Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I may not need the entire 2 minutes, but I rise in support of the amendment offered by the Senator from Florida. This issue is relatively simple. The whole purpose of a moratorium is to take kind of a time-out and establish a commission and review a series of these issues. But all of us here know how difficult it is going to be when this moratorium, whatever it is, is to expire. We will have people coming here saying this needs to be a perpetual thing; we will continue the moratorium year after year after year. I want this piece of legislation with its moratorium to represent that time-out; to give this country time to make the right decisions. But at that point I want the decisions to be made, and I want the moratorium to be gone. That is what the Senator from Florida is saying. It is a very important amendment. I hope my colleagues will support this amendment so that we will comply with what I think the true spirit of this legislation really is--a time-out for thoughtful decisions to be made and then business as usual. We don't want permanent preemption of the State's tax base. That is what will happen if we don't decide now that this moratorium will be--whatever it is. I hope it is 3 years.

Mr. DORGAN. The Senator misunderstood my business-as-usual comment. I was talking about the business as usual allowing a State to describe its own tax base in a fair and thoughtful manner. My fear is that this moratorium will continue forever, unless it becomes what we think it should become--a time-out to make decisions, and then move on. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I appreciate the Senator's understanding of the fine work of the RRWMC and his words of encouragement for their activities under CSREES in the coming fiscal year.

Mr. DORGAN. I appreciate the Senator's understanding of the importance of this research and his familiarity with the RRWMC's activities. Is it the understanding of the Senator from Arkansas that the goals of the North Dakota project are consistent with the overall water quality research objectives of CSREES?

Mr. DORGAN. I thank the Senator for that explanation. Is the Senator from Arkansas aware of the work underway in North Dakota regarding water quality?

Mr. DORGAN

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DORGAN. I ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business for 10 minutes.

Mr. DORGAN. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent James Fenwood, a fellow on my staff, be granted the privilege of the floor this morning.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, one of the items up for consideration as we finish this 105th Congress is H.R. 10, the so-called financial modernization bill. In fact, we have gone through a cloture vote on the motion to proceed to that bill. H.R. 10 is a piece of legislation that apparently has fairly wide support, I am told, in this Congress. I do not happen to support it, but I assume we will go through a period this week of debating and voting on a series of procedural motions dealing with H.R. 10. It is a 600-page bill, and it will make the most sweeping changes to the financial sector and particularly the banking and other financial industries since the 1930s. This piece of legislation repeals the Glass-Steagall Act, which restricts the ability of banks and security underwriters to affiliate with one another. The bill creates a new category of financial holding companies. The structure will allow for a broader range of financial services now to be done in one affiliated area--commercial banking, insurance underwriting, merchant banking. I do not know whether most people have forgotten the lessons of the 1930s, but in the 1930s it was thought that perhaps we ought not to merge or marry in any way inherently speculative activities with banking because banking requires the perception--even just the perception--of safety and soundness to survive and do well. Safety and soundness is critical. When you bring into the realm of banking activity that is inherently speculative, such as underwriting securities, insurance underwriting, merchant banking, and a whole range of other activities, it seems to me we have just forgotten the lessons of the 1930s. And we are told that we must do this is the name of financial modernization. In order to be ``modern,'' we must decide to step forward and change the structure of these financial institutions. This country learned tough lessons the very hard way decades ago about marrying banking activities with other activities that are inherently speculative. I know they say, gee, we have created these affiliates with firewalls, all that sort of thing. I have heard that all before. I heard that with the Saving and Loans. The taxpayer got stuck for $500 billion bailing out the S&L mess. I think this bill represents a huge step backwards for this country. For that reason, I do not support the legislation. I will speak more about it at some point later. But the thing I find interesting is this rush to complete H.R. 10 right now. The big shots want financial modernization and the halls are filled with people who are working to get H.R. 10 done because the big economic interests in this country want financial modernization. But what about school modernization? I have been on the floor of this Senate talking about school construction, I guess maybe 10 times in this Congress. I have told about a young second grader at the Cannon Ball elementary