Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Right. This is an honest look. There are no games here; they haven't jimmied up the estimates on the baseline based on a request by anybody. Here is the honest look, and what they say is: Having done your 13 appropriations bills, Republicans in Congress, you have now spent $17 billion of the Social Security trust funds this year, and you will require a nearly 6-percent, across-the-board reduction in all spending--all spending--veterans' health care, senior citizens, the WIC Program for infants and low-income women, the Head Start Program--you will require a nearly 6-percent, across-the-board cut in all spending in order to avoid your continued use or misspending of the Social Security surplus. This is today's letter. I want to make this point: Those who are spending the money to put the dishonest ads on television this afternoon in my State ought to be ashamed of themselves. They ought to be ashamed. They know it is dishonest. This proves it is dishonest. But money in today's politics is speech. If money is speech, there are a lot of speechless people in this country, and that is regrettable. But the folks with the money can put a television ad on and say down is up, black is white, grass is purple--whatever they want to say, and they can, as they have done, ask somebody with directed scoring adjustments, tell me my bank balance if you don't count the last 10 checks; or tell me the Earth is flat if I insist the Earth is flat in the assumption. They create a dishonest brand of politics in this country. Shame on those who do it.

Mr. DORGAN. No; the Senator has stated it exactly as I said. Let me mention one additional point that relates to something about which the Democratic leader spoke. One could say: Well, if you know this to be true--we know it to be true by the Congressional Budget Office today--why don't you do something about it? Why don't you bring an amendment to the floor of the Senate? The point is, we can't bring an amendment to the floor of the Senate. The Senate is tied up, deliberately. We have what is called a legislative tree that has been created that would prevent those on our side from offering amendments. If I might just take one additional minute. I grew up in a town of 300 people. We had an elderly widow in my town, kind of a disagreeable elderly widow. She had a huge crab apple tree in her front yard. And she was disagreeable enough to demand, although she had so many crab apples--she could have fed the whole town; they dropped on the ground-- she demanded that children never pick her crab apples. So, of course, we had to wait until after dark to pick her crab apples. But she was only disagreeable with those she did not want to pick crab apples. Her friends, she would usher them in, and they would pick her crab apples. I was thinking about the majority leader today and the tree. It is kind of like that disagreeable elderly woman in my hometown. He says: I want to create a tree here and decide--standing right over there on the floor--who can come in and pick the fruit from this tree. By the way, that doesn't include anybody from the Democratic side of the aisle-- nobody. No one on that side of the aisle is going to pick any of my fruit. Why? It is partisan. Everybody says: Well, this is all partisan with you. It is not partisan with us. It is partisan with those who want to run the Senate in a manner that says our friends are going to have full opportunity to bring their ideas to the floor of the Senate--and, after all, that is the only currency in this kind of institution: An idea, a good idea. The majority leader will say: The way I want to run the Senate is my friends have an opportunity to bring their ideas to the floor of the Senate; and we are going to have votes; but you in the minority will not, and may not, have that opportunity. That is why we cannot allow that to continue. It is unforgivable to allow that to continue.

Mr. DORGAN. In response to the Senator from Nevada, when we had the debate in the Senate on the constitutional amendment to balance the budget, one of the questions we raised was about writing into the Constitution of the United States a practice of using Social Security trust funds for the purpose of balancing the budget; in other words, taking trust funds that were designated for Social Security, which came from the taxpayers' paychecks and put into a trust fund, and using them as other revenue, just as if it was any other dollar of tax revenue. We raised the question: Do you think it is appropriate to weld into the U.S. Constitution a practice as dishonest as that? These are trust funds, after all.

Mr. DORGAN. Their answer was: We insist on doing it this way; we demand we change the U.S. Constitution by requiring that Social Security trust funds be counted as any other form of revenue for the purposes of computing our budget balance. We demand it, they said. One of the meetings was in this Cloakroom, another back there, another on the floor. We said: But that is not an honest way of budgeting. If you did that in private business--if you have a company and you want to show how much profit you made last year, and in showing how much profit, you want to bring your employees' pension moneys into the bottom line and say that is the profit, if you do that, you are going to get 10 years of hard time in some prison. We said: It is not appropriate to use Social Security trust funds and certainly not appropriate to lock it into the Constitution. They said: We have to use them; it is the only way we can balance the budget. They said, back in the Cloakroom, to Senator Conrad and myself: We will make a deal with you. We want to write into the Constitution that we can use the Social Security trust funds to balance the budget, just as other revenues, just take them out of the trust funds and use them as other revenues, and we will stop doing it in the year 2012.

Mr. DORGAN. In our State and others, the majority party is running ads, and the ads are fundamentally dishonest. In political dialog, you have a right to say what you want to say even if it is fundamentally untrue. The ads in North Dakota by the Republican Party are saying the Democrats are stealing, taking Social Security trust funds, they are spending trust funds. In fact, just the opposite is the case. It is the majority party that is taking the trust funds. They demanded they be taken back in the debate on the constitutional amendment. In fact, they demanded the opportunities to take them and put it in the Constitution. They are doing it and denying they are doing it and charging others. It is akin to the big bully on the schoolyard playground who blames somebody else: No, ma, those aren't my cigarettes; I was holding them for two other guys who were fighting. It is that approach. Let me read a letter to the Senator from Nevada from the head of the Congressional Budget Office.

Mr. DORGAN. That is correct.

Mr. DORGAN. The Congressional Budget Office is an office that has historically been a nonpartisan office. It is supposed to be the scorekeeper. This would be the referee keeping score on numbers and budgets. What happened previously--this is very interesting--is the majority party wrote to the Congressional Budget Office, and they said--

Mr. DORGAN. The Senator is correct on that. We offered that amendment, in fact, on a couple of different occasions. They wanted nothing to do with it. The reason this is an important issue, if I can respond to the Senator from Nevada, is because we have the majority party running television ads across the country at the moment.

