' interests. I regret to say that, but I can bring data to the floor released yesterday that demonstrates that was the case. NAFTA was unfair and GATT was unfair to our family farmers. I will be happy to come and speak at great length about that, but I won't today. We must have a better safety net, better trade policies, and action against monopolies. Farmers ought not to have to market upstream when they are selling fat steers into a circumstance where just several companies control 80 percent of the steer slaughter. The same is true in every direction a farmer looks. If you want to put the grain on a railroad someplace, guess what. You will put your grain on a railroad that is a monopoly in most cases. The railroad will say to you: Here is what we charge. If you don't like it, tough luck. Just as an example, if you have a carload of wheat in Bismarck, ND, and you will ship to Minneapolis, you will be charged $2,300 to ship it from Bismarck to Minneapolis. Ship the same carload of wheat from Minneapolis to Chicago, about the same distance, and you are charged $1,000. Why are North Dakota farmers charged more than double to ship a carload of wheat about the same distance? Because there is no competition in North Dakota on that line. Between Minneapolis and Chicago, there is. That is called monopoly pricing, and it is unfair to family farmers. The fourth thing we need to do is fix crop insurance. That is what this does. That is why I am here supporting it. I know that is a long introduction to get to my support. I will be very brief to say that I think this legislation has a lot to commend itself to the Senate. This is a good piece of legislation--perfect, no, but good. Here is what it does. It makes crop insurance more affordable at buy- up coverage levels that are most useful to farmers. It addresses the problem of multiyear losses, which has been a very difficult problem for North Dakota farmers, and their impact on insurance coverages. It makes an important financial commitment to crop insurance expansion, research and development, education and outreach--issues that are particularly important to specialty crop communities. It authorizes a pilot program for livestock. It improves the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program. This is a good bill. I know my colleagues have struggled mightily to produce this legislation. This bill comes to the floor with bipartisan support, Republicans and Democrats supporting it. I am pleased to support it and to commend all those who have helped bring this to the floor and who will support it in the Senate. It is but one step in a series of steps we must take to try to give family farmers some help. Those 400 North Dakotans who are on 7 buses now on the highways going back to North Dakota could well have been elsewhere this week. In most cases, in ordinary years, they would have been in the machine shed and they would have been working on their tractor, working on their farm equipment, repairing, replacing, renovating, greasing, changing the oil, getting all ready for spring. That is what farmers do. Farmers only can farm if they have hope. In most cases, these families live out on the farmsteads because they love that way of life. The only way any of us could understand this is if we were to take our income each year. We have a salary in the Senate; we know what we are going to get each month. Wouldn't it be interesting if all Members of the Senate could let their income rest on certain things that are outside their control and have no certainty of income. Perhaps let your income rest on the question of whether it rains enough or too much, whether insects come to the Midwest, whether crop disease surfaces, whether there is a hail cloud that shows up or a funnel cloud that shows up in late August before harvest. If perhaps if we had that risk of income, we would be able to understand better, as all Members of the Senate, what family farmers face. It is a very unusual, risky proposition that family farmers face every single year, with many elements in the determination of what kind of income they get that are completely outside of their control. That is why this is different. The enterprise of farming is different. Thomas Jefferson said it in words I cannot nearly match. But family farming is different. It is critically important to the future of this country. It is much more than just economics, finance, or math. It is a social product produced on our family farms in this country that contributes mightily to the character of this country as well. That is why this is an important piece of legislation. I hope it is but a first small step in a journey we can make together to improve the opportunities for family farmers in our country. I think the amendment offered by my colleague from Minnesota, which is a sense-of-the-Senate amendment commending those who came to Washington, DC, this week, is an appropriate amendment. I hope the Senate will agree to that amendment as well. 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. DORGAN. Mr. President, I understand the Senate is about to adjourn for the day. I was not going to come to the floor. Then I thought I would not sleep much tonight if I didn't come to the floor and say what I think ought to be said about the Federal Reserve Board. Again, today in secret downtown they increased interest rates for the fifth time in a relatively short period of time. Will Rogers once said--and it is probably good to quote him in this room, where we used to have spittoons all across the Senate, I understand, well before I came here--``When there is no place left to spit, you either have to swallow your tobacco juice or you have to change with the times.'' That is something the Federal Reserve Board would not understand. The fact is, they met today again in secret behind closed doors, as they always do, because