school. Let me just talk about this issue again, because school modernization does not seem to be a priority. Apparently, second graders are not big shots. They do not have the same clout with this Congress. The school in Cannon Ball, just on the periphery of an Indian reservation, is a public school. It is open today. Those little kids, mostly Native Americans, are in their crowded classrooms. There are 160 students and staff in that school with only one water fountain and two bathrooms. Part of the school that is now being used had previously been condemned. It is an old, old, old building in desperate disrepair. One of the rooms they use for music is in the downstairs area. They more than occasionally cannot use it because the stench of sewer gas comes up and fills that area, and they have to evacuate that area. And a little second grader came up to me when I toured that school, and asked, ``Mr. Senator, will you build us a new school?'' Well, the answer is, modernization of a school building does not apparently have the same priority to this Congress as modernization of our financial system. Instead of financial modernization, how about modernization of the Cannon Ball school so that little girl, Rosie, age 7, can walk into a second grade classroom that we can be proud of, where you can hook a computer to the Internet, a classroom that is not going to have to be evacuated because of seeping sewer gas, a classroom that has a bathroom outside or a water fountain close by. What about her needs? What about the needs of all those kids? Or maybe we can talk about the Ojibwa school. The kids there go to school in trailers that are overcrowded and unsafe and classrooms that have been condemned--and this Congress knows it. There is going to be a desperate accident there some day. There is going to be a fire spread across those trailers with their wooden fire escapes. My deep concern that somebody is going to die unless somebody takes action first. Study after study after study shows that school to be unsafe, but there is no money to modernize that school. Those little children on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation go to the Ojibwa school in conditions that, in my judgment, should not give any of us pride that we send our children through its doorway. We can do something about it. We can modernize those schools. We have had proposals on the floor of the Senate for school construction, but guess what? The funds to modernize those schools is not nearly as important as modernizing our financial system because H.R. 10, the financial modernization bill, has all kinds of folks in dark suits standing out here lobbying for it. They have a lot of clout, a lot of resources. When they say, ``Jump,'' we have people saying, ``How high?'' But what about the second graders? What about the Cannon Ball school? What about the Ojibwa school? I could go on talking about the school construction needs in our country and in my State, and especially on Indian reservations, about which we ought to do something. I know the Senator from Massachusetts wanted to make this point with respect to the Patients' Bill of Rights. Talk about modernization, what about modernization with respect to the delivery of health care? Is it modern to have a health care system in which people do not get the medical care they need? The Senator from Massachusetts has been talking about the Patients' Bill of Rights. We cannot even get a vote on it. It is very simple. It says that, when you are sick, you ought to be able to have a doctor or a health care plan that tells you all of your treatment options, not just the cheapest. And yet today all across this country people find HMOs saying, ``We will only tell you what the cheapest option is, not all of your options, as a patient.''

Mr. DORGAN. I would be happy to yield.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I appreciate the indulgence of the Senator from Idaho. Let me make one final point, and if the Senator from Massachusetts wishes to make a final point in the form of a question, I will yield. The point is that health care decisions ought to be made in a doctor's office or in a hospital room, not by some insurance company accountant 500 or 1,000 miles away. That is the point the Senator from Massachusetts is making. That is the point that is made in the underlying legislation dealing with a Patients' Bill of Rights. It is a critically important point. We ought to have been able to debate fully under regular order the piece of legislation called the Patients' Bill of Rights. I regret we have not been able to debate that. I yield to the Senator from Massachusetts.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 2 additional minutes.