Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask consent to speak for 20 minutes in morning business.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I wanted to speak about three items today. First, I want to talk for just a moment about Kosovo and the NATO actions in Kosovo. I had a town meeting in North Dakota over the weekend and had a fairly large number of North Dakotans pack into a rather small room, and we had a 1\1/2\ hour discussion about the airstrikes in which NATO, including the United States, is involved in Yugoslavia and in Kosovo. I expect I am joined by all of my colleagues when I say I hope and pray the hostilities in the region will cease. I hope Mr. Milosevic will pull back his Serb troops and that we will be able to restore peace and order and have the opportunity to find a way to provide those refugees who have streamed across the border the opportunity to go home. Most North Dakotans who have communicated with me, and those who came to this weekend's meeting I had in Fargo on this subject, are anxious and nervous and concerned about what is happening in the region. They do not have any better answers than I or my colleagues, or anyone else for that matter, on what to do when someone like Mr. Milosevic commits genocide or ethnic cleansing, including substantial massacres of the civilian population in the region of Kosovo. The question that all of us at this weekend's meeting in North Dakota posed was, What shall we do? Shall we say it is none of our business, it is not in our part of the world? Genocide committed by Mr. Milosevic or ethnic cleansing is not something we need to be concerned about? I think most people believe that is not the answer either. Clearly, we do not want in 5 or 10 years from now to look back and say, that genocide or Holocaust, or whatever it was Mr. Milosevic committed, killing thousands, perhaps ultimately hundreds of thousands, is something that we did not care about. If that were the case, I think it would be reasonable to say shame on us. We must be involved and we must care. The question is, How do we address it? How do we effectively thwart the attempt by Mr. Milosevic to clear all of the Albanians out of Kosovo? How do we thwart his attempt to massacre innocent civilians with the Serb Army? How do we restore order to this region? I have supported the airstrikes, and I hope and pray they succeed in driving Mr. Milosevic back. I have said before and I reiterate today that I do not and will not support the introduction of U.S. ground troops to the Balkans. I think that would be a horrible mistake. Frankly, the bulk of the airstrikes have occurred in the Balkan region with U.S. planes and U.S. pilots. If, in fact, ground troops are ultimately needed, I believe it is the responsibility of the European countries to commit those ground troops. I know NATO is involved in this as an alliance, and we are a significant part of that alliance. But the United States bears the heaviest burden in the air war, bears the heaviest cost in the airstrikes, and I think if ground troops ultimately are necessary--and I hope they will not be--I think those ground troops must be furnished by the European countries. I will not support the position that we should introduce U.S. ground troops in the Balkans. I believe that would be a serious mistake, and I cannot and will not support that. Let me again say, I do not believe my constituents or my colleagues have any easy answers. This is not an easy situation. Things are happening in the Balkans that I think all of the world looks at with horror and says, ``We must do something to try to respond to it.'' But it is not easy. Dozens of foreign powers over many centuries have gone to the Balkans only to experience profound disappointment in their attempt to change something that was internally happening in that region of the world. Let me hope, along with my colleagues, that these airstrikes by NATO will convince Mr. Milosevic that the price is too high to continue doing what he is doing in that region to so many innocent men, women, and children. Let us hope that this is a success sooner rather than later and we can provide some peace and stability to that region.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, last year, I introduced a bill to correct problems with the Federal ``Son of Sam'' law, as those problems were perceived by the U.S. Supreme Court. Today, I am reintroducing this legislation, which deals with a continuing problem. The New York statute analyzed by the Supreme Court, as well as the Federal statute which I seek to amend, forfeited the proceeds from any expressive work of a criminal, and dedicated those proceeds to the victims of the perpetrator's crime. Because of constitutional deficiencies cited by the Court, the Federal statute has never been applied, and without changes, it is highly unlikely that it ever will be. Without this bill, criminals can become wealthy from the fruits of their crimes, while victims and families are exploited. The bill I now introduce attempts to correct constitutional deficiencies cited by the Supreme Court in striking down New York's Son of Sam law. In its decision striking down New York's law, the Court found the state to be both over inclusive and under inclusive: Over inclusive because the statute included all expressive works, no matter how tangentially related to the crime; under inclusive because the statute included only expressive works, not other forms of property. To correct the deficiencies perceived by the Court, this bill changes significantly the concepts of the Federal statute. Because the Court criticized the statute for singling out speech, this bill is all- encompassing: It includes various types of property related to the crime from which a criminal might profit. Because the Court criticized the statute for being over inclusive, including the proceeds from all works, no matter how remotely connected to the crime, this bill limits the property to be forfeited to the enhanced value of property attributable to the offense. Because the Court found fault with the statute for not requiring a conviction, this bill requires a conviction. The bill also attempts to take advantage of the long legal history of forfeiture. Pirate ships and their contents were once forfeited to the government. More recent case law addresses the concept of forfeiting any property used in the commission of drug related crimes, or proceeds from those crimes. I hope that courts interpreting this statute will look to this legal history and find it binding or persuasive. The bill utilizes the Commerce Clause authority of Congress to forfeit property associated with State crimes. This means that if funds are transferred through banking channels, if UPS or FedEx are used, if the airwaves are utilized, or if the telephone is used to transfer the property, to transfer funds, or to make a profit, the property can be forfeited. In State cases, this bill allows the State Attorney General to proceed first. We do not seek to preempt State law, only to see that there is a law in place which will ensure that criminals do not profit at the expense of their victims and the families of victims. One last improvement which this bill makes over the former statutes: The old statute included only crime which resulted in physical harm to another; this bill includes other crimes. Examples of crimes probably not included under the old statute, but included here are terrorizing, kidnaping, bank robbery, and embezzlement. Mr. President, our Federal statute, enacted to ensure that criminals not profit at the expense of their victims and victim's families, is not used today because it is perceived to be unconstitutional. I believe victims of crime deserve quick action on this bill, drafted to ensure that they are not the source of profits to those who committed crimes against them. I asked for your support. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