it is the last dinosaur left in this town. Everything else is relatively open. But the Federal Reserve Board meets in secret. They decided to do so again today. They decided to increase interest rates once again. The last five interest rate increases, including this one today, mean that every family in America, on average, will pay an additional $440 in interest charges this year. That is a tax on every American family. That was imposed on the shoulders of every American family, with no debate and no discussion. It was done in secret by the bankers down at the Federal Reserve Board. Just because I feel so kindly about the role they played, I figured I should show the American people at least who they are. As I have in the past, I provided their pictures, their salaries, and their education. Of course, if you put them all into a barrel and rolled them around, it wouldn't matter which was on the top; they still look the same. They still have the same education, they still make about the same amount of money, and they apparently still think the same. They all think this country is growing too fast, and they think there are too many people working. So they view themselves as a set of human brake pads whose design it is to slow down the American economy. The problem with that is, there is no evidence to support what the Federal Reserve Board has done today. Worker productivity is up. It is up substantially. The Consumer Price Index with respect to the core inflation rate and the Producer Price Index with respect to the core rate are not showing what the Federal Reserve Board is looking for; that is, a new wave of inflation in the American economy. In fact, inflation is well under control and the productivity of the American workers continues to rise. According to the Federal Reserve Board's own ``beige book,'' which is what they call it, wage pressures have actually eased in some parts of the country since late last year. Last year, productivity in this country rose by 3 percent. The final quarter of 1999 saw productivity increasing 6.4 percent, the largest rise in seven years. This surge of productivity by American workers pushed down unit labor costs by a 2\1/ 2\ percent annual rate. The question is, Why does the Federal Reserve Board not want to allow workers who are more productive to share in this country's prosperity? Why is it the central bankers are desperately afraid of having folks who work on assembly lines, and are more productive for doing it, get a wage increase or a salary increase? The first sight of that and the Fed has an apoplectic seizure and decides it wants to tax every American with higher interest rates. I read the other day about a fellow named Walt Frazier. The Fed ought to invite Walt to town and bring him into their mahogany room before they close the door. The Washington Post wrote a story about Walt Frazier. Walt is a live chicken hanger. He works in one of these chicken processing plants. The live chicken hanger is the fellow in the front end of the room who pulls chickens by their feet and hangs them as they go around through the throat slasher and the other processes, and at the back end comes out a chilled, packaged chicken that goes to the store. Walt is a chicken hanger at the front end. The shift he works begins at 5:48 in the morning. He is done at 2:18 p.m. in the afternoon. He grabs a live chicken every 2 seconds and puts that live chicken on a hanging machine that circulates. He lifts and hangs 10,000 chickens a day, the Washington Post said. That is 2\1/2\ tons of wiggling, fighting, clawing flesh. Walt works on the line. Do you know what Walt makes? For 20 years he has done that. He makes $8.88 an hour or $18,470 a year. He had a couple of operations on his wrists because grabbing live chickens in a chicken plant means you get clawed, scratched, and beat up. The point about mentioning Walt Frazier is he is one of the folks who works in the chicken plant. He is more productive because of machinery and other things, but the Federal Reserve Board doesn't want to look at folks who are working in those circumstances who, because they are more productive, ought to be able to earn more money. The Federal Reserve Board says: No, we don't want America to show greater gains for workers. We worry about that. We think that is inflationary. So what do they do? They keep slapping on new interest charges. It is a classic fight we have had over the past two centuries between those who finance production and those who produce and work in production. Those who finance have great friends at the Federal Reserve Board. The gold stars are the folks on the Open Market Committee who today helped the Fed Board of Governors decide that the American families ought to pay higher interest charges. The American people had no say. But the Federal Reserve Board did it because they tilt their policies toward the big money center banks and against the interests of working folks in this country. I say once again, as I have said on other occasions, the Federal Reserve Board could use a good dose of common sense. We have two vacancies. I have said repeatedly one ought to go to my Uncle Joe. My Uncle Joe used to fix generators and alternators in his garage. He worked with his hands and knows something about running a small business. None of these people on the Federal Reserve Board appear to understand the consequences of slapping $440 in additional interest charges on the American people. They can afford it. They are not worried about the effects of those working for a living on the assembly line who are trying to be more productive and who expect as a result of being more productive to get more income. The Federal Reserve Board is interested in money center banks. They see inflation under every cover and under every bed. Every moment they see new waves of inflation. I say to the Federal Reserve