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, it is a custom in the Senate to speak well of someone you are about to oppose. So let me speak well of the Senator from Mississippi. We have worked together on a wide range of issues. He is a very effective Senator and somebody I enjoy working with a great deal. He has a very effective staff and we work on a lot of issues together. But I come to the floor today opposing the conference report and to do so as aggressively as I possibly can. I want to explain to him and other Members why I feel so strongly about this. First of all, it is not the case that all that was offered in July was the $500 million indemnity program that was introduced as an amendment by Senator Conrad and myself. It is the case that we also proposed, and had a vote on an amendment to increase the price supports by lifting the caps on the loan rate. We did it then; and we did it a second time. We lost twice in those efforts. We proposed a series of steps, one of which was lifting the loan rate, and another of which dealt with disaster issues. I want to describe why I feel so strongly about this. I received a letter from the head of the Farm Service Agency in our State. I asked him, ``If things don't change, what should we expect in the next few months in North Dakota with respect to family farms?'' He points out that North Dakota in the judgment of the Farm Service Agency, will lose over 3,500 farms by this spring without some significant assistance. That is probably some 14,000 people. I assume there is an average of three or four persons on each of those family farmers, including a spouse and a couple of children. So at least 3,500 family farms will not get credit and will not be able to continue farming this coming year. That means 12,000 to 14,000 North Dakota farm people will be told that their dream is over. They tried, but they failed. Let me describe the reasons they are not making it. There are two main reasons. One, is the disaster. We had the 500-year flood of the Red River, and people know about that. They remember the flood at Grand Forks. For a number of years we have been in a wet weather cycle in eastern North Dakota. We have had massive quantities of standing water that have inundated acres and acres of farmland in North Dakota. This wet cycle has caused and exacerbated a crop disease known as fusarium head blight, or scab. This combination has devastated the quality of farm life in North Dakota. I have a chart here. If you are a North Dakota farmer and you are in these red counties on this chart in the eastern part of the State, you have had 5 straight years of disaster declaration. The red counties are not 1, 2, or 3, but every year for 5 straight years that these counties have been declared a disaster. Why? Because of weather-related events, and other events, their production has been devastated. So that is the disaster portion of this problem. You can see that with the orange counties and yellow counties, that these counties have had disasters 3 out of 5 years. In fact two thirds of the counties in my State have been declared a disaster area 3, 4 or 5 years out of 5 years. Now, in addition to the disaster, what also has happened to these farmers is that Congress passed a new farm bill. The Senator from Nebraska might be right that this might have nothing at all to do with price. The new farm bill might not be related to the collapse in price. But it might be; I don't know. I am not asserting that today, I am just saying that we passed a new farm bill. This chart shows what has happened to the price of wheat since Congress passed the farm bill. It is down by almost 60 percent. There has been a 60-percent drop in the price of wheat since Congress passed the new farm bill. The price of wheat has fallen from $5.75 a bushel to $2.36. Add together the significant disasters year after year and the collapse of prices and here is what you have. In my State, in North Dakota, which is the hardest hit, in 1 year there was a 98-percent drop in net farm income. These are U.S. Government figures. We had a 98- percent drop in net farm income. With respect to this group of North Dakotans, their income has virtually been wiped away. Is it any wonder they are in deep trouble? We are not a State of big corporate agrifactories. We are a State largely composed of family farms. When they suffer a loss of virtually all of their income, many of them just do not make it. The current farm bill doesn't provide a bridge across price valleys. The philosophy of the current farm bill is that you ought to operate in the free market. If there is a price valley, the farmer is told, ``Tough luck; try and find your way across the valley.'' So because we don't have that pricing bridge under this economic philosophy, family farmers certainly don't get to the other side. The head of our Farm Service Agency says 3,500 farms will not be in the field next spring in North Dakota. I am betting that if any other Member of this body had the same set of statistics in front of them concerning what is happening to their family farmers would also be here. They would be here with as much energy and as much passion as I have to see if we can't change this result and to do whatever we need to do to change it. The underlying bill has disaster assistance. I am very appreciative of that. We might argue about who provides more. But overall, frankly, I think the underlying bill, and the administration, and virtually everyone who is party to this has offered a fairly decent package with respect to disaster assistance. The Senator from Mississippi correctly pointed out that he and Senator Lott accepted the $500 million indemnity program amendment that we put into in the bill in the Senate in the first instance to deal with the initial estimate of damages from the disaster in the Northern Plains. That amendment was done prior to the almost complete collapse of the cotton crop in Texas and the devastation in Louisiana, Oklahoma and other States. At that time we all understood that the disaster indemnity program was going to have to be increased at some point along the way. The disaster package in this appropriations bill started with the acceptance by the Senator from Mississippi to put in the $500 million indemnity for the Northern