Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, today, I introduce the first in what will be a number of bills addressing the inequalities in the availability and pricing of agricultural chemicals between the United States and Canada. This bill focuses on the differences in prices between identical or nearly identical chemicals. The need for this bill is created by chemical companies who use our chemical labeling laws to protect their pricing and marketing system. By labeling similar products only for use in different states or countries or only for use on certain plants, chemical companies are able to extract unreasonable profits from farmers who desperately need their products. A second part of my effort to correct differences between agricultural chemicals used in Canada and the United States is a study by the General Accounting Office (GAO). I am now finalizing discussions with GAO as to the specific areas to be studied and the scope of the study. It is my expectation that I will introduce legislation in the next session of Congress to correct the remaining deficiencies. Of particular concern lately has been the significant difference in farm chemical prices between Canada and the United States. Because our farmers are engaged in a difficult trade battle with Canada, differences in agricultural chemical prices between Canada and the United States place our farmers at a disadvantage with their Canadian competition. This bill is drafted to correct As introduced today, the bill sets up a procedure by which states may apply for, and receive, an Environmental Protection Agency label for agricultural chemicals sold in Canada which are identical or substantially similar to agricultural chemicals used in the United States. Initially, this bill will allow the cross border movement of similar chemicals. Eventually, it is my expectation that this bill, along with the GAO study, will lead to an equalization of farm chemical availability and prices across the border. I request my colleagues' support in this effort to bring fairness to cross-border chemical pricing.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the areas that have been most recently discussed with respect to this legislation are arcane, complicated areas dealing with nexus, jurisdiction of tax and so on. There are not a lot of people who understand the nuances of all of those words and all of the provisions. That is why it was hard to sift through all of this and reach an agreement. But an agreement has been reached that I think is a good agreement, one that accomplishes the purpose of this legislation in a manner that is not injurious to any other interests. I thank the Senator from Arizona--I would say for his patience, but he is a Senator who is impatient to get things done on the Senate floor. I understand that and accept that, as do others. That is the reason he brings a lot of legislation to the floor and is successful with it. I thank the Senator from Oregon who has been at this task for a long, long time and has been very determined to help get this legislation through the Senate. Let me say to the Senator from Florida, one of the admirable qualities of that Senator, among many, is his stubborn determination to make certain that when things are done here, they are done the right way and that he understands it and that the interests affected are protected in a manner that is consistent with what he views as a matter of principle. I know that is frustrating for some, but the Senator from Florida certainly has that right. He contributes to this process by being determined to make certain we understand the consequences of all of this. I thank him for working with us now in these final moments to reach an agreement that I think is the right agreement. We will pass this legislation, and I think we have accomplished something significant. Mr. President, let me also indicate that my staff member, Greg Rohde, who has been working on these issues for many, many years with me, has done an outstanding job, as well as have other staff who have helped work through this process. I thank him for his work. I yield the floor. Mr. GRAHAM addressed the Chair.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Tyler Candee be accorded the privilege of the floor for the rest of the day.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I will wait until the gentleman is finished. I am going to ask a question about what is in the bill. I support the bill, but I want to have just a brief discussion of something. Let me ask the Senator from Oklahoma to finish, and then if he will yield for a question, I would appreciate it.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, today, I introduce the first in what will be a number of bills addressing the inequalities in the availability and pricing of agricultural chemicals between the United States and Canada. This bill focuses on the differences in prices between identical or nearly identical chemicals. The need for this bill is created by chemical companies who use our chemical labeling laws to protect their pricing and marketing system. By labeling similar products only for use in different states or countries or only for use on certain plants, chemical companies are able to extract unreasonable profits from farmers who desperately need their products. A second part of my effort to correct differences between agricultural chemicals used in Canada and the United States is a study by the General Accounting Office (GAO). I am now finalizing discussions with GAO as to the specific areas to be studied and the scope of the study. It is my expectation that I will introduce legislation in the next session of Congress to correct the remaining deficiencies. Of particular concern lately has been the significant difference in farm chemical prices between Canada and the United States. Because our farmers are engaged in a difficult trade battle with Canada, differences in agricultural chemical prices between Canada and the United States place our farmers at a disadvantage with their Canadian competition. This bill is drafted to correct As introduced today, the bill sets up a procedure by which states may apply for, and receive, an Environmental Protection Agency label for agricultural chemicals sold in Canada which are identical or substantially similar to agricultural chemicals used in the United States. Initially, this bill will allow the cross border movement of similar chemicals. Eventually, it is my expectation that this bill, along with the GAO study, will lead to an equalization of farm chemical availability and prices across the border. I request my colleagues' support in this effort to bring fairness to cross-border chemical pricing.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I have listened to the Senator from Arkansas, and I am reminded again why we are going to miss him when he is gone. He fights hard for the things he feels strongly about, and this has been one of them for many years. This vote coming up, probably in 20 minutes, is a very simple vote. This issue started with the notion that people said, gee, we must do something here to provide a shield so that nobody would impose punitive taxes on the Internet and retard the growth of the Internet. Lord, have you ever seen anything grow like the Internet and Internet commerce? That is mushrooming so fast you can't get your arms around it. And they are saying we have to be sure that we protect them. Well, in the matter of protecting them, they have created a moratorium on the ability of State and local governments to impose taxes. The vote that we are going to have in a moment is regarding how long that moratorium is going to last. The committee on which I serve reported a bill out that said let's have a moratorium for 6 years. I didn't vote for that. The House of Representatives said let's have a moratorium for 3 years. The Senate Finance Committee said let's have a moratorium for 2 years. The underlying bill will now say 3 years. The amendment we are going to vote on says no, that is not enough; we need a 4-year moratorium. The Senator from Arkansas will be fishing in Arkansas, and at the end of 4 years we will have folks--I guarantee it--who will stand here on the floor of the Senate, and they will say, ``We have got to have an extender. We have to extend this moratorium.'' How long? Another 4 years. How about permanently? Make it a permanent extender. That is exactly what is going to happen. We ought to decide as a Senate 3 years--no more. And at the end of 3 years we are done. If we can't figure it out by the end of 3 years, there is something wrong with us. I ask the Senator from Arkansas. Does he agree that this ought not be a circumstance where we create a tax system that says, ``Oh, by the way. We will favor folks doing this over a computer,'' which means we will penalize the folks that hire the folks on Main Street who rent the building, put the inventory in, open their door early in the morning, and hold themselves open for business. And we say to them that we will penalize them because the other folks don't have to comply with the tax laws when they come in and compete with them. That is what this fight is about. The amendment here is going to be 4 years or 3 years. There will be a lot of folks who come to the well of the Senate and say, ``What is the issue?'' The issue is that for every, I assume, 4 years, or for every 3 years. But what does good sense tell us ought to be the case here? Three years maximum, and then no more. Then let's have a tax system that is fair to everybody regardless of how they are selling--off the Internet, catalogs, or Main Street. Let's be fair with respect to this tax system of ours. Let me conclude by saying I worked on this issue when I was in the House of Representatives on the Ways and Means Committee for 10 years. I know what the problem is. You start talking about this issue, and the first thing you know you have a million friends--not friends. You get a million postcards, because everybody who buys from a catalog seller is told to send a postcard to this person, or that person, and they are told that person is trying to increase your tax. Of course, that is not true. Nobody is talking about any additional taxes. There is no increase in tax. This is a different issue--the moratorium. So you get a million cards out there, or 10 million cards that affects all of the interests that are voting. Mr. President, again, let me say to the Senator from Arkansas that his dedication to this issue is important, and he will leave a long and lasting impact on the Senate. I think the most immediate impact and the most immediate presentation now is a good vote so we can at least turn back the 10 years. I think that would be a good public service.