Mr. DORGAN. Dated today.

Mr. DORGAN. The year 2012 was not put in writing. We said that doesn't make any sense. They have two stages of denial. First, we are not using Social Security, they said. Second, if we are, we will stop by 2012. Then they said: If you don't buy 2012, we will actually put in this constitutional amendment that we will stop using the Social Security trust funds in 2008. And that is what they put in writing. I still have that deep in the bowels of my desk somewhere with their handwriting: We propose we stop using Social Security trust funds by 2008, but we insist on the right to do it until then. In fact, we want to put it in the Constitution of the United States.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. The Senator from Illinois should be recognized. If I could ask forbearance, I wanted to ask the Senator from Massachusetts a question. Since he doesn't have the floor, let me at least propound the question.

Mr. DORGAN. I would like to ask the Senator a question.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I have watched with some interest in recent days the Senator from South Carolina holding forth on the floor of the Senate on trade issues. This isn't the first time. He has often come to the floor of the Senate to engage in interesting and robust debates about international trade. I also noticed that the bill that is before us, the House bill dealing with African trade, the African Growth and Opportunity Act, if you read it, reads like a lot of trade deals we have dealt with. It is kind of a NAFTA for Africa approach with trade adjustment assistance, CBI, and other things added to it. As I was thinking about all of this, I realized that nothing really changes very much. I guess it has been 4, 5, 6 or 7 years I have been here on the floor of the Senate talking about trade issues to no avail. The debate never changes. Those who come to the floor proposing a new trade initiative will speak only about their new trade initiative. They will refuse to speak at all, or refuse to address the residue and the problems resulting from the trade bills we have recently passed, NAFTA being one, United States-Canada being another, and GATT being a third. You never hear anybody willing to tackle the problems. I had a chart with me. It is lost in a pile of charts somewhere. But I wish I could show it. It shows the trade deficits. After several decades of ballooning Federal budget deficits and after getting those deficits under control, now we have another deficit. It is the trade deficit. The annual trade deficit on a chart is just spiking almost straight up. It is a devastating consequence of bad trade policy and a range of other things, but especially bad trade policy. Yes, the collapse of economies, or the difficulties of economies in Asia contribute to it, and there are some other things that contribute to it, but by and large this has been an abiding trade deficit that has been growing for a long period of time, and a chart would show a very significant spike in this deficit. It is serious. Our current account balance deficit as a result of this trade deficit is going up and up, and it is unsustainable. We can't continue to do this. Yet there is no discussion on the floor by those who bring trade legislation to the floor to say, well, let's talk about what is happening; let's talk about our current experience with our trade practices. It is not the case that I believe we should put a wall around our country, or we should restrict trade, or we ought to decide to in some way diminish trade. That is not the case at all. I believe, however, that after about 50 years of post-Second World War experience in trade, we ought to understand what is going on. For the first 25 years after the Second World War, our trade policy was exclusively foreign policy. They called it trade policy, but it wasn't trade policy; it was foreign policy. We used trade as a foreign policy instrument with which to help a range of other countries around the world. That was fine. We could beat any country virtually on any set of circumstances and any competition with one hand tied behind our back. We were bigger, tougher, stronger, and more able to compete. And we could essentially create all kinds of approaches that would be helpful to other countries in foreign policy, call it trade policy, and still win and still prevail. But the second 25 years after the Second World War, things were different, especially recently. Our trading partners have become shrewd, tough, economic competitors. This is not any longer, and should not be, about foreign policy. It ought to be about trade policy, about what makes sense for our country's interests and how to engage in policies with other countries that are mutually beneficial, yes, to them and also to us. As I listened to the Senator from South Carolina, I was thinking about something I told the Senate some many years ago. I had a young son who ordered an ant farm from a magazine. He is 12 now. I guess he was probably 5 years old. He saw this advertisement for an ant farm. It was a thing you ordered by mail. It was a container. It would hold sand. They sent you the container and the sand. They put the sand in the container. Then they sent you the ants separately. They said in the order to put the ants in the container. They said you should put that little vial of ants in the refrigerator for a while to slow them down a bit. So my son got all of this in the mail. He put these ants in the refrigerator and slowed them down a bit. He poured them into his ant farm and then put the top on. For, I don't know, a month or two, we watched these ants in the ant farm. There must have been 100 or 200 ants in this little ant farm. You could watch them every day. They would go from one end of this little partition to the other hauling all of this sand back and forth, and back and forth, and nothing ever changed. I looked at those ants. I thought, I wonder what they are thinking, if they think; they just keep hauling this sand back and forth, and nothing ever changes. I thought the Senate is similar to that, especially on trade policy. You could put a blindfold on and earmuffs on, and for 7 years nothing would change--at least it hasn't in the 7 years I have been in the Senate. Back and forth, back and forth, never a change. Does anybody here have a debate about the provisions in NAFTA that lead to the terribly unfair trade in durum wheat? Did anybody ever hear of that? I have never heard of that. I have been down here and talked about it a lot. In fact, most people probably don't know much about durum wheat at all. Probably many of the expert staffers working on trade have no interest in and no knowledge of durum. They have no knowledge of durum. They certainly have no knowledge of semolina flour. If they eat pasta, they are eating semolina flour and durum wheat. Eighty percent of the durum wheat in America is produced in North Dakota. Anyone working on trade issues in the Senate and eating spaghetti or lasagna might well be eating something that came from a North Dakota durum field. After this country negotiated a trade agreement with Canada, we had a trade negotiator who reached an agreement with Canada and put it in writing to Members of Congress. He said in writing--Clayton Yeutter, our trade ambassador--there will not be an increase in the flow of grain back and forth across the border as a result of this agreement. That was a guarantee in writing to Members of Congress. It wasn't worth the paper on which it was written. It wasn't worth anything. The fact is, the trade agreement was enacted by Congress after it was negotiated. It was sent here and voted on by Congress and prevailed. I did not