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, today is April 14 and tomorrow is April 15. That means tomorrow there will be a good many Americans who will finish their tax return preparation, go to the post office and drop it in the mailbox in order to get an April 15 date stamped on it to comply with the tax laws in this country. It is never a pleasant thing, and I know most people grit their teeth and wring their hands about the responsibility of having to file income tax returns. But most Americans do that because they know that we have needs and obligations in this country to pay for a defense establishment, to pay for roads, to pay for schools--to pay for the cost of civilization, in effect. However, not everybody pays their fair share of U.S. income taxes, not everybody pays their way. Today, I am releasing a United States General Accounting Office report that was done at my request. This GAO report, which I hope Members of the House and Senate will read, has some rather startling conclusions in it. At about the time most Americans will file their tax return and pay the tax bill that they owe, this GAO report says there are plenty of special interests in this country that don't pay anything--earn a lot of money, but don't pay any taxes. They are not taxpayers. Let me describe what this GAO report says. The GAO report says that 67 percent of the foreign controlled corporations doing business in the United States--67 percent--pay no U.S. income taxes at all. Zero in Federal income taxes. In the first half of this decade, the General Accounting Office says that the percent of foreign-based corporations doing business here and paying no U.S. income taxes has ranged from 67 percent to 74 percent. The GAO report also shows that U.S. controlled companies fared little better. Now, that represents all corporations filing a U.S. tax return. Let's just deal with large corporations. That is, corporations defined by the GAO as having at least $250 million in assets, or $50 million or more in sales; that is a large company. About 30 percent of both the large foreign controlled and U.S. controlled corporations doing business this country paid no U.S. income taxes--despite having more than $1 trillion in sales here in 1995, the latest year for which statistics are available. In 1995, the large foreign controlled corporations that did pay some U.S. income taxes on the profits they made--and some did, the General Accounting Office says they paid taxes at a rate that was just about one-half of the rate paid by the large U.S. corporations paying federal income taxes on their profits here. Now, I bring this to the floor of the Senate simply to say this: There is still substantial tax avoidance in this country, and it is not tax avoidance by working folks, by people who get up in the morning and go to work at a job for 8 or 10 hours a day; they aren't avoiding their tax responsibilities, because they can't. They must file tax returns. They have withholding on their wages and they must meet their citizenship requirements in this country. As we near April 15, one day away, and the American people are filing tax returns, it is reasonable for them to ask, when they hear what is within the cover of this GAO report, why do they not see some of the largest economic interests that make hundreds of millions of dollars, and in some cases billions of dollars--why don't they see those economic interests as taxpayers in this country? The GAO, some while ago, and other reports, said that one automobile maker, a foreign car maker, sold $3.4 billion worth of automobiles in this country and paid zero in Federal income taxes. The Presiding Officer is from a State that would care about that, the State that makes more cars, I suspect, than any other State in our country, where most major car manufacturers are located. So how, one would ask, could a foreign company come in and sell $3.4 billion worth of automobiles and say that ``we want all the advantages and to enjoy all the opportunities the American marketplace can give us, but we don't want to become taxpayers in your country''? How does that happen? Because we have a tax law, in my opinion, that deals with international corporations that do business all around the world in a way that allows them to jump through massive tax loopholes and, as this report says, hundreds of billions of dollars and more of sales in this country and then claim to the U.S. Government that they don't owe one penny in income taxes. There is something fundamentally wrong with that system. I am going to come to the floor to speak later about what causes all this and what we can do about it. But I did want to disclose the GAO report today that says this problem isn't getting better. They did this report for me 4 years ago. I asked them to renew it and update it. They have done that. The report says this problem isn't getting better. What we have is, according to some folks, $10 billion, $20 billion, $30 billion--and one report estimates $35 billion--in taxes that should be paid to the Federal Government by these international corporations, but that is in fact not paid. The only way you can retain a tax system of the type we have in this country is to have voluntary compliance--that is, to have most people complying because they know they have a responsibility to do so. People will not voluntarily comply with a tax system that they think is unfair. It certainly is unfair to those working families in this country, who make $25,000, $35,000, $55,000, $75,000 a year and work hard and send their kids to school and pay their bills and stretch budgets to make ends meet, and at the end of the year they have to file a tax return and pay the Federal income taxes. It is not fair to them and it certainly erodes their confidence in this country and in the tax system to see some of the largest international corporations doing business in America saying, ``We want all the advantages of being able to do that, except we don't want to be a taxpayer.'' I say to those corporations, if you get in trouble, whose Navy are you going to ask for to bail you out? I know the answer and so do you. If you are going to do business here and make profits in this country, you have a responsibility to help pay for that Navy and the many