Mr. DORGAN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Mr. McCAIN addressed the Chair.

Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I object.

Mr. DORGAN. I object.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I make a point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the efforts by the Senator from Alaska. My understanding is that he is seeking to table the underlying first-degree amendment, the McCain amendment. The McCain amendment includes the grandfather provision which preserves the existing Internet access taxes. In my judgment, this makes the moratorium a forward-looking moratorium, and will not preempt existing taxes. It also deals with State and local taxing authorities by including a State and local tax savings provision, which makes it clear that no other State or local tax will be affected. In other words, it protects against the unintended consequences that may well occur unless we have that savings clause. I really think that it is important that we not support the motion offered by the Senator from Alaska. The third provision I want to mention in the first-degree amendment that he is attempting to table is a provision ensuring that this moratorium will not affect any pending or existing liabilities. Currently there are companies that may have failed to pay some taxes that would have a current liability under current valid existing laws, and we would not want this moratorium to have the unintended consequence of interrupting those liabilities either. As I understand it, we have a first-degree amendment, and now a motion to table that. I hope that the motion to table will not prevail. I will vote against it. I will be, by that vote, supporting the underlying first-degree McCain amendment. Mr. McCAIN addressed the Chair.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I will take 1 minute. I want to use this unique opportunity to add my comments about the Senator from Indiana. I have told people that I am enormously proud to serve in this body. One of the major reasons for that is the men and women with whom I serve, both Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, I think are the best men and women I have been associated with in my entire life. One of those is the Senator from Indiana. We became acquainted in 1981 when we both were elected to the House of Representatives in the same election, and although we perhaps have agreed and disagreed many times on many issues throughout the years, I have deep admiration for Senator Coats and his family. When he leaves the Senate, as is the case with so many of our colleagues, the Senate will have lost a very important contributor on a good many issues, this one most notable. He has been persistent on this issue and, as the Senator from Arizona just described, we have had hearings in the Commerce Committee about this issue. It desperately needs attention, desperately needs a solution, and the Senator from Indiana has been a significant contributor in that effort. I did not want to let this moment pass without sharing my respect for Senator Coats. I yield the floor. Mr. COATS addressed the Chair.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, it is also my hope that in a relatively short period of time we will be able to resolve the remaining issues. We have made a lot of progress on the bill. I will say again that the Senator from Arizona has done an excellent job, and the Senator from Oregon and others have pushed very hard to get us to this point. There are other significant issues, but I expect to get them resolved in relatively short order. I hope we will make the final progress necessary on this piece of legislation. I yield the floor. Mr. LOTT addressed the Chair.