support it. Immediately, we had an avalanche of Canadian durum coming across our border. That durum undercut our farmers' prices, took a couple hundred million dollars out of the pockets of our farmers in a year, and has happened time and time again. This past year was the largest amount of durum, over 20 million bushels in the first 7 months of this year; for 6 months, up over 80 percent. People say it doesn't matter; that is technical; that is detail. That is fine for someone wearing a suit and tie, but try farming, raising durum, and having the price collapse and see what it does to your income and wonder whether it is important. Wonder whether you understood it and wonder whether you had a responsibility when you talk of trade the next time or talk of the trade problems you caused for the hard-working people in our country. Wonder about the trade problems you caused them by the previous trade agreements. The same agreement, NAFTA, which has opened the floodgates for the grain coming in that has terribly hurt the family farmers, was advertised to Members, as the Senator from South Carolina knows, as being a trade agreement that would create several hundred thousand new jobs in our country. It didn't turn out quite that way. When NAFTA was negotiated with Canada, Mexico, and the United States, we had a trade surplus with Mexico and a small trade deficit with Canada--not so small but a trade deficit with Canada. So this Congress passes NAFTA, approves NAFTA. The trade surplus with Mexico has now been changed from a surplus to a $16 billion annual deficit just in the first 8 months of this year alone. The trade deficit with Canada has more than doubled. In a study by the Economic Policy Institute, Rob Scott says NAFTA has resulted in a net loss of over 440,000 jobs in this country. But the NAFTA supporters advertised that ``a lot of new jobs will be created.'' The fact is, a lot of jobs were destroyed. ``It will be good for our country.'' In fact, big trade balances that were positive were turned to very large trade balances that are negative for our country. Yet the same folks continue to peddle the same merchandise on the floor of Senate. Just make this trade agreement and somehow it will be better. My response is to say if we are going to talk about trade, I am perfectly willing to listen and be reasonable about all of these things. I want to help Africa. I want to help the Caribbean nations. I want to reach out and do all those things. But, I want it to be fair. I want our producers to have fair competition. I am willing to retain these, but I refuse to have people come to the Senate and say: Here is our agenda and we demand you respond to that. And we don't intend at all to address the problems we have created in the previous trade agreements. To us, they are irrelevant. We don't intend to address them. They don't matter. They don't exist, and we don't intend to talk about them. The remedies that normally would have been available to fight the unfair trade have been traded away in previous trade agreements. Those who have lost their jobs and farms find little solace in those who say: ``We have a new agreement now and we don't intend to talk about the old problems.'' It seems to me we ought to talk about some of the problems that exist in previous trade agreements and fix them. The quickest way for President Clinton and, for that matter, the committee chairman and the two managers of this bill, to have a thoughtful discussion about new trade initiatives is to agree to have a thoughtful discussion about the problems created by the old trade policies and begin to fix them. If we are not willing to fix some of the mistakes in previous trade agreements, we are not going to get consensus to move to new issues. I told the President the best way for him to get fast-track authority from the Congress is to show a willingness to fix the problems that have existed in NAFTA, the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement and GATT. When a ship pulls up at a dock in California loaded with grain that is dumped in this country--clearly illegally--and there is no remedy to address it, our farmers say, how can grain be shipped from a European port to a dock in California and be sold for half the price of the grain that is being sold here, even after transportation is paid? How can that be? The answer is it is unfair trade and there is no remedy to deal with it and you can't stop it. That is why producers in this country are saying to those who are pushing new trade agreements, help fix some of the trade problems we have. When that is done, we will listen. We will work with you. We will address some of these additional trade issues. It is not acceptable to simply ignore the misery, the suffering, and the difficulty that so many producers in this country experience because of unfair trade policies. It is not fair to ignore them. We must get our priorities straight. I find it fascinating that some who have been so concerned about deficits during the years I have been in Congress are those who are the least concerned about trade deficits. Japan, $50 or $60 billion a year, every year. Want to buy a T-bone steak in Tokyo? Does anybody in this Chamber know what kind of a tariff will be imposed on a T-bone steak coming from the United States and sold in a Tokyo restaurant? Does anybody know the answer to that? I bet not. After a trade agreement with Tokyo in order to get more U.S. beef into Tokyo, we have a 50- percent tariff on all U.S. beef going into Tokyo which diminishes but snaps back if the quantity increases. Today there is a 40.5-percent tariff on every pound of American beef going into Tokyo. That is considered a failure in any set of circumstances in any trade negotiation. But our trade negotiators, when they reached that deal, thought they won the Olympics. They were feasting and rejoicing, breaking their arms patting each other on the back. It was a big deal. It is a failure. A 40.5-percent tariff in foreign markets for our beef is a failure. After all of this posturing and genuflecting and trade talks, the average tariff confronting our products going overseas from the agricultural sector is nearly 50 percent. We will have some discussions in Seattle in December with our trade negotiators. We have been talking with our trade negotiators and we hope very much for once we could win. Will Rogers once said, the United States of America has never lost a war and never won a conference. He surely must have been talking about our trade negotiators. We must start standing up for the interests of American producers and American workers not in a way that prohibits competition. We can compete; our farmers can compete. They are willing to do that. But they sure are not willing to compete when the ground rules are not fair. We end a negotiation with Europe on the issue of grain. Let me go back to grain because I represent a farm State. We didn't even cut European grain export subsidies that are multiples of ours. We say that is fair competition. I don't think so. In my hometown, that is not fair competition. It is the best they could get. The result is a trade agreement that is unfair, a trade agreement that hurts our producers. Senator Roth from Delaware is managing this bill. He is a Senator for whom I have a great deal of respect. I have worked with him. I like him. We are friends. He comes to the floor and I am sure he believes strongly in this bill. Senator Moynihan, legislative giant and great thinker, comes to the floor. He believes strongly in this bill. The Senator from South Carolina believes differently. I believe differently in these issues. The way to deal with them is to have amendments offered and have votes. One