other things we do in this country that make it a wonderful place in which to live. I might just mention some of the ways in which these companies avoid paying taxes, just because some people might wonder how this happens. It happens through massive tax avoidance schemes called ``transfer pricing.'' A foreign corporation decides to do business in the United States. It sets up a wholly-owned subsidiary. It manufactures in a foreign country, ships it to this country, and then either overcharges or undercharges itself, depending on which way the product is going, in order to make sure there is no profit shown in this country from its activities in the United States. The result of gaming that system and preventing the tax collectors at the IRS from seeing what they really made is that they are able to cart off their profits from this country and avoid paying any taxes at all. On April 15, tax day, every American ought to scream at the Congress and the tax collection agency to say that we ought to fix this and we ought to do it soon. How do we fix it? Well, it is interesting that even at a time when GAO is doing this report that shows we have massive tax avoidance through transfer pricing--even at this time, this problem is getting worse because Congress, at virtually every opportunity, the kind of folks who think about these things are slipping little things into bills every chance they get to make this problem worse. They just did it last fall in a revenue bill with a juicy little tax break worth a couple hundred million dollars. With no debate and no hearings, they just stuck it in the middle of that bill. It added to the proposition that more companies will do business, make profits here and pay no taxes here. We have a responsibility to fix that. So I appreciate the work the GAO has done. I intend to encourage them to keep doing this work to show us who is paying taxes and who isn't. Guess what? The working American families are paying taxes. They don't have any choice. They may not like it, but they understand the advantages of living in this country and what we must pay for for ourselves and our children--defense, schools, roads and more. If the working families in this country voluntarily comply with this tax law--and they do--then I suggest it is time to ask some of the largest international corporations selling brand names that every single one of us knows to start doing the same thing. I am going to bring a report to the floor in the coming days that talks about transfer pricing in ways that everybody will understand. I will talk about corporations selling to themselves radial tires for $2,570 and a tooth brush for $172. Why would companies sell a tooth brush for $172 to themselves? So they can soak profits in one direction or another and prevent the Federal Government in this country from taxing their profits. There are massive schemes of tax avoidance. How about a piano for $50? Sound good? I am going to talk about the kind of tax avoidance schemes that goes on as a result of this transfer pricing, which results, by the way, in this kind of study, which says, in conclusion, the largest international corporations in this country-- yes, domestic corporations doing business overseas and foreign corporations doing business here are involved in massive tax avoidance. We have a responsibility to the American people to stop it. This is not rocket science. It is simply standing up to the largest economic interests, to say to them you have the same responsibility in this country as individual taxpayers. You have the same responsibility in this country as the average working family has, and that is, you do business here, you profit from this system, you have a responsibility to contribute, to pay taxes. When you do not do it, we ought to change the law and certainly improve enforcement and make sure you do do it, because that is the fair way to make sure a tax system works for everybody. Mr. President, with that I will be back on a succeeding day to talk more about transfer pricing. But I wanted to bring to the attention of my colleagues and others the GAO report that is released today that describes what I think is a rather dismal conclusion about massive tax avoidance by some of the largest taxpayers in the world, doing business in this country, making substantial profits, and avoiding the responsibility of paying their fair share of Federal income taxes. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I send a motion to the desk.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me take a minute to say that I understand the point the Senator from New Mexico made. I appreciate the additional $6 billion that was added over the 5 years. My point is, it is far short of what we need in terms of income support. It is the case that the administration budget did not do nearly what it needed to do. But there comes a time at some point when the urgency of the situation in rural America really requires us to say this isn't about us or them anymore; it is about what we are going to do together to respond to a real problem of significant consequence to this country. We will simply not have family farmers left unless we together, Republicans and Democrats in Congress, recognize that we have a farm bill that says when market prices collapse, it's response is too bad. That can't be the farm bill response. When market prices collapse, if we want to save family farmers, we have to build a bridge across those valleys. Only the largest corporate farms will survive a collapse in market prices. They are big enough and strong enough to survive. Family farmers can't and won't. So if we care about having people live out on the land, if we care about the special quality family farms and small towns give this country, then we must reconnect and provide some kind of basic safety net for family farmers. Again, I see all these headlines about prairie dogs. They are going to save the prairie dog. God bless the prairie dog. There sure are plenty of them in my State. We don't need a special effort to save prairie dogs. We need to save family farmers. That is the message, and that is the urgency, in my judgment, for a public policy debate here in Congress and the establishment of the correct priorities in this budget to say to family farmers, ``You matter.'' Some say we need a national missile defense system. Yes, that might be the priority for some. But I happen to think we need a farm program that works for family farmers. In the absence of it, we are going to see wholesale bankruptcies and more and more auction sales, and this country will have lost something that is very important to its character and its economy. Mr. President, I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, my colleague, Senator Conrad, wanted to speak for at least 5 minutes. I understand he is on his way. I hope we can wait for just a moment. It appears he could use the remaining 5 minutes of my time.