Mr. DORGAN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendments Nos. 3732 And 3733, En Bloc

Mr. DORGAN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 3722, as amended

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I rise in support of the second-degree amendment for all of the reasons previously stated by the Senator from Wyoming, the Senator from Arkansas and the Senator from Florida. I have, beginning with the origin of this bill in the Senate Commerce Committee, been very concerned about exactly what the language in this legislation will mean to this country, to our Main Streets, to our States and local governments. The issue here is a relatively simple one, and I don't need to restate all of the reasons that were offered by the Senator from Wyoming for being concerned about it. But the genesis of this bill was to be concerned about State and local governments applying ``punitive'' tax programs against Internet commerce. They were worried that this growth of the Internet and the expansion of commerce on the Internet would be retarded by local governments or State governments, seeing that as a big, juicy target, and apply some kind of new discriminatory or punitive tax regime upon it. Therefore, they said, let us at least have a time-out until we understand how to impose some sort of tax system that is fair to the Internet sellers and that does not discriminate against the Internet sellers. Well, the question here, then, is, if in this legislation where you have a time-out, or a moratorium, and you create a commission during that moratorium to investigate or evaluate all of these issues, why then would you say to that commission that you can take a look at all of this, you can take a look at what this means with respect to Internet commerce, but you cannot look at the other issues; you cannot look at how it relates, Internet commerce versus mail-order firms; you cannot look at how it relates to Internet commerce versus Main Street sellers? What kind of logic is that? If you are going to have a commission to try to figure out how this piece fits in the puzzle, then make sure all the pieces are there. That is all this second degree says--make sure all the pieces are there. The people who are here saying we don't want to solve this puzzle are people who have a vested interest. They are here, frankly, because of mail-order firms and the Internet. They are saying we don't want anybody to look at all of this. We want a moratorium for the Internet over here, and over here we don't want anybody discussing mail-order issues. The Senator from Wyoming said he and his wife had a shoestore. I didn't know that. I have never been to their shoestore. I have never shopped in Gillette, WY, and I probably never will shop there. But the issue he raises is essential to this point. When he and his wife opened the door in the morning and displayed shoes for sale in that store, they knew a couple of things: They rented the building, they hired the employees, and they bought an inventory. They opened their door and said: We are in business on Main Street in Gillette, WY. They knew that when somebody came through the door and took their shoes off and got fitted up and bought a brand new shiny pair of shoes, when they paid for it, they had to apply the local sales tax. That is what you have to do on Main Street. You are a tax collector for the local consumption tax in the State of Wyoming. I didn't hear him complain about that. That is what they do on Main Streets all across this country. I believe 45 States have a sales tax. Another thing he and his wife knew, I am sure, and he is not here to answer the question, but I am sure they knew that if someone three blocks away decided they were not going to go to Main Street to buy shoes today, they were going to buy them through a mail-order catalog, in most cases they will buy those through the catalog without paying a local sales tax or a State sales tax, which means that his local business ended up being undersold by someone, perhaps by 4 percent, maybe 6, or maybe even 7 or 8 percent, because the catalog seller, in most cases, didn't charge the State sales tax. Is that discriminatory vis-a-vis the Main Street businessperson? I think it is. Of course, it is. Does it mean there is not a tax on the transaction? No, there is a tax. When they mail that pair of shoes from the mail-order catalog house to the person in Gillette, WY, or Fargo, or Bismarck, ND, the person who receives that pair of shoes has a responsibility in most every State to pay a use tax. Of course, they don't know that and they won't ever pay that, but that is the responsibility. The net result of all of this is that the Main Street folks will end up always being at a disadvantage with respect to taxation versus those who are doing business elsewhere, those who have constructed a catalog and haven't hired the employees, haven't rented a place to do business, and they haven't hired local folks; they have just operated through a catalog. I happen to think catalog sellers are very important to this country. Frankly, they are wonderful marketers. I think it is wonderful for a lot of people in this country to be able to shop that way. There is no question about that. I think when you look at the tax issue here-- whether it is buying it through a catalog or going through a computer and getting on the Internet and buying it through a seller on the Internet or buying it on Main Street--there ought to be some symmetry here in the tax treatment to make sure the tax treatment is not going to retard the growth of the business on Main Street, it is not going to retard the business growth of people who have catalogs and the business opportunities of the people on the Internet. But what is being said in the underlying amendment is, let's take a look at this only with respect to how it relates to the Internet, and you must ignore everything else. My friend, the Senator from Oregon, says, well, we want to explore everything. But, of course, this says you cannot, you must not; in fact, we are going to fight to the end here to see that you are unable to explore everything. That doesn't make any sense to me. That is what the second-degree amendment is about. The Senate Finance Committee got this right. It passed a bill, came to the floor, created a commission and said, take a look at all of this. We will have a commission that evaluates and studies all of this with respect to the tax neutrality, with respect to the opportunities in growth, and the impact of these taxes on a wide range of commerce-- not just Internet commerce, but a wide range of commerce. The Senate Finance Committee got it right. The underlying amendment now offered by a couple of good legislators, I think for understandable reasons, would say that the Finance Committee is wrong; this commission must not, cannot, and will not be able to study the whole range of circumstances. The second degree says, no, we don't accept that; we want to insert language that is effectively the language coming out of the Senate Finance Committee. I say again, as I did yesterday when the Senator from Florida was on the floor, and I say it now to the Senator from Arkansas, who along with the Senator from Florida and the Senator from Wyoming were primary sponsors of the second degree, in my judgment, they are dead right. They are absolutely right on target. I hope that the Senate, notwithstanding whatever curves and straightaways we find with this legislation--I assume this legislation will be worked out in the coming hours and days and, perhaps, be passed tomorrow, and I hope it will be passed in a satisfactory form. But one of the ways that this legislation will be made a better piece of legislation is to pass this second-degree amendment and restore it to the condition it was in when it came out of the Senate Finance Committee. These folks spent a lot of time on tax issues in the Finance Committee. I used to be on the House Ways and Means Committee in the other body for 10 years, and I spent a lot of time on tax issues. I think the Senate Finance Committee got it right. They said, study these issues, evaluate them all, understand the consequences of them all, and then, with that knowledge, let's make some judgments. That is the purpose of the time-out; that is the purpose of the moratorium. I have, as the Senator from Oregon stated, spent a fair amount of time with him, and I think we have made a lot of progress on these issues. My expectation is we will pass a piece of legislation that is an acceptable piece of legislation that has a timeout moratorium. But it must, in my judgment, include this in order to really give us the assurance that that moratorium is used effectively by a commission that has divisions to look at all of these issues. I yield the floor. Mr. LIEBERMAN addressed the Chair.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I shall not object, the amendments have been cleared on our side. We have no objection.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 3783 To Amendment No. 3719, As Modified, as Amended