would think an elementary lesson in politics is that politics is a process of making choices. You make choices by voting. But we have this vineyard I described earlier that has been planted by the majority leader with a whole series of vines now. He has decided he is the gatekeeper of the vineyard. These are his vines. He will decide who comes through the gate and picks the fruit. His friends will be able to do that. ``My friends will get in, they will offer their amendments, but I will not allow any other amendment because that's a nuisance.'' That is not the way to legislate. That is not an appropriate way to do business in the Senate. It is an appropriate way to do business in the House. The majority leader served there. I served there. We understand that. In the House, you have a Rules Committee, you have a 1-minute rule, you have a 5-minute rule, and everything happens by the clock. That is the way the House works. When the framers of the Constitution created this Senate, they created a different body. I guess they cannot jettison the habits--they die hard--the habits of those who served in the House and who now want to control the Senate in the same manner. But the Senator from South Carolina, for example, has every right, in my judgment, to come to this floor, when this bill is before the Senate, to offer amendments and say to the Members of the Senate, both Republicans and Democrats: Here are my ideas. Here is the merit I ascribe to my ideas. Here is how I feel about them. Here is my passion. Let's have a vote about it up or down, yes or no. I am not afraid of that. What we can do, it seems to me, is have a system in this Senate where we allow full, free, and open debate. Unfortunately, that does not always happen. So we have this legislative tree. Earlier we had a filibuster on the motion to proceed. But we had cloture the motion to proceed. We will move on. Now we have this legislative tree which is totally unacceptable. At some point, I hope we can do this in a different manner. The best way for this Senate to act is for people with ideas to come together. This week I worked with Senator Brownback on a bill we introduced dealing with wireless telephones. I have been working with Senator Craig on a WTO trade caucus. I have been working with a range of others on the Republican side on legislation dealing with telecommunications. That is the best way to legislate: to find good ideas and work together to get them done. But that is not the way the Senate is working these days. In many ways that is regrettable because the public is not well served by this kind of parliamentary tactic we find ourselves in now. I yield the floor and will listen to the Senator from South Carolina.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I listened to the comments by my colleague from Oregon, Senator Wyden, and he expresses, as do all Members of the Senate, our profound sadness over the death of our friend and our colleague, Senator John Chafee from Rhode Island. Senator Chafee was one of a kind. The 100 Members of the Senate, men and women who come from across the country, work hard and fight hard and get involved in a lot of public debate about some very controversial issues. We all have very different styles and different ways of approaching all of these issues, and John's was unique. Senator Chafee was in the Senate for a long while. He had achievements that will last forever. He was quite a remarkable Senator. He was, as the Senator from Oregon indicated, about as bipartisan a Senator as there was in this Chamber. He cared about results. He cared deeply about a wide range of public policy, including children, the environment, and so many other areas. I used to visit with John a lot about his grandchildren. John Chafee's grandchildren played soccer with my children. The way to bring a gleam to Senator Chafee's eye was to go over to the area of the Chamber where he sat and talk about his granddaughter Tribbe and her soccer exploits. He so dearly loved those grandchildren and was so proud of them. Senator Chafee was a war hero. He was a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School. Most important, he served this country in a very distinguished way. As proud as I have been to be able to serve in the Senate, one of the extraordinary opportunities to serve here is to be able to work with people such as the late Senator John Chafee. I add my voice to those of so many other colleagues who come here today to say the Senate has lost truly a great Senator. I know all of us grieve with his family and loved ones and so many Americans across this country today. Senator Chafee worked right through last week. Towards the end of last week, I asked Senator Chafee how he was feeling because he obviously was experiencing some difficult health challenges. But as was always the case, last week when I asked him how he was feeling he said, ``Oh, fine,'' because he was not someone ever to complain. They say hard work spotlights the character of people. Some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their nose, and some don't turn up at all. When people think of Senator John Chafee, they will always remember a unique Senator who always turned up his sleeves and said let's get to work together. The result of that is a legacy of accomplishment in the Senate in so many areas: The children's health insurance grant program; the CARE Independence Act; extending Medicare coverage to poor women, children, and disabled individuals; LIHEAP--so many areas. As the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, he was probably the leading voice in this country in crafting the Clean Air Act of 1990 which strengthened the pollution emission standards; the Safe Drinking Water Act--so many different areas of accomplishment. But most of us in the Senate who had the privilege of working with him will not remember him so much for his accomplishments as we will his capacity as a human being. He was a colleague and friend. We will miss him dearly. I join with my colleagues today to say that. His daughter Georgia and son-in-law John have been dear friends for many years. I talked to his daughter today. She indicated, again, how proud she was of her father and how strongly she feels about the expression of sentiment today from Members of the Senate about her father and her father's work. We will all miss him. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, today my colleague Senator Brownback and I are introducing legislation that is designed to address a highly complex issue with respect the taxation of mobile telecommunications service. Although the issue is complex, the solution has a simple goal: to create a reliable and uniform method of taxation on wireless telecommunications services that works best for consumers. Currently, the mobility of wireless telecommunications services makes the taxation by state and local jurisdictions a complicated and expensive task for carriers and consumers because questions arise as to whether the tax is levied in the location in which the call is placed or where the user resides. Because this situation is difficult to monitor, state and local jurisdictions the prospects of non-compliance and double taxation are also of concern. For example, a person driving between Baltimore, Maryland and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania can pass through 12 separate state and local taxing jurisdictions. In the two hours it would take someone to make that 100 mile drive, several phone calls could be made under a cloud of tax ambiguity that works for no one, not the consumer, not the carrier, and not the taxing jurisdictions. This scenario presents us with challenge to the traditional method