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, we are dealing with the budget and the naming of conferees, and a number of priorities have been discussed here on the floor of the Senate. That is what a budget is, establishing priorities. I offer this motion to instruct, and it is very simple. The Senator from New Mexico said he would like to take this, and if he does, I will not ask for a recorded vote. In this motion, I move to instruct the conferees on H. Con. Res. 68, the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2000, to include in the conference report provisions that would provide additional funding for income assistance for family farmers above the level provided in the Senate-passed resolution. Why am I asking for favorable consideration on this motion? Yesterday, I read on the Senate floor a letter from a North Dakota woman that I want to read today. Her name is Susan Jorgenson. She wrote in her letter, describing the plight of family farmers, something that I think everybody listening to this debate should digest. Susan Jorgenson has lost her husband. He died last August. She said he had diabetes, but she said: . . .what I really feel caused his death was trying to make a living as a family farmer. She said: I had an auction last week to sell the [farm] machinery so I can pay off some of the debt that [we] incurred after 26 years of farming. I have a 17-year-old son who would not help me prepare for the auction and did not get out of bed the day of the [auction] sale because he was so heartbroken that he could not continue [to farm] this land [that he loved]. She said this of her husband: He chose to farm rather than to live in Phoenix where he had a job with Motorola [early on] because he wanted to raise his children in a place with clean air, no crime, and good schools. He worked very hard, physically and emotionally, to make this farm work and its failure was . . . no fault of his own. That is what this farm wife says about her deceased husband. What is happening on the family farm? Everybody is making money but them. They raise the crop and give it to a railroad; the railroad makes a record profit hauling it. They raise steer and sell them to the slaughter house; the slaughter house makes a profit and the farmer goes belly up. They raise grain and put it into a cereal manufacturing plant, and they then take that wheat or rice and puff it and send it to a grocery store as puffed wheat or rice. The company that added the puff makes a mint and the farmer goes broke. Everything that touches what the farmer raises makes record profits, and the farmers are going broke in record numbers. We have a serious emergency on family farms. Here is a headline concerning prairie dogs. Some groups have now decided --including in the Government--that we have a big problem, that we have to save prairie dogs. I don't know if these folks have driven around my part of the country much, but we have lots and lots of prairie dogs. We don't need a Federal program to ensure that we are going to have them in our future. Prairie dogs will take care of themselves, thank you. What we lack are family farmers. Every day in every way, every week, every month, and every single year, we lose more and more family farmers. Now, we have farmers raising wheat and selling it for Depression-era prices in constant dollars. How would you like to be receiving wages that are Depression-era wages right now in constant dollars? How about a minimum wage for family farmers? We debate minimum wage here on the floor of the Senate and I always vote for it. I think the folks at the bottom end of the ladder need to be given the chance to raise themselves up a bit. What about an opportunity to provide a fair price for farmers? Wheat prices and grain prices have collapsed. Cattle prices and pork prices have collapsed. Farmers are having auction sales and 17-year-old boys won't get out of bed because they are so heartsick about losing their farms. We are told by people around here: Well, that's just the way the market system works. That is not a system that works at all. The system says to those who gas the tractor in the spring, plow the ground, plant the seed, and harvest the crop that their work has no value but the giant agrifactories that make a fortune with it have value. I am saying that this Congress must do something about that. This Congress must decide that family farmers matter in this country's future. I have watched the chairman of the Budget Committee fight for things that matter to him. I have watched him fight for the National Labs and so many other things that are so important to him and there is no more tenacious of a fighter in the Senate than the Senator from New Mexico about the things that matter to him. I feel the same way about family farmers. That is what matters to me. I am not saying that [farming] doesn't matter to him or anybody else. I am not making a judgment about that. I am just saying that we have a full-blown emergency in rural America. I held up a chart yesterday that showed the counties in this country which are losing population, which have lost over 15 percent of their population in the last 15 years. What you have is a huge red swath in the middle of America being depopulated--the middle part of our country. We need a farm program that works. And when we see auction sale posters from wall to wall in small towns, and small town businesses boarded up--so many auction sales that they have to call retired auctioneers out of retirement to handle the sales--we ought to understand that this counts for something in this country and that we need to develop a public policy that says we are going to try to do something to stop the flow of family farmers who are leaving the land and discovering that their hopes and dreams have come to an end. Every single month, we add a ``New York City'' in population to this Earth. Every month, a new ``New York City'' is added in population to this Earth. Yet, farmers are told that the food they produce has no value. The market system says it has no value. That is not logical. Over half of the people on this Earth go to bed with an ache in their belly because they don't have enough to eat. I have mentioned time and again--and I will do it again--that in Sudan people talk about old women climbing trees to gather leaves to eat because there is nothing to eat. Ask yourselves about the people in refugee camps today and what their needs are. It is food. Somehow this system of ours, in a Byzantine way, says that those who produce the food ought not to get full value for it, but those who make it into cereal, those who haul it, those who add value somehow should achieve record profits. There is something wrong with that system. I hope this Senate will go on record saying that we need to do more and better. My personal feeling is that we need to take the caps off the loan rates. The farm bill--which I didn't vote for because I didn't think it was a good bill--was saying we will take away with the fine print what we promised to give you in the large print. We promised a loan rate, and we promised that that loan rate would produce $3.25 in wheat, but in the small print it was limited to about $2.58. Let's take away that provision that limits the amount of support and help farmers during this period of collapsed prices and see if we can give them the opportunity to have a decent income when prices collapse. If we don't build a bridge across those valleys, nobody will do it. We will be left with a country full of giant agrifactories farming from California to Maine. We will get the food all right, but it will be more expensive, and nobody will be living in rural America. We will have lost something very important--family farmers, small towns, main street businesses, and a very special and unique part of this country's character that comes from that part of America. So I am offering this motion to instruct conferees to ask that money be added above the Senate level for income support for family farmers. Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I yield 4 minutes to the Senator from North Dakota, Senator Conrad.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I rise to join my colleague from North Dakota, Mr. Conrad, in introducing a bill to provide a final settlement on certain debts owned by the City of Dickinson, North Dakota, to the Bureau of Reclamation. The legislation is virtually identical to that introduced during the last Congress. The Dickinson Dam Bascule Gates Settlement Act will provide long overdue relief to the citizens of Dickinson. Let me briefly explain why the debt liquidation is needed and appropriate. For one thing, the Bureau of Reclamation built a faulty project. The debt was incurred by the City of Dickinson for construction of a dam with gate structures which never worked properly. In addition, the need for the dam to help provide a reliable local water supply was eclipsed by the construction of the Southwest Pipeline, a project of the same Bureau of Reclamation. The legislation itself is actually quite simple. It would permit the Secretary of the Interior to accept one final payment from the City of Dickinson in place of a series of payments now required by city's current repayment contract. My colleague has described in some detail the complicated and frustrating story of the dam and bascule gates project. Let me underscore a couple of major points. In 1949 and 1950, the dam was constructed to provide an adequate water supply for the City of Dickinson, as well as some flood control and recreation. The bascule gates were added to augment storage capacity in the reservoir called Patterson Lake. Despite the city's concerns about the use of a gate structure on the dam, which had not previously been used in a northern climate, the gates actually failed in 1982. The ensuing modifications increased the cost of the project. Another twist in the story is that by 1991 the city no longer needed the Patterson Lake water supply. As noted, it began to receive its water supply from the Southwest Pipeline. This is a major distribution network of the Garrison Diversion Unit, another Bureau of Reclamation project. This system provides both higher quality and more reliable water supplies than the city's previous supply from Patterson Lake. Consequently, it makes no sense for the City of Dickinson to have two water supply systems when it needs only one--especially when the first system was a faulty one. The city has already repaid more than $1.2 million for the bascule gates, even though they now provide virtually no benefit to the city. Last year, I was able to pass an appropriations amendment to provide partial relief for the city's debt. Unfortunately, this provision stalled in the conference committee. The North Dakota delegation also added an amendment for more complete debt relief to a package of water management projects, which did not pass in the last days of 1998 session. Thus, we need to provide authority for Dickinson to settle its debt, to reallocate costs for operation and maintenance of the bascule gates and Dickinson Dam, and to permit the Secretary of the Interior to enter into appropriate water service contracts with the city for any beneficial use of the water in Patterson Lake. The proposed legislation will address those three objectives while also providing a fair settlement for the Federal Government and the City of Dickinson. I want to commend my colleague from North Dakota for his leadership and cooperation in developing a sound solution to this problem. In term, I urge my colleagues to consider and pass this needed legislation.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I rise to join my colleague from North Dakota, Mr. Conrad, in introducing a bill to provide a final settlement on certain debts owned by the City of Dickinson, North Dakota, to the Bureau of Reclamation. The legislation is virtually identical to that introduced during the last Congress. The Dickinson Dam Bascule Gates Settlement Act will provide long overdue relief to the citizens of Dickinson. Let me briefly explain why the debt liquidation is needed and appropriate. For one thing, the Bureau of Reclamation built a faulty project. The debt was incurred by the City of Dickinson for construction of a dam with gate structures which never worked properly. In addition, the need for the dam to help provide a reliable local water supply was eclipsed by the construction of the Southwest Pipeline, a project of the same Bureau of Reclamation. The legislation itself is actually quite simple. It would permit the Secretary of the Interior to accept one final payment from the City of Dickinson in place of a series of payments now required by city's current repayment contract. My colleague has described in some detail the complicated and frustrating story of the dam and bascule gates project. Let me underscore a couple of major points. In 1949 and 1950, the dam was constructed to provide an adequate water supply for the City of Dickinson, as well as some flood control and recreation. The bascule gates were added to augment storage capacity in the reservoir called Patterson Lake. Despite the city's concerns about the use of a gate structure on the dam, which had not previously been used in a northern climate, the gates actually failed in 1982. The ensuing modifications increased the cost of the project. Another twist in the story is that by 1991 the city no longer needed the Patterson Lake water supply. As noted, it began to receive its water supply from the Southwest Pipeline. This is a major distribution network of the Garrison Diversion Unit, another Bureau of Reclamation project. This system provides both higher quality and more reliable water supplies than the city's previous supply from Patterson Lake. Consequently, it makes no sense for the City of Dickinson to have two water supply systems when it needs only one--especially when the first system was a faulty one. The city has already repaid more than $1.2 million for the bascule gates, even though they now provide virtually no benefit to the city. Last year, I was able to pass an appropriations amendment to provide partial relief for the city's debt. Unfortunately, this provision stalled in the conference committee. The North Dakota delegation also added an amendment for more complete debt relief to a package of water management projects, which did not pass in the last days of 1998 session. Thus, we need to provide authority for Dickinson to settle its debt, to reallocate costs for operation and maintenance of the bascule gates and Dickinson Dam, and to permit the Secretary of the Interior to enter into appropriate water service contracts with the city for any beneficial use of the water in Patterson Lake. The proposed legislation will address those three objectives while also providing a fair settlement for the Federal Government and the City of Dickinson. I want to commend my colleague from North Dakota for his leadership and cooperation in developing a sound solution to this problem. In term, I urge my colleagues to consider and pass this needed legislation.