Board: You are wrong again. You have been wrong, wrong, wrong. Go back about 5 years and tell the American people what you said then: If unemployment falls below 6 percent, we will have more inflation. Unemployment has been below 6 percent for more than 5 years and inflation is down. Federal Reserve Board, tell the American people what you said about growth: If the country grows at greater than 2\1/2\ percent, there will be greater inflation. It has grown faster than that and the inflation rate has gone down. They have been wrong, wrong, wrong. Because they have the ability in secret to impose the added burdens and charges on the American people's shoulders, they do so, but that does not make it right. Will Rogers said: When there is no place left to spit, you better change with the times. This Federal Reserve Board is tinkering with the economy, which could well injure the economy, an economy which has produced many months of sustained economic growth. American workers deserve the opportunity to share in the benefits of that growth. I hope the Fed will think better of this strategy. It is the wrong strategy for this country. It is, if nothing else, therapy for me to say it because no one can have any impact on this board. It does what it does and says what it says with total impunity. Some day I hope that the Board of Governors and the presidents of the regional Fed banks, who have tilted their policy so in favor of money-centered banks, will actually consider the interests of working people in this country. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, we have over 2,000 family farmers who have arrived in Washington, DC, this morning. In other times and other circumstances, they would be preparing for spring planting. Spring is a time for farmers to begin thinking about getting to the field to plant their seeds and do the work family farmers do. But instead of preparing for spring planting, 2,000 family farmers are here in Washington, DC, today. I intend to leave this Chamber and have lunch with them. They are holding a ``farmer's share lunch'', just steps from the Capitol on the lawn in the upper Senate park beside the Russell Building. A customer buying this same lunch at a restaurant or in some other venue in Washington, DC would pay $10. These farmers are charging the portion of the food dollar they get: From a $10 lunch, they get approximately 39 cents. So over in the park, farmers will be providing lunch for 39 cents to demonstrate how little of America's food dollar family farmers are getting. We have such a serious problem on America's family farms. Two thousand of those family farmers have come to Washington, DC, to say to the Federal Government that the public policy dealing with family farmers simply isn't working. If it is in the interests of our country to preserve a network of family farms to produce America's food--if those are our policy interests in America--then we must change public policy because the current farm program does not work. There is a fellow in North Dakota named Dave Smith. He is a farmer in Makoti, ND. Frankly, I have never met Dave Smith. He calls himself the Flying Farmer. He has developed a hobby of jumping over stock cars. He builds a ramp, jumps these cars, and dives over to the other side. He wears a helmet and performs at the county fairs and the State fairs. I have seen him do these tricks a couple of times and have always wondered what would persuade someone to do these things? Let me tell you how he got in the ``Guinness Book of World Records''. Dave Smith, the Flying Farmer, from Makoti, ND, set a world record by driving in reverse for 500 miles at an average speed of 34 miles per hour. I am thinking to myself: Why would someone want to do that? But then I recognized that it reminds me of public policy as it affects family farmers, an endurance race in the wrong direction. The question is, What do we do to stop this movement in the wrong direction and start it in the right direction? What do we do for family farmers? I have on previous occasions talked in the Senate about what one finds when going to Europe. Go to the European countryside, visit with their farmers and go to the small towns that rely on families who live off the land. Get a feeling for how things are going in rural Europe. Farmers are doing well in Europe. Small towns are doing fine in Europe. There is life; one can feel it. One can sense it. Why? Because Europe has decided that as a matter of public policy, the kind of economy they want is an economy that has food production based on the family unit. They want to maintain and retain family farmers in their future. It is a deliberate public policy in Europe. They have been hungry, and they don't intend to go hungry again. They want broad-based ownership of food production in Europe. I found it interesting that the European trade representatives, who are often vilified--and perhaps I do it from time to time--talked about trade in agriculture in the context of families and communities when I met with them at the WTO meeting in Seattle. ``Multifunctionality'' is the term they used. They talked about the impact on family farmers and the relationship to building communities as a result of a network of farms in the countryside. Our trade negotiators look at trade through the pristine view of one word--markets, as though it doesn't have anything to do with families or communities. As if somehow there is no relationship between virtue and math when it comes to the question of profits and losses. I want to talk for a couple of minutes about the fallacy of all of that. These days, when there is so much economic prosperity in so much of our country, and we are blessed with so many things, we find that in the granaries, garages and in the machine sheds of America's family farms, families are gathering trying to figure out: How do we get