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, the second-degree amendment to the first-degree amendment that was offered by the Senator from Arizona is an amendment that has been worked out over a period of several days dealing with the grandfather clause. It is something that I think represents a workable solution which improves the legislation. It would be my hope that the Senate would approve it. I do want to point out that the amendment that was referred to by Senator McCain would be an amendment dealing with the length of the moratorium. My understanding is that the passage of the first-degree and second-degree amendments would leave in place a 3-year moratorium with respect to this legislation. The Senator from Arizona would then offer an amendment, and I believe there would be a recorded vote after some debate on that amendment, that would propose that the 3-year moratorium be extended to 4 years, and the Senate then would make a judgment on that question. I offer that by way of explanation of what is happening here. I hope the Senate will approve by voice vote the first- and second-degree amendments.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I agree that there has been a concerted attempt to prevent legislation of this type from coming to the floor of the Senate under regular order. It is apparently not a priority. In fact, not only is this apparently not a priority but they have also deliberately attempted to prevent us from having the opportunity to enact HMO reform, the Patients' Bill of Rights, school modernization, and so on, because it is not something they want to do. I think this is a misplaced set of priorities.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I would like to ask a few questions of my friend from Arkansas, Senator Bumpers, regarding the water quality component of the Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service (CSREES) Special Grants Program. In particular, I note that although the Senate agriculture appropriations bill for fiscal year 1999 included $436,000 for water quality grant in North Dakota, the conference report now before us has moved those funds into a separate water quality item. Could the Senator explain the reason for this action?

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, reserving the right to object. I will not object. My understanding is the amendment that is to be offered has been cleared with the authorizing committee, and we have no problem with the amendment.

Mr. DORGAN. If I have time, I am happy to yield. Of course.