of taxation in the face of the growing popularity of mobile communications systems. It is a case that needs to be changed. The Mobile Telecommunications Sourcing Act is, in itself, an achievement. This legislation was developed through 3 years of dedicated, good faith negotiations between the industry and state and local government organizations. Rather than allow an unworkable situation to continue unresolved and rather than ignite a polemical political debate over a special interest solution, the industry and several state and local government organizations sat down and worked out a solution that satisfies all the stake holders. I extend my congratulations and gratitude to the leaders and staff members of the organizations that participated in the development of this consensus legislation. Under this legislation, a consumer's primary place of residence would be designated as the taxing jurisdiction for the purposes of taxing roaming and other charges that are subject to state and local taxation. This legislation does not impose any new taxes nor does it change the authority of state and local governments to tax wireless services. It does, however, provide consumers with simplified billing, reduce the chances of double taxation, preserve the authority of state and local jurisdictions to tax wireless services, and reduce the costs of tax administration for carriers and governments. In the end, the consumer will benefit through this tax clarification legislation that is badly needed. As many of my colleagues in the Senate know, I have been involved in many battles over the years where state and local governments have attempted to preserve their taxation authority as Congress has sought to preempt that authority on behalf of some special interest. I am very pleased to be in a position today to sponsor legislation which addresses a legitimate need to clarify and simplify state and local taxation in a manner that works for consumers, industry, and state and local governments alike. I also want to express my gratitude to my colleague Senator Brownback for his work on this measure. I hope that our colleagues will take note that Senator Brownback and I stand together on this consensus, bipartisan legislation and join us to advance this bill expeditiously.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, today my colleague Senator Brownback and I are introducing legislation that is designed to address a highly complex issue with respect the taxation of mobile telecommunications service. Although the issue is complex, the solution has a simple goal: to create a reliable and uniform method of taxation on wireless telecommunications services that works best for consumers. Currently, the mobility of wireless telecommunications services makes the taxation by state and local jurisdictions a complicated and expensive task for carriers and consumers because questions arise as to whether the tax is levied in the location in which the call is placed or where the user resides. Because this situation is difficult to monitor, state and local jurisdictions the prospects of non-compliance and double taxation are also of concern. For example, a person driving between Baltimore, Maryland and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania can pass through 12 separate state and local taxing jurisdictions. In the two hours it would take someone to make that 100 mile drive, several phone calls could be made under a cloud of tax ambiguity that works for no one, not the consumer, not the carrier, and not the taxing jurisdictions. This scenario presents us with challenge to the traditional method of taxation in the face of the growing popularity of mobile communications systems. It is a case that needs to be changed. The Mobile Telecommunications Sourcing Act is, in itself, an achievement. This legislation was developed through 3 years of dedicated, good faith negotiations between the industry and state and local government organizations. Rather than allow an unworkable situation to continue unresolved and rather than ignite a polemical political debate over a special interest solution, the industry and several state and local government organizations sat down and worked out a solution that satisfies all the stake holders. I extend my congratulations and gratitude to the leaders and staff members of the organizations that participated in the development of this consensus legislation. Under this legislation, a consumer's primary place of residence would be designated as the taxing jurisdiction for the purposes of taxing roaming and other charges that are subject to state and local taxation. This legislation does not impose any new taxes nor does it change the authority of state and local governments to tax wireless services. It does, however, provide consumers with simplified billing, reduce the chances of double taxation, preserve the authority of state and local jurisdictions to tax wireless services, and reduce the costs of tax administration for carriers and governments. In the end, the consumer will benefit through this tax clarification legislation that is badly needed. As many of my colleagues in the Senate know, I have been involved in many battles over the years where state and local governments have attempted to preserve their taxation authority as Congress has sought to preempt that authority on behalf of some special interest. I am very pleased to be in a position today to sponsor legislation which addresses a legitimate need to clarify and simplify state and local taxation in a manner that works for consumers, industry, and state and local governments alike. I also want to express my gratitude to my colleague Senator Brownback for his work on this measure. I hope that our colleagues will take note that Senator Brownback and I stand together on this consensus, bipartisan legislation and join us to advance this bill expeditiously.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, in a few days a small group of veterans will gather at Fort Benning, Georgia to commemorate one of the least known tragedies of World War II. On Christmas Eve 1944, the Belgian troopship Leopoldville was transporting 2,235 American soldiers from the 262nd and 264th Regiments of the 66th Infantry Division across the English Channel. They were destined as reinforcements for units fighting the Battle of the Bulge. Many soldiers on board were singing Christmas carols as they watched the lights along the coast of liberated France. The ship was designed to carry fewer than half the number on board, and the Belgian crew did not speak English. Reportedly, many of the American soldiers were not issued life jackets. Just five miles from its destination of Cherbourg, France, the Leopoldville was struck by torpedos from the German submarine U-486. Two and a half hours later, the ship capsized and sank. According to many survivors, the crew abandoned ship in the lifeboats and left the American soldiers to fend for themselves. Unable to free the ship's life rafts, many of the troops jumped to their deaths in the frigid heavy seas. The British destroyed HMS Brilliant saved some 500 troops. However, because it was Christmas Eve, no one else seemed to be around to help. By the next day, Christmas morning, 763 American soldiers were dead, including three sets of brothers. The dead represented 47 of the then 48 states. Mr. President, seven of the victims were from my home state of North Dakota. Among them was my uncle, Pfc. Allan J. Dorgan. His body was never recovered, and neither were the bodies of 492 other soldiers who died in the incident. It was weeks before my family and the families of other victims heard the fateful knock on the door and were given the telegram