Plains. I appreciate that. I am not here to argue about which disaster proposal for this bill is better than the other. Both the President and the conference report addressed this disaster issue in a very significant way. But, I am here to say that is not enough. On top of the disaster provision, as the Senator from Mississippi indicated, the majority party added a 18-cents-a-bushel payment for wheat. This additional AMTA payment really only means that farmers will get 13 cents a bushel for wheat when it is all figured out. That is because AMTA payments are made on only 85 percent of contract acreage on the frozen historic yields. So the real assistance to deal with price collapse in this bill amounts to 13 cents a bushel for wheat. And it is not enough. It won't allow farmers enough cashflow. It won't allow their bankers to decide that they will get another loan to go to the fields next spring to plant crops. They simply won't be able to do it. That is the dilemma. This is not enough. And there isn't any way to argue to say that it is enough, or that it will solve this problem. If numbers are to be believed with respect to the estimates in North Dakota, at least 3,500 farm families are going to be washed away. These farm families are not going to be able to farm next spring. I am not willing to accept that result. It is not a fair result. Family farmers are not getting their share of this country's national income. They should be expected to get a decent share of that. Let me show you what family farms face. They are told that they should just go ahead and operate in the free market and whatever happens, happens. What is that free market about? Everywhere they look, they confront near monopolies, or at least enormous concentrations of economic power. The top four firms in this country control 62 percent of flour milling. The top four firms in dry corn milling control 57 percent. In wet corn milling, the top four control 76 percent. In soybean crushing, the top four have 76 percent. If a farmer happens to produce livestock and he markets that cow, he finds that 87 percent of the beef slaughter is controlled by the top four firms. The top four control 73 percent of sheep slaughter. It is 60 percent for pork. Or, if farmers want to haul their grain to market on a railroad--and most of them have to--they stick it on a rail car somewhere in my State, and they get double charged at least because there is no competition. I have mentioned this before and I will say it again. If you put a carload of wheat on the rail track in Bismarck and haul it to Minneapolis, they charge you $2,300. If you put it on a car in Minneapolis, and haul it to Chicago, which is about the same distance, it costs you $1,000. Why do we get double charged? Because there is no rail competition in North Dakota, while there are multiple lines between Minneapolis and Chicago. So it is not just concentration among processors. It is also the transportation components of the grain trade that are highly concentrated. This isn't a circumstance where there is a free market. Yet farmers are told to operate in the free market. If prices collapse, they are told tough luck, and we will give you 13 cents. If they can't make it with that, tougher luck. Those want to pass this bill also contemplate tax cuts that they say will help farmers. Tax cuts don't help people without income. The problem in farm country is lack of income. The first thing we should do is to restore income. I happen to support most of those tax proposals that I have heard about. In fact, some that the Senator from Mississippi described today have great merit. I support fully deductible health insurance for sole proprietorships and income averaging. I can go down a whole list of proposals that I support. My point is that first we need to restore income to these family farmers. They need to get a fair share of this Nation's income. The fact is that everybody who touches products produced by these farmers is virtually making record profits. The railroads? You bet your life they are doing fine. They haul the farmers' products. How about the slaughterhouses? Are they doing fine? You bet they have solid profits. They are the ones who slaughter the livestock that is sent to market by those farmers. How about the cereal manufacturers who put the snap, crackle and pop into a cereal. They take a kernel of wheat, put it in a plant some place, put it in a bright-colored box, ship it to a grocery store, and sell it at $4 a box. The company that puts the puff in puffed wheat makes far more than the person who gassed the tractor, planted the seed, and harvested that wheat. In fact, the person that harvested the wheat that they planted is going broke. And the people who are puffing it, crackling it, and snapping it are having record profits. I don't understand the notion that somehow, if we just do nothing, things will work out. When we look at all of the evidence here, we are going to lose tens and tens of thousands of family farmers across this country unless this Congress does what it needs to do now. We need to provide some decent price supports to get farmers across this price valley. I am not standing here asking that we tip the current farm program upside down. I didn't vote for the current farm program. I am not going to stand here and provide a litany of why I think it is not a good program. I am not suggesting we tip it upside down. I am simply saying what this farm program did in the big print it took away in the small print. This