this equipment ready for the field work in the spring to plant a crop? Will our banker lend us the money to buy seeds and fuel and fertilizer, for example, to once again try to make a living on the family farm? Or are we now going to lose our dream? Will we, after 30 years of trying, lose the opportunity to continue farming this year because prices have collapsed and our trade agreements have not been good for agriculture? Interest rates are going up. So many other things are confronting the farmer over which they have no control. I will show a few charts that describe what is happening to America's family farms. The families who have come to town, the 2,000 of them, to say there is something wrong that needs to be fixed, here is what they are confronted with. Look what has happened to the farmer's share of the retail beef dollar. It has dropped precipitously. This chart shows the farmer's share of the retail pork dollar--it is almost interchangeable--a dramatic collapse in 19 years. For North Dakota, where we raise a great deal of grain, this chart shows the farmer's share of the cereal grains dollar. Some might say, well, we are importing a lot of food; consumers are able to access cheaper food. Have you been to the grocery store lately and taken a look at the bar codes of hamburgers or bread or that which is made from cereal grain or livestock? Have you noticed that food prices have come down? I don't think so. Grain prices have collapsed. For a while, we had a very substantial collapse in livestock prices. In fact, at one point about a year ago, a hog that brought the hog producer $20 on the market for an entire hog had its meat sold for $300. So what happened between the $20 the farmer got for selling an entire hog and the $300 that was charged at the grocery store counter for the meat from the very same hog? The middle folks, the folks who handle all of that, are making a lot of money. The farmer is left with the carcass. I will mention a couple of other items with respect to the family farm. Farmers have come to the Nation's Capital to ask for a change. We passed a piece of farm legislation some years ago. I voted against it, but nonetheless it passed. It essentially pulled the rug out from under family farmers. It said they should all just operate in the marketplace. That sounds good enough, if the marketplace were a fair marketplace and farmers were involved in fair competition with others who produce food around the world. That is not the case. Our trade agreements injure family farmers rather than help them. They don't have an opportunity to pay a fair interest rate because the Federal Reserve Board is jacking up the cost of money in a manner that is totally unjustified. They deal with monopolies in every direction they turn. If they want to put their grain on a railroad, the railroad is overcharging them. What is going to happen is if they are going to sell their cattle to packing companies, three or four packing companies are involved in 80 to 85 percent of all the steer slaughter in this country. It is the same with pork and lamb. Family farmers are competing in a game in which the deck is stacked. We have a policy establishment in Washington that views all of this through a very clear lens. It is a limited vision, but the direction they look appears clear to them. This, in some of their minds, is kind of a ``stuff Olympics.'' Those who produce the most stuff get the most medals, even if you are producing stuff you already have too much of and not producing what you need. For example, in rural America, if you are producing what nurtures and strengthens communities, that is irrelevant according to these folks. The policy establishment says that is not what we are about. We are about the ``stuff Olympics.'' Those who produce the most stuff win. Of course, that is not a proper way to look at who we are and what we want to be. The markets are fine, but markets are not always fair. We, as a country, have a right, as Europe has a right and has done, to decide what kind of economy we want. What kind of things do we want produced from the arrangements of production? If we say we need better communities, stronger families living on the land and a network of producers producing America's food, then we need to question whether our economic arrangements contribute to that end. Clearly, the answer now is no. Should we not support the form of agriculture that contributes to that kind of economy and that kind of society? What is the farm program really for? These farmers have come to town saying the farm program doesn't work. What is it really for? In my judgment, we don't need a farm program. We could abolish it if its goal is not simple and singular. We should have a farm program that is designed to support and sustain a network of families living on America's agricultural land. If that is not the goal of the farm program, then we don't need one. If someone wants to farm an entire county, God bless them, but they don't need the Government's help. But when prices collapse, if families who are living on that farm don't have a bridge across those price valleys, they are simply not going to make it from one side to the other. My belief is that the contribution a network of family farms makes to our country is irreplaceable and invaluable. Let me tell my colleagues about that contribution, that lifestyle, because I come from a State I dearly love. It embodies those values that America needs more of. We have a man and a wife in Sentinel Butte, ND, who own a gas station. Perhaps I have told the Senate about this before. They are near retirement age and don't want to keep the gas station open all day. This is a town of under 100 people. They decided that when they close at 1 o'clock in the afternoon, they would hang the key on a nail. If you need gas, you drive up and take the key, unlock the pump, and fill