that said their sons, brothers, uncles, or fathers were ``missing in action in the European Area.'' It took months more before a second telegram informed them their loved ones had been ``killed in action in the European Area.'' Due to wartime censorship, the disaster was not reported to the news media. Survivors were told by the British and American governments to keep quiet about what happened. American authorities did not even acknowledge the sinking of the Leopoldville until two weeks after it went down. Later, after the war, the tragedy was considered an embarrassment and all reports were filed away as secret by the Allied governments. Some say that the American and British governments conspired to cover-up the incompetence involved in the incident. For whatever reason, details of the disaster were withheld from the public for over fifty years. Some of the victims' families never learned the truth about how their loved ones perished that night. For over fifty years, the young soldiers on the Leopoldville were denied their due, and never accorded the honors and respect they deserved. Finally, a few years ago, thanks to the efforts of Leopoldville survivor Vincent Codianni, former New York City police investigator Alan Andrade who wrote a book about the incident, and the Veterans Memorial Committee of Waterbury, Connecticut, the U.S. Army agreed to provide a site for a monument to the tragedy. The Leopoldville Disaster Monument was dedicated on November 7, 1997 at Fort Benning, the ``Home of the Infantry.'' On the monument, the names and hometowns of those members of the 66th Infantry Division who lost their lives on the Leopoldville and the names of those who survived the tragedy, but were later killed in action, are etched in stone. This was the first official recognition shown to any of the victims or their families. It was long overdue. It is almost 55 years since the sinking of the Leopoldville. When the survivors and their families gather again this week in Georgia, they will honor their comrades who have passed away since their first reunion two years ago. I hope all my colleagues will join me in expressing our appreciation for their courage and for the ultimate sacrifice they made for freedom.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, over the past several years there has been a wave of corporate mergers and acquisitions in this country that is of historic proportions. Last year the dollar value of announced corporate combinations in the United States was more than $1.6 trillion. This exceeded the amount of all the mergers in the world the year before. The big are getting bigger, the small are getting trampled, and this has large implications for the kind of economy we are going to have and--more importantly--for the kind of nation we are going to be. This is apparent in rural America, where the elephants have been stomping with a special gusto. Control of the nation's food chain--from production and processing to packing and distribution--has been falling into fewer and fewer hands. Over a decade ago, the four biggest grain processing companies in the U.S. accounted for some 40 percent of the nation's flour milling. Today the figure is 62 percent. About three quarters of the wet corn milling and soybean crushing are controlled by the four biggest firms--and about 80 percent of the beef. This extraordinary concentration of economic power has large implications. It is draining the economic life out of rural America. In 1952 farmers received close to half of every retail food dollar. Today they get less than a quarter of that same dollar. From a pound loaf of white bread that costs 87 cents at the store, the wheat farmer gets less than 4 cents. Farmers are working harder than ever; but the reward for their toil is going to the corporate conglomerates, which offer farmers fewer options for marketing their products than at probably any time in this century. While these corporations are showing record profits, farmers are forced to sell commodities such as wheat and pork, at Depression era prices. Thousands of farmers have gone under, and thousands more are barely hanging on. Farm auctions have become a grim feature of the rural landscape today, as has suicide. ``Everything is gone, wore out or shot, just like me,'' one Iowa farmer said in his suicide note. When farmers go, our rural communities go. We lose the stable social structures, the generations of family ties, the investment in schools and churches, libraries and clinics. Independent business people, from implement dealers to insurance salesmen, go belly up. And what do we get for this human tragedy and social loss? The low prices on the farm have not shown up in corresponding decreases at the supermarket. The processors and packers are getting the money instead. That's not the only source of the hardship in rural America. But it's a large one. The growing concentration of the nation's food chain into fewer corporate hands is something this Congress must address. The Clinton Administration deserves credit for reviving antitrust enforcement from the dormancy of the previous administrations. But it is laboring under reduced budgets and a body of law that, as interpreted by court decisions, may not be up to the task. When the two giants of the grain trade, Continental Grain and Cargill, are permitted to merge, then one has to wonder if the hole in the screen has become so big that there's no screen left. That's why I'm joining with Senator Wellstone in introducing legislation to impose a moratorium on large corporate mergers in the agriculture sector. The legislation would also create an independent commission to advise how to change the underlying antitrust laws and other federal laws and regulations to ensure a competitive agricultural marketplace and to protect family farmers and other family-sized producers. A moratorium on large corporate agriculture mergers is needed to give Congress time to consider these important questions and craft a suitable response. If we wait it could be too late. We won't be able to advance the fortunes of family-based agriculture because there won't be much left. Specifically, our bill imposes an 18-month moratorium on those large corporate mergers in the agriculture industry that would generally be required to make a ``Hart-Scott-Rodino" pre-merger filing with the Department of Justice. Such filings are triggered by a three-part test, one of which is that either of the two firms proposed for merger or acquisition have $100 million or more in net annual sales or assets. The Attorney General is granted authority to waive the application of the moratorium in ``extraordinary circumstances'' such as a merging firm's facing insolvency or similar financial distress. The legislation also establishes a 12-member commission to study the nature and consequences of mergers and concentration in America's agricultural economy. The Commission members are appointed by the leaders in the Senate and House of Representatives after consultation with the Chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees. After completing its study, the Commission will submit to the President and Congress a final report that includes its findings on consolidation in agriculture and recommendations about how our antitrust laws and other federal regulations should be changed to protect family-based agriculture, the communities they comprise, and the food shoppers of the nation. The family farmers of this nation are facing what could be the end game. The distortions and abuses in the agriculture marketplace have contributed to the loss of thousands of family farmers, and the grim foreboding that hangs over much of rural America. This does not have to be. No harm will come from this moratorium. Agribusiness enterprises will continue to see record profits, if the market so permits. Farmers and food shoppers will not lose because the record is clear that concentration in the food sector does not benefit them. Ironically, this merger mania means less freedom and less choice--in a nation that is supposed to stand for them. I urge my colleagues to support this moratorium, and antitrust review commission, and cast a vote for family-based agriculture and the health of rural America.