farm program, passed by this Congress, said we would provide farmers 85 percent of the five-year Olympic average price as a price support in the form of a loan rate. That is what it said in the big print. In the small print it said that the 85 percent of the five- year Olympic average price would be capped. The small print says we will put an artificial cap on it to bring the loan rates way down. All we are saying is that we should take the artificial cap off. Do what the big print said the farm bill will do. Get rid of the small print that took away that help to the family farmers. In North Dakota it means a $156 million difference just on the price support mechanism. The difference for the farmers in my State alone is $156 million. That could well mean the difference between making it and not making it. It can mean the difference between succeeding and failing. A young fellow wrote to me recently. I have referred to his letter previously in the last couple of days. His name is Wyatt. He is a sophomore in high school at Stanley, ND. He wrote this plaintive cry for help on behalf of his family farm. He is a young boy who loves to farm. He knows his dad and mom do as well. He wrote me a letter that says, ``My dad can feed 180 people. And he can't feed his family.'' He was describing a circumstance where his family's income has been washed out. Their family farm may not be able to make it and he wonders whether that is fair, and whether that is good economic policy for this country. The answer clearly is no, that is not fair. And clearly it is not good economic policy for our country. Both the independent community bankers in my State and the North Dakota Bankers Association tell me that if we don't pass some meaningful assistance this year these farmers won't be in the field next spring. That is from the lenders. This weekend, I was reading some of President Truman's speeches in 1948. I want to read a couple of pieces from President Truman in 1948. Old Harry was doing a whistle stop tour on a train back then. I like Harry Truman. Harry spoke plainly and never minced any words. I thought maybe we would celebrate just a bit of what Harry Truman said about family farmers and what this debate is about today. Harry Truman said at the National Plowing Match in Dexter, IA, September 18, 1948: [I] believe that farmers are entitled to share equally with others in our national income. [I] believe a prosperous and productive agriculture is essential to [this country's] national welfare. He said: Those who are wilfully trying to discredit the price support program for farmers don't want the farmers to be prosperous. They believe in low prices for farmers, cheap wages for labor, and high profits for big corporations. And then he said: The big money [interests look] on agriculture and labor as merely an expense item in a business venture. [They try] to push their share of the national income down as low as possible and increase [their] own profits. And [they] look upon the Government as a tool to accomplish this purpose. That was 1948, 50 years ago. Isn't it interesting that as we stand here debating agriculture, in North Dakota there are probably 12,000 to 14,000 citizens who will not get into the fields next spring unless this Congress does the right thing. At least 3,500 farms will go belly up. That is 12,000 to 14,000 people, who will lose their livelihood unless we do the right thing. Yet, surrounding those farmers are the bigger economic interests that are all making money. There are the railroads, slaughterhouses, grain trader, cereal manufacturers, grocery manufacturers, and you can name all the others that are all making record profits. Does that say something about whether the system is fair? And you might say, well, what business is it of ours? The business for this country is that if we do not act, we will not have people living in the country. We will not have people living out on the land. We won't have yard lights illuminating those family farms. We won't have the Jeffersonian notion of broad-based economic democracy in America if we don't start caring a bit about whether we have family farmers in our future. Instead, we will end up having big agribusiness in control in rural America from California to Maine. When they do that, the price of food will go way up, and then they will have cornered everything. I guess they can haul it, process it, slaughter it, and make money off of that and then finally they can grow it because they got rid of mom and pop on the family farm. You ask them, would that be good for the country? I don't think so. So this issue is very simple. Is what the conference committee brought to the Senate floor enough? The answer is clearly no. It is not nearly good enough. Do we have the resources in this country to do better and do what we should? The answer is yes, clearly yes. For those who believe in this as a priority, there are clearly enough resources to make the difference. I hope that if the Congress falls short, the President will veto the legislation as he indicated earlier. He should send it back and say let us do better. We can do better and work together. We must understand that there are two components, one of which is a disaster component. For that portion I commend the Senator from Mississippi and the entire conference. But the second portion is the price support component. These two components added together must be enough to give farmers some hope and some opportunity. This bill falls far short of