up. Then you are supposed to make a note that you did that. Yes, that is true. Yes, that happens in my home State, a small community of under 100 people who understand the value of the small town cafe, the hub of life in a small community, and can't afford to keep the small town restaurant open. How do they do it? A signup sheet. Everybody in town has to volunteer to work for nothing to keep the restaurant open. Yes, that is the way the restaurant works in Havana, ND. Tuttle, ND, a town of under 100 people, lost their grocery store. What to do? They could not find anybody to start a grocery store. So the town itself-- the community--built a grocery store. Yes, the town owns the grocery store because that is the kind of town they want and the kind of life they want. I may have told the Senate about the woman who owns the flower shop in Mott, ND. A town 14 miles from Regent, my hometown. My parents are buried in the cemetery in Regent, ND, a town of 270 people. We always send flowers to my mother's grave on Mother's Day from the Mott Florist Shop. They are always apologetic for charging a couple of dollars extra to send them to the Regent cemetery, which is 14 miles away. The Mott Florist Shop is quite a place. This year, my brother called them--he or I usually call them--and he asked them to deliver flowers for Memorial Day. He said, ``By the way, I forgot to call on Mother's Day when we usually order flowers for my mother's grave.'' She said, ``That's all right. I figured you forgot so we sent flowers over to your mother's grave anyway. I figured I would send you a bill later, and if you paid it, OK; if not, that's OK, too.'' Where does that happen in this country? It is pretty special to have those kinds of communities and people. About the same time that happened, I read an article in the newspaper--and I don't mean to be pejorative about New York City because it is a wonderful city, but a fellow died on the subway and he continued riding 4 or 5 hours on the subway before somebody discovered he was dead. Big difference. Rural values, community, responsibility, looking out for each other, helping each other, knowing each other-- that is part of what we need to be as a country. I worry so much that we are losing a great deal of that in the way we deal with public policy. Thomas Jefferson used to say that the kind of agriculture we choose in this country affects the kind of communities we have. It affects the kind of Nation we are going to be. He was dead right about that. That is why the issue that these folks have come to town to discuss, the 2,000 farmers, who otherwise would be in their machine shed getting ready for spring's work, working on the transmission, greasing the tractor, going to town to get the seed, all excited about being able to finally get that tractor started and getting out and plowing the ground and putting seeds in the ground, are instead over here about a block away. And I am going to get there soon. They are here to say family farming matters to this country and Congress must do something to help or we will be left with corporate agriculture from California to Maine, and it will be different. A part of America will be gone forever. Some say: Well, that's the way it is. The family farm is like the little diner left behind when an interstate highway comes through, and it is too bad; it was a wonderful place to have soup and sandwiches. But that is life.

Mr. DORGAN. Of course, I will.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me say to my colleague from West Virginia that I am humbled by his words. I was on a radio talk show earlier this morning for an hour or so. When he said I had my head screwed on right, I just say that is the nicest thing said about me all day. I appreciate very much the comments the Senator made. I also say this is not about nostalgia. It is about a country having to choose the kind of future it wants, a country measuring what it wants to achieve with its economy, and a country that determines what has value. It is so much a disconnection to me that we are the largest arms seller in the world by far--somewhere around $10 to 12 billion a year. A fair amount of those purchases are from countries that can least afford to purchase jet fighter planes, tanks, and weapons of war, and, yet, they do. In those same Third World countries that are purchasing arms, people are desperately hungry. At the same time that people are desperately hungry for food in so many places in the world, and hundreds of millions of people go to bed with an ache deep in their belly because they haven't had enough to eat, then in Mohall, ND, in the morning someone will load a two-ton truck with wheat and drive to the elevator and will be told by the grain trade: Your food doesn't have value. Your food just doesn't have value. Yet we know it costs you $4.50 a bushel to produce it, but it is only worth $2.30 a bushel because it just doesn't have value. What a serious disconnection. We need to find a way to create value in our country for that which matters: the production and work of family farmers and the risks of what family farmers produce; yes, food for a hungry world, but also the social structure of a community and a rural economy. Mr. Critchfield, a wonderful author, wrote a book called ``Those Days.'' He talked about the ``seed bed'' of family values in America for over two centuries from family farms to small towns to big cities. It was always the ``seed bed'' of family values. When a man named Ernest in Regent, ND, collapsed of a heart attack right near harvest, his neighbors brought the combines over to take his wheat off the field? If his neighbors were in corporate America, they would be called competitors. But on family farms, they are neighbors. And they are part of a social structure that works together. But they can't work together and make a living when