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, over the past several years there has been a wave of corporate mergers and acquisitions in this country that is of historic proportions. Last year the dollar value of announced corporate combinations in the United States was more than $1.6 trillion. This exceeded the amount of all the mergers in the world the year before. The big are getting bigger, the small are getting trampled, and this has large implications for the kind of economy we are going to have and--more importantly--for the kind of nation we are going to be. This is apparent in rural America, where the elephants have been stomping with a special gusto. Control of the nation's food chain--from production and processing to packing and distribution--has been falling into fewer and fewer hands. Over a decade ago, the four biggest grain processing companies in the U.S. accounted for some 40 percent of the nation's flour milling. Today the figure is 62 percent. About three quarters of the wet corn milling and soybean crushing are controlled by the four biggest firms--and about 80 percent of the beef. This extraordinary concentration of economic power has large implications. It is draining the economic life out of rural America. In 1952 farmers received close to half of every retail food dollar. Today they get less than a quarter of that same dollar. From a pound loaf of white bread that costs 87 cents at the store, the wheat farmer gets less than 4 cents. Farmers are working harder than ever; but the reward for their toil is going to the corporate conglomerates, which offer farmers fewer options for marketing their products than at probably any time in this century. While these corporations are showing record profits, farmers are forced to sell commodities such as wheat and pork, at Depression era prices. Thousands of farmers have gone under, and thousands more are barely hanging on. Farm auctions have become a grim feature of the rural landscape today, as has suicide. ``Everything is gone, wore out or shot, just like me,'' one Iowa farmer said in his suicide note. When farmers go, our rural communities go. We lose the stable social structures, the generations of family ties, the investment in schools and churches, libraries and clinics. Independent business people, from implement dealers to insurance salesmen, go belly up. And what do we get for this human tragedy and social loss? The low prices on the farm have not shown up in corresponding decreases at the supermarket. The processors and packers are getting the money instead. That's not the only source of the hardship in rural America. But it's a large one. The growing concentration of the nation's food chain into fewer corporate hands is something this Congress must address. The Clinton Administration deserves credit for reviving antitrust enforcement from the dormancy of the previous administrations. But it is laboring under reduced budgets and a body of law that, as interpreted by court decisions, may not be up to the task. When the two giants of the grain trade, Continental Grain and Cargill, are permitted to merge, then one has to wonder if the hole in the screen has become so big that there's no screen left. That's why I'm joining with Senator Wellstone in introducing legislation to impose a moratorium on large corporate mergers in the agriculture sector. The legislation would also create an independent commission to advise how to change the underlying antitrust laws and other federal laws and regulations to ensure a competitive agricultural marketplace and to protect family farmers and other family-sized producers. A moratorium on large corporate agriculture mergers is needed to give Congress time to consider these important questions and craft a suitable response. If we wait it could be too late. We won't be able to advance the fortunes of family-based agriculture because there won't be much left. Specifically, our bill imposes an 18-month moratorium on those large corporate mergers in the agriculture industry that would generally be required to make a ``Hart-Scott-Rodino" pre-merger filing with the Department of Justice. Such filings are triggered by a three-part test, one of which is that either of the two firms proposed for merger or acquisition have $100 million or more in net annual sales or assets. The Attorney General is granted authority to waive the application of the moratorium in ``extraordinary circumstances'' such as a merging firm's facing insolvency or similar financial distress. The legislation also establishes a 12-member commission to study the nature and consequences of mergers and concentration in America's agricultural economy. The Commission members are appointed by the leaders in the Senate and House of Representatives after consultation with the Chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees. After completing its study, the Commission will submit to the President and Congress a final report that includes its findings on consolidation in agriculture and recommendations about how our antitrust laws and other federal regulations should be changed to protect family-based agriculture, the communities they comprise, and the food shoppers of the nation. The family farmers of this nation are facing what could be the end game. The distortions and abuses in the agriculture marketplace have contributed to the loss of thousands of family farmers, and the grim foreboding that hangs over much of rural America. This does not have to be. No harm will come from this moratorium. Agribusiness enterprises will continue to see record profits, if the market so permits. Farmers and food shoppers will not lose because the record is clear that concentration in the food sector does not benefit them. Ironically, this merger mania means less freedom and less choice--in a nation that is supposed to stand for them. I urge my colleagues to support this moratorium, and antitrust review commission, and cast a vote for family-based agriculture and the health of rural America.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. This treaty was brought to the floor for 14 hours of debate. Name another arms control treaty that came to the floor with only 14 hours of debate. The Senator asks: Why didn't someone object? The burden is on us. Because the majority leader treated a serious matter lightly, the burden is on someone else. The Senator from Oklahoma knows we objected the first time the Senator from Mississippi proposed it. He knows an objection was raised. The second time the Senator from Mississippi proposed it, he linked it to a time. If that is the only basis on which we had the opportunity to consider this treaty, so be it. But it is not treating a serious matter seriously, in my judgment. Name another treaty that has come to the floor of the Senate dealing with arms control, the arms control issues embodied in this treaty, trying to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, that has had this little debate and comes to the floor, despite what my colleague says, without having had 1 day of comprehensive hearings devoted to this treaty in the committee to which it was assigned? Those are the facts.