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, as the Senate reconvenes from a 2-week Easter recess, I am sure a number of my colleagues will be coming to the floor to discuss the challenges and the difficulties and the circumstances that exist now with respect to the action being taken in Kosovo. I am one of those who voted to support airstrikes in Kosovo. We voted to give the President the authority to commit U.S. troops and airplanes to conduct airstrikes only, along with our NATO allies, to respond to the ethnic cleansing and the genocide that has been occurring in Kosovo. I believe it is in our national interest to respond in these circumstances when we see genocide being committed. When we see ethnic cleansing on the scale as has been committed in Kosovo, we have a responsibility as a community of nations to respond to it, to try to help and to save the lives of those poor, innocent people who are being repressed and in a good many cases murdered, and certainly in hundreds of thousands of cases removed from their homeland, by a tyrant, by someone who does not respect international law. Over 630,000 refugees have been forced from their homes in Kosovo, 25,000 of them loaded on trains in scenes that are reminiscent of the late stages in World War II, sending of the folks to the death camps in the Second World War. Reports of mass executions, burned villages, rapes and robberies--all of this is rampant. I supported the airstrikes as part of a NATO response to stop this ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. The United States is doing this as a part of NATO, but the United States shoulders the bulk of the burden of the airstrikes in that region. There are 400 U.S. war planes, 400 U.S. aircraft involved in this operation, and about 200 aircraft from the allied nations. During the first week of the war, the United States flew about 90 percent of the sorties. In other words, 90 percent of the pilots and about 90 percent of the airplanes during the first week of that war were U.S. planes and pilots. I expect we will have briefings this week about the consequences of the airstrikes that have been launched. We have seen substantial television coverage. There has been a great deal of news analysis of all of this, and I think probably everyone here in the Senate is concerned and nervous about what is happening. There is discussion now about whether ground troops ultimately will be needed in that region in order to complete the mission of NATO. I do not know the answer to that, but I do feel very strongly that the introduction of U.S. forces on the ground in the Balkans could be a very, very significant mistake. The NATO allies, it seems to me, the NATO countries, particularly the European countries, have a greater responsibility, especially in their neighborhood, in their area of the world, to do what is necessary to make the commitment if ground troops are necessary to support this effort. We do not know the consequences of NATO action. We know the consequences of taking no action. That would be the continuation and perhaps the finality of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, perhaps the murder of tens of thousands of additional people, certainly the displacement of hundreds of thousands and more from Kosovo to refugee camps and to other places in the world. That is unacceptable. None of us want 5 and 10 years from now to look back and say, ``What shame has been wrought upon this world with this ethnic cleansing and this genocide that we did nothing about it.'' That is the reason I think this country and the NATO allies decided we will not allow this to stand; we must take action. So we took action with airstrikes, and those airstrikes continue. The next decision, I think, will be, Will there be ground troops needed? I will just say, speaking for myself, I am very concerned about the introduction of U.S. ground forces in the Balkans. I believe very strongly that the NATO countries, particularly the European countries, must bear a greater responsibility of that burden. If ground troops are needed for intervention in the Balkans, then I believe that the European countries ought to commit under NATO those ground troops. But I would be very concerned about a decision to commit U.S. ground troops in the Balkans. Those of us in leadership on the Republican and Democratic side, both in the Senate and in the House, have been invited to meet with President Clinton tomorrow at the White House late in the morning. We will be discussing this issue, I suspect, in greater detail: What have the airstrikes accomplished? What is the mission? How does that mission now continue toward some kind of conclusion, and what might we expect that conclusion to be? I do not agree with my colleagues at all who say our mission must be to be successful; our mission must be to win with respect to the goals we have established in this area. But no one should mistake that this is a very difficult set of circumstances. We acted because we had to, but this remains a very difficult set of circumstances for this country and for the NATO allies. It is my hope that very soon Mr. Milosevic will understand that he cannot continue, that this country and many of us in this body view him as a war criminal. I am one who believes he should be tried as a war criminal in front of an international tribunal. I know some are reluctant to do that because then they say you are negotiating ultimately with a war criminal if you negotiate an end to the hostilities. The fact is, because genocide is being committed, we are persuaded to go in to stop it. By definition, when we began this process, we decided this person was a war criminal at the start. Why are we reluctant now, at anyplace along this process, to ask an international tribunal to brand him, try him in absentia, if necessary, as a war criminal? There will be much more to discuss on the subject of Kosovo in the coming days. I will be interested, as well, in the views of my colleagues and interested in the meeting with President Clinton tomorrow with the joint leadership of the House and the Senate. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak on a different subject, the subject of family farming and agriculture, for another 8 minutes.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Anthony Blaylock and Shannon Hamm be granted the privilege of the floor for the day.