grain prices have collapsed. They need a safety net of some type that says: You matter, you have value, and you are important to our country's economy. I wish to mention two other quick items that affect family farmers in a very significant way. They came to town today. In fact, I was on an airplane with some of them last evening. Most of them came by bus but a few came on the airplane--last evening, today, and tomorrow. Two things will happen here in Washington, DC: One, the Federal Reserve Board will meet. When they do, it won't be as if they are doing it in front of television cameras. It will be behind closed doors. They will make a decision in secret. We will not be a part of it. There will be no discussion and no debate. These central bankers will make a decision about whether to increase interest rates once again. All of the evidence is that they will do so. Those poor farmers who are coming to town asking for some assistance when prices have collapsed will find one more time that the Federal Reserve Board has boosted their cost of production by increasing interest rates. What is the justification for that? The answer is none. There is no justification. Workers' productivity is up in this country--way up. Do workers in this country not have a right to more compensation if they are more productive? Mr. Greenspan and the Federal Reserve Board are worried about inflation. The core inflation rate that has been recently announced in both the Producer Price Index and the Consumer Price Index, which indicates that inflation is not a serious threat in this country. As I said, productivity is growing. Yet, somehow, Mr. Greenspan fashions himself as a set of human brake pads whose sole mission in life is to try to slow down the American economy. It is wrong for the Federal Reserve Board to believe that too many people are working and that we are growing too fast. They are worried about that because they believe it will provoke more inflation. They have believed that for the last several years, and they have been wrong, wrong, wrong in every circumstance. But it has been used as justification to increase interest rates. That adds to the burden these family farmers have to bear as they go out to try to borrow money to buy the seeds, the fertilizer, and the fuel with which to put in their spring crops. The Federal Reserve Board tomorrow will add to the burdens of these farmers, in my judgment, in a manner that is wholly unjustified. Productivity last year grew at a substantial 3 percent rate. That surge pushed the unit labor costs down by 2.5 percent in the fourth quarter in 1999. I have talked at length about the Federal Reserve Board. I don't mean to cast disrespect on their motives as people. I have said that I commend Alan Greenspan for his public service but disagree with him from a policy standpoint very significantly. But there is no justification for this Federal Reserve Board, the last dinosaur of our government, that does all of its business in secret. What other unit of government closes its doors and then says, ``Let's decide what we want to do next to the American people''? If Mr. Greenspan, as has been the subject of some of his recent pronouncements, believes that the stock market is moving too high-- ``irrational exuberance'' he once called it--then he can take action to deal with that. He could increase margin requirements, which I think he probably ought to do. But instead of doing that--and he doesn't want to do that--he says: I will have all the American people, especially producers, pay higher interest charges. It is unwise, unfair, and risky, in my judgment, to raise interests at a time when fuel costs are rising and commodity prices all across the board have collapsed. I think it risks a significant slowdown in this economy. I regret that they will take that action tomorrow. If they do, I will be here to speak again briefly about it. Let me take 2 additional minutes to talk about one other issue that will be announced tomorrow. In addition to the Federal Reserve Board meeting, there will be an announcement tomorrow morning by the Commerce Department about America's trade deficit. I expect once again that the monthly trade deficit will be near record level. What does that mean? It means that those family farmers who are gathered today in Washington, DC, asking for some help will once again see the consequences of a trade policy that has not worked. We are not exporting nearly enough. We are importing too much. We find closed markets for agricultural commodities all around the world. Even when we negotiate new trade agreements, the negotiations are not the independent, kind of hard-nosed negotiations that you would expect on behalf of our producers. We do not, as a country, stand up for our producers' interests. I will talk at some later time about the recent bilateral trade agreement with China. I have spoken at great length about the NAFTA agreement, and Canada and Mexico, and so on. But family farmers and others have a right, in my judgment, to be very concerned about these kinds of policies. I will show a chart about the trade deficit. This chart shows what is happening to this country's merchandise trade deficit. It was $347 billion in 1999. Let me mention China. I want to mention it just in a microcosm. We reached an agreement with China only months ago. A significant part of this $347 billion was nearly $70 billion with China alone. Let me take automobiles, for example, because there is not a lot of trade in automobiles between the United States and China. But in our trade agreement with China, as I understand it, after a phase in, we reached an agreement by which China will have only a 25-percent tariff on U.S. automobiles that will be sent to China. We would have a 2.5- percent tariff on Chinese automobiles into this country. So we reached a trade agreement which says we will