Mr. DORGAN. One thing I hate in politics is losing an argument I am not having. The Senator from Arizona cites the number of hours this treaty or that treaty was considered on the floor of the Senate. I will bring to the floor this afternoon the compendium of action by the Senate on the range of arms control treaties, START I, START II, ABM, so on. What I will show is that in the committee of jurisdiction, there were days and days and days of comprehensive hearings and the length of time those treaties were considered, in terms of number of days on the floor of the Senate, were extensive. It allows the American people to be involved in this discussion and this debate. This approach, which treats a very serious issue, in my judgment, too lightly, says, let us not hold comprehensive hearings. I remind the Senator that the request from the minority was of the majority leader to hold comprehensive hearings, allow consideration, and allow a vote on this treaty. That is not the course the majority leader chose. Having said all that, I am happy to come back this afternoon. I feel passionately about this issue. We should talk about all the things the Senator from Oklahoma is raising. We haven't tested for 7 years, and we think this country is weaker because of it. I don't know how some people can sleep at night. North Korea is going to attack the Aleutian Islands with some missile. Our nuclear stockpile is unsafe, one Senator said the other day. The bombs in storage are unsafe. We have been storing nuclear weapons for over 40 years in this country. All of a sudden they are unsafe, on the eve of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test- Ban Treaty.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I think there was a misunderstanding regarding the previous unanimous consent request. My understanding is the Senator from South Dakota asked unanimous consent that the presentation by Senator Byrd and the discussion between Senator Byrd and the majority leader not come out of the allocated time. I think each side had 54 minutes remaining. The Chair indicated Senator Byrd spoke twice. Senator Byrd was recognized once and did not relinquish the floor. I am not suggesting there was anything deliberate, but I think there was a misunderstanding with respect to the time that should exist. I think this side should have had 54 minutes based on the unanimous consent request made by the Senator from South Dakota.

Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I will take 5 minutes. My friend, the Senator from Illinois, is waiting and the Senator from Mississippi, who manages the bill, has the patience of Job. I will not spend a lot of additional time. I want to run through a couple charts, if I might. I want people to think through if this were their income, what their situation would be. Every one of you have a job; you have an income. If you have a business, you have some profit or an expected profit. Ask yourself what your situation would be personally if your job was to raise corn. This is what has happened to the price of corn; it has dropped dramatically. Think of what that would mean if that happened to your income. What about if you are a producer out there, a family farmer raising some children and trying to operate a farm? You are raising wheat. Here is what has happened to your income. It has plummeted? What if you are raising some kids and trying to operate a family farm and doing well and you are producing soybeans? This is what happened to your income. Again, a drastic reduction. Do you know of any other business in which prices have fallen as much as for wheat, corn, soybeans? Likewise, what if somebody said that the product you raise, a bushel of wheat, for example, as a percentage of the cereal grain dollar, was going to shrink by over half? Take another example. Say you were raising hogs and not too long ago you sold a 200-pound hog and got $20 for it. Then that hog was slaughtered and the meat from that hog went to the grocery store and was sold for $350. There is something wrong with that picture. Is there something wrong with the stream of income that goes to the person who actually raised that hog versus the amount of income that goes to the middle people who process it? Absolutely. We could go through chart after chart, those of us who represent farm States. All of us know what the story is. The story is, our family farmers are in crisis. We have a farm bill that has an inadequate safety net. We have the collapse of grain prices in this country in an almost unprecedented way. We have the weakening Asian economy, which means fewer exports. We have concentration and monopolies in every direction, which cuts the farmer's share of the food dollar. When Continental and Cargill are allowed to get married, as they just did, two big companies gathering together under one umbrella, it demonstrates that our antitrust laws don't work. Every direction the farmer looks, he finds a monopoly. Want to raise some grain and ship it on a railroad? You are held up for prices that are outrageous in order to haul it by the railroad. The same is true with virtually every other commodity such as selling wheat into a grain trade that is highly concentrated. In every set of circumstances, farmers have been injured. And the result of all of these adverse circumstances coming together, especially the twin calamities of the collapse of commodity prices and weather-related crop disasters, means we have a full-scale emergency on our family farms. This piece of legislation is not particularly good. I am going to vote for it, but with no great enthusiasm. I was one of the conferees. The conference met for a brief period of time. Senator Durbin was a conferee, as well, and he will recall we met for a period of time, and one of the things we pushed for was to stop using food as a weapon. No more food embargoes. Guess what. That was our strong Senate position, but it is not in this report. This report doesn't end the embargoes on food or end using food as a weapon. This report doesn't do that because the conference dumped it. We didn't do it because we were part of the conference, but the conference didn't meet. It adjourned in a pique and never got back together. We are told the Senate majority leader and the Speaker of the House cobbled together this bill, with some technical help. When we saw it again, it said we want to continue to use food as a weapon and keep embargoes on various countries around the world. I am not happy with this bill. Let's provide income support to farmers, it says, after we pushed for that. But it says do it with something called AMTA payments. We are going to have people getting emergency payments who didn't lose any money because of collapsed prices; they weren't even farming. In fact, the payment limits have gone up. So it is conceivable that some landowners are going to get $460,000 without putting a hand to the plow. That is the new payment limit. Can you imagine telling a taxpayer in a city someplace that we want to help farmers in trouble, and they ask which farmers? Well, somebody is going to get a $460,000 payment whether or not they are actually farming. That is not helping America's family farmers. So there is a lot wrong with the payments provided by this bill. Similarly, the disaster aid is only $1.2 billion and contains no specific line item for flooded lands. We know that amount shortchanges all the known needs. We know that is not going to cover the drought of the Northeast, the flooding from Hurricane Floyd and the prevented planting in the Upper Midwest--all of the disasters that need to be addressed across this country. But the combination of things in this legislation has put us in a position of asking if we are going to provide some help or no help. We are in a situation where we have to say yes, we will vote for this package, but without great enthusiasm. This was done the wrong way. Most of us know that. We should have helped farmers who lost income because of collapsed prices and weather disasters, the people who really produce a crop. We ought not to have a $460,000 upper payment limit, and we ought not to have dropped the provision that says we are going to end embargoes on food and medicine forever. It was wrong to drop that. We know that. I will have to vote for this conference report, without enthusiasm, because there is an emergency and a crisis, and some farmers will not be around if we don't extend a helping hand now. Never again should we do it this way. This is the wrong way to do it. It is not the right way to respond to the emergency that exists in farm country. My friend, the Senator from Illinois, wants to speak. I thank him for his patience. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Having said all that, let me turn to the question of the Agriculture Appropriations bill. Let me ask how much time I have remaining? I had sought 20 minutes.