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 urge my colleagues to join me, as we turn towards the agenda before the Senate, from now perhaps until the Fourth of July, to understand that we face an urgent situation in rural America. Family farmers today, in my State and your State, if you represent the farm belt, went to the bank and were told that their investments, all of their 20 or 30 years invested in their farm are gone. They will not be able to plant the ground and raise a crop this year because they are out of money. I want to read a letter I received from a woman. I talked to her by phone this morning. I was so struck by it, because she represents so well the dilemma and the urgency that we face in family farming. This is a woman named, Susan Jorgenson, who is from North Dakota. Her husband died last August. She said that he had diabetes. She writes: . . . what I really feel caused his death was trying to make a living as a farmer. I had an auction last week to sell the [farm] machinery, so that I can pay off some of the debt that [we] incurred after 26 years of farming. I have a 17 yr. old son who would not help me prepare for this auction and did not get out of bed the day of the [auction] sale, because he is so heartbroken that he can not continue [to farm] this land. My husband was an excellent manager and fully educated. He had a masters degree. He chose to farm rather than to live in Phoenix where he had a job with Motorola [early on], because he wanted to raise his children in a place with clean air, no crime and good schools. He worked very hard, physically and emotionally to make this farm work and its failure was . . . no fault of his own. What do we say to families who live on America's farms when prices collapse for the product they produce? And when they take a truckload of grain to the elevator, that elevator operator says, ``Well, the grain market for this grain you produced has no value''? The farmer who worked to plant and harvest the crops, risked the money to farm to get that grain to the elevator thinks, ``Gosh, that's a strange set of circumstances. I'm told my crop has no value, and yet much of the world goes to bed with an ache in their belly because they don't have enough to eat.'' People are starving in other parts of the world. We have images of old women climbing trees scavenging for leaves to eat because there is nothing else to eat. We had a report recently noting a country with a million to a million and a quarter people on the abyss of starvation, and our farmers are told their crops have no value. The challenge for us in this Congress is to decide whether family farmers matter in our country. I have a chart that shows all of those counties in America, shown in red, where they have lost more than 15 percent of their population. Largely, it shows in the center part of our country, the farm belt, that people have moved out. Our farm belt is being depopulated. A century ago we had the Homestead Act to persuade people to come out and begin farming. If you moved out there, the Federal Government gave you 160 acres of land. You were a homesteader; you farmed the land. And we populated the farm belt. Now look at what has happened: The farm belt is being depopulated for a good number of reasons, the most important of which, in my judgment, is we have a farm program that does not work. The farm program says, ``You're on your own. When market prices collapse, we're not going to provide decent support prices.'' We need to reconnect with decent price supports. We need a Fair Price Plan for Family Farmers, and we need it soon. This Congress has a responsibility, in my judgment, between now and the July 4 recess, to address this urgent situation on America's family farms and to say to family farmers, ``You matter, the products you produce make a difference, they have value, and this country stands behind what you represent in our country.'' We need to do a number of things. We need to pass a better Farm Bill, as I said, a Fair Price Plan. We need meat labeling that will help our ranchers. Let people know what they are eating and where it came from. We need price reporting. Let's see fair prices and full price reporting on livestock prices. Let's break up some of the monopolies that exist in the slaughterhouses. Eighty-seven percent of America's fat steers go to four slaughterhouses to be slaughtered. What that means is, you pass that monopoly pricing back on family farmers. They are the ones who are already losing money. Isn't it interesting that every firm in this country who touches what a farmer produces, whether it is a steak or a bushel of wheat or a bushel of corn, is making money. The railroads are making record profits hauling it. The cereal manufacturers are making record profits crisping and puffing it, putting it into a box and selling it as cereal. The folks that slaughter the beef, the pork, the poultry, and the sheep are making record profits. It is the farmer who rises to do the chores, to plant the ground, to harvest the crops, who is going broke because they are told their commodities have no value. That is a bankrupt approach for this economy. The economy, if it rewards hard work and the production of things people in this world need, will do well. But we decided that the all-star economic producers in America, the American family farmers, don't matter and we passed a farm bill that says, you're on your own; you deal with the marketplace and we don't care what the marketplace looks like. The farm bill is stacked against you, it favors monopolistic businesses, it presses its heavy boot upon you and you can't do anything about it. That is tough luck because it says we don't need you anymore, we don't need family farmers, all we need are giant agribusinesses. If that is the position that is taken in this country, this country will have taken a giant step backwards. So I am saying that in the coming 2 or 3 months we must recognize the urgency of the situation on the family farm. Farmer after farmer after farmer in State after State are going broke, through no fault of their own. This young boy, who could not bear to attend the auction sale at his own farm, because it broke his heart not to be able to farm that land that his dad and his granddad and great-granddad farmed, this boy ought to hear from this Congress that we stand ready to help, that we care about preserving families on America's farms, that the decentralization of food production, a network of family farms dotting this country's prairies, strengthens America, that producing food that a hungry world needs is something that is an asset in this country, not a liability. So I hope in the next 2 to 3 months those who care about family farmers will join those of us who come from the farm belt to pass aggressive, good, strong legislation dealing with concentration, monopolies, price reporting, meat labeling, and a decent price support--all of those issues and more--that will finally say to family farmers, you have a decent opportunity to make a living on America's family farms. Mr. President, I yield the floor. But before I do, I thank my colleague from Maine for waiting patiently. Ms. COLLINS addressed the Chair.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I yield 2 minutes to the Senator from Minnesota. Privilege Of The Floor

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me continue briefly and then call on my colleague from North Dakota, Senator Conrad, and I believe the Democratic leader, Senator Daschle, will be here as well. Imagine for a moment that corporate profits were cut by 50 percent, or 75 percent, or 90 percent, as farm income was cut one year recently in my State. Imagine what would happen in this country if that were the case, and corporate profits were slashed. We would have an apoplectic seizure here in Congress trying to figure out what happened and what can we do about it. The question is what do we do about the economic all-stars, the families out there on our family farms that produce, raise crops, and take the risks? What about when their income collapses? Again, we have people here who say that doesn't matter and that corporations can farm America from the California coast to Maine. It doesn't matter, they say. I cannot describe how wrong they are. So we come to the floor to say we propose this amendment to add $6 billion a year, which would provide the opportunity for real, significant price support increases when commodity prices collapse for family farmers. Is that a lot to ask? We hear folks come to the floor and say defense needs more. So, we stick in money for defense. We want to build a missile system. You put $1 billion in for a missile system last fall that the Defense Department said it did not want and could not use. Money for tax cuts? There's plenty of money for that. But what about money for mom and pop out there on the family farm who are ravaged by collapsed prices? No, they say, we are out of money. I would say this. This Congress is out of ideas when it comes to family farming, if it believes the current farm program is the road to prosperity for these producers who are this country's real economic all-stars. We need to backtrack just a bit and decide that family farmers matter to this country's future. We need to say to them that we are going to reconnect a reasonable price protection program. So, when prices collapse our country will say to farmers that we will give them a chance to make it across those price valleys. I started by talking about Margaret Hansen, the 90-year-old woman from North Dakota. We are a sparsely populated State. Half of our economy is agriculture. But that is also true with respect to a major part of this farm belt. This Congress should understand that America's economy is never going to be doing well in the long term if the middle part of its farm belt is being depopulated. Food production is important to this country's future and the health of family farming is important in producing America's food. Let me call on my colleague from North Dakota and allocate 7 minutes to my colleague, Senator Conrad.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, how much time have I consumed?