phase this in slowly. But after it is fully phased in, China, you can have a 10-times greater tariff on automobiles going into China than we would have. I ask a question: Who is negotiating, and on whose behalf? We should get some uniforms and jerseys that say ``U.S.A.'' on them. At least when they sit down we would understand who they are and we could demand that they work for our interests and demand reciprocal agreements that say treat us like we treat you. Open your markets. I mention automobiles, because it is not of great consequence in that particular trade agreement. But I am going to talk at greater length about some of the other issues as well. I mention it, because tomorrow the Commerce Department will, once again, announce the monthly trade deficit. It will, in my judgment, signal the storm clouds that exist in this area to which we must respond. Our economy is wonderful. We live in a great country. We are blessed with all kinds of good news. However, we must address this issue. I finish by telling the Senator from West Virginia what happened to me at the WTO meetings in Seattle in December. Everyone remembers how raucous those WTO sessions turned out to be, especially with demonstrators in the street. Something happened I will relate that reminds everyone once again of who we are and where we are. A group of House and Senate Members were meeting with a group of 10 or 12 European parliamentarians across an oblong table, talking about the differences between Europe and the United States in trade, the beef issue, and the Roquefort trade issue. Mr. Rocard, the former Prime Minister of France, leaned over and said: Mr. Senator, I want you to understand something. We are talking about disputes between the United States and Europe. I want you to understand how I feel about your country. I was a 14-year-old boy on the streets of Paris, France, in 1944 when the Liberation Army marched into my country and removed the Nazis from my country. When I was a 14- year-old boy, standing on the streets, when those American soldiers marched into my country, a young black American soldier reached out his hand and gave me an apple. I want you to understand that I will never, ever forget that moment and what it meant to me and what it meant to my country. I got chills as I listened to that. We have, as a country, done so much for so many around the world. We are self-critical and tend to forget the remarkable things we have done. This fellow said to me: I will go to my grave having very special feelings about what your country, what your soldier, what your commitment was to me, to my family, and to my country. That is something we should understand. We have a great capacity to do good things. As a democracy, we make some mistakes from time to time. But we have a great capacity to do good things in our abilities to make choices regarding public policy, in developing the kinds of policies that are produced in this Chamber. All of us must, from our various centers of interest around America, come here and with passion make the case for the things we think are important. The Senator from West Virginia makes passionate arguments on behalf of the families who have been mining America's coal in the hills of Appalachia. I listened with wonder to his description of what is happening in those small communities. He understands that those from farm country, from North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas, and elsewhere feel the same way, with the same passion, about the people we represent who are struggling and in many ways confront the same problems of collapsed commodity prices. There is the notion by some that this is just all nostalgia, not hard-nosed market economics. That is why, as we do all of this, as we engage in these debates, we must as a country think through the public policy questions with better clarity, especially with the understanding that tomorrow's economy and tomorrow's country is what we decide it will be. We have a right to make these decisions. Europe has decided it wants family farmers in its future. It wants rural Europe to be healthy and family farmers to make it. Why? Because they understand that family farms produce more than just grain or livestock. They produce something that is social in nature--community, a rural lifestyle and culture that is important. That is something Europe is already reconciled to, and we ought to, as well. I have taken far more time than I intended. Let me end as I started. I will go to the farmers' lunch near the Russell Building. They are serving a $10 lunch for 39 cents because farmers are here, 2,000-fold, saying: This is our share of the food dollar. It is not enough. We cannot make a living. We need help. We don't need charity. We need a little attention from Congress, better trade agreements, a better farm program, a little action on the antitrust front to deal with the concentrations of monopolies that exist, and a little understanding that we matter to America's future. We produce food. It is a hungry world. Food matters. Congress, pay attention. That is all they are saying. With that, I will have lunch with friends of mine. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, as always, the Senator from West Virginia has captured in just a minute, with verse that comes from memory, something that I have not been able to say in 45 minutes. He is absolutely correct. Again, let me thank him for being on the floor as I made the presentation.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, it is my intention to seek recognition for the purpose of making a presentation. My understanding is Senator Byrd has a presentation. I will defer my presentation so that the distinguished Senator from West Virginia can proceed. I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized following the presentation of the Senator from West Virginia.