Mr. DORGAN. That amendment is an amendment that I have introduced with a number of my colleagues, including Mr. Daschle. So let me begin by describing the amendment and the reason that we are here. I will then call on my colleague from North Dakota, Senator Conrad, Senator Daschle, and others. Mr. President, first, let me tell you that I am offering an amendment for my colleagues to try to strengthen rural America, and to try to provide some better price supports for family farmers. I want to tell you about a 90-year-old woman I talked to this morning. Her name is Margaret Hansen. A few weeks ago, Margaret, age 90, got in her car in the rural part of North Dakota and got stuck in a snow bank. This 90-year-old lady got out of her car and began to walk. She walked a mile and a half when her legs gave out. Then this 90-year- old woman began to crawl on this gravel road. She crawled for a half mile, and then she couldn't crawl any longer. She laid there huddled on that road apparently for about 8 hours before someone came along in a pickup truck and stopped to wonder what was lying on the road. He found this 90-year-old woman. She wasn't dead. They took her to a hospital. I am happy to report that Margaret is doing quite well. She said to me, yeah, I am doing fine, but my legs aren't so good. She was remarkably upbeat. Why would it take 7 or 8 hours before a 90-year-old woman is found lying on a gravel road in the middle of winter? That's because there aren't many people living in rural America anymore. I want to show you a chart. This chart shows, blocked out in red, the counties in this country that are losing population. If you look at the farm belt in the Great Plains, up and down the middle part of America, you will see a part of our country that is being depopulated. And some of these counties have lost half their population in a relatively short period of time. Now, why is that? The overriding reason is we have a farm program that doesn't work. We have a farm program that doesn't allow family farmers to stay on the land and work the land. We have a miserable farm program that pulls the rug out from under family farmers. Let me show you a chart that shows what has happened to the price of wheat. The price of wheat has dropped 53 percent since the passage of the farm law. It was $5.75 a bushel. Last, month prices received by farmers nationwide average $2.72. Now, ask yourself, if instead of the price of wheat it were your salary or your profit, your wages, your minimum wage, your Social Security check, were cut in half? If this was your income, how do you think you would be doing? We have folks in the Senate who said some years ago within budget debate that we are going to change the farm program. In making those changes, in essence they told rural America that they were going to pull the rug out from underneath family farmers. They were going to have farmers operate in the marketplace and, when prices collapse, the nation won't care. If farmers go out of business, they wouldn't care. They basically said they don't care whether there are family farmers in this country's future. Boy, you talk about a wrongheaded public policy for America. That was it. What my colleagues and I are suggesting today is that it is time to decide that family farmers matter in this country. It is time to provide the resources to get some price protection so that when commodity prices collapse, those folks operating out on America's farms have the underpinnings so that they are going to be able to get across those price valleys. That way, they will be able to continue working the land, continue a rural lifestyle. Other countries do it. But, our country has decided that, gee, if things are fine on Wall Street, they are fine everywhere. That is not true. This country has a very strong economy. Things are going well in this country. But our family farmers face a very serious crisis. This is a serious emergency on the family farm, and we must do something to respond to it.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, it is my understanding that we have 1 hour equally divided.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the amendment we will consider next is an amendment which provides an opportunity to address the dire emergency that exists on American farms. All of us in this Chamber know that farm prices have collapsed. We also know that we face the prospect of losing tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands perhaps, of family farmers unless something is done to restore some price protection during this time. The amendment I have offered is the only opportunity to do that. It provides room in this Budget Act for a $6-billion-per-year price protection opportunity. In 1995, the budget resolution that we considered was the start of the change of farm programs to the new Freedom to Farm bill. In this budget resolution, we are trying to provide an opportunity to repair the deficiencies in that bill that stripped away much of the needed price protection. This amendment I hope will be supported by my colleagues and give us the opportunity this year, after a midyear correction by the Congressional Budget Office, to use needed resources to help family farmers during their dire emergency. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. DOMENICI addressed the Chair.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN. I send an amendment to the desk on behalf of myself, Senators Daschle, Harkin, Conrad, Baucus, Johnson, Durbin, Bingaman, and Kerrey.