that. As I mentioned in my opening statement, it is not the case that somehow the proposal to increase the price supports that are available to family farmers has just emerged from some mysterious corner of policy making. That is not the case at all. We have already had two votes in the Senate on this issue of raising price supports. We have lost by a handful of votes both times, and we may lose again. But, I will be here through the last breath of legislative effort to see that this Congress is persuaded to do the right thing for these family farmers. These 3,500 farm families deserve a chance. They didn't cause the Asian financial crisis. They didn't cause the crisis in Asia which means that this country can export fewer agricultural goods to Asia. Family farmers didn't cause crop disease. Family farmers didn't cause the collapse of grain prices. Family farmers didn't cause the incessant wet cycle in our part of the country that has helped exacerbate crop disease. Family farmers didn't cause these problems. And this Congress should not say to family farmers, ``Well, you deal with it. And if you can't, you don't matter.'' This Congress ought to extend a helping hand to say to family farmers, ``We want to help you over this trouble spot. We want to help you survive because you are important to this country.'' Madam President, I yield the floor. Mr. WELLSTONE addressed the Chair.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, one of the issues that we have not completely resolved is extending the moratorium. We have a moratorium in this legislation that says to the States that if you have not yet adopted or enforced an Internet tax, there is a moratorium; you will not be able to do that during this time out. During that period, a commission will meet and evaluate all of these issues. The Senate finance bill reported out a 2-year moratorium on bit taxes, discriminatory taxes, and on Internet taxes. The House-passed version of this legislation has a 3-year moratorium. My understanding is that there will be an amendment calling for a 5-year moratorium on the bill that is coming to the floor. The version passed out by the Senate Commerce Committee had a 6-year moratorium. Keynes used to say, ``In the long run, we are all dead.'' I don't know what the long run is, but when you talk about moratoriums here, 6 years is a large expanse of time. It seems to me that it is wholly inappropriate. I would more favor the Senate finance bill, which is a 2-year time out, or moratorium. We will likely have to agree to something more than that, but 5 or 6 years, in my judgment, is not reasonable. I think there is another amendment that was noticed, or at least will be offered, with a 3-year moratorium, which seems to me to be a more reasonable compromise. I ask the Senator from Oregon about that.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I say to the Senator that the way to be most helpful would be to agree with me.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, as I indicated, along with Senator McCain, when we brought the legislation to the floor today, I was interested in trying to accommodate the schedules that Members had. And the second vote this morning was able to be held at a time that would allow some Members the opportunity to catch airplanes back to their home States. But I did want to discuss the circumstances that allowed us to get this legislation to the floor. And I would like to review with the Senator from Oregon some of the provisions of the bill that are yet to be completed. First, with respect to this general subject of the Internet, my orientation of this issue is that, like most Americans, I view the Internet as something new and exciting and wonderful in a lot of ways and troublesome in other ways. The technology without question is remarkable and wonderful. Obviously, there are some things on the Internet these days that are troublesome and that is why we struggle with this question of the Decency Act that we wrote in the Commerce Committee and was struck down by the Supreme Court. I think the Senator from Indiana, Senator Coats, is going to offer an amendment similar to something we have discussed previously with respect to the Internet and decency. But leaving that aside, the Internet itself and the telecommunications revolution that exists in this country, and the information superhighway that comes from that revolution, is really quite remarkable. I come from a town of 300 people. I have a very different background than the Senator from Wyoming or the Senator from Arizona for that matter. I come from a town of 300 people. I went to a very small school. Obviously, a school in a town of 300 people is not going to be big under any circumstance. But my high school graduating class was nine students. And we had a library in my high school that was a very small coat closet, and that contained all of our books. And that was it. That is the way life was in my school. Would I trade it for another experience? No. I thought it was a wonderful school, a wonderful hometown, and a wonderful education. But now when I go back to my hometown it is slightly smaller than it was when I left. Some of those rural communities are shrinking. I go back to that wonderful community and go to the school. The library is not much larger than it was then except--that school is now connected to the information superhighway. Computers in those small schools can now access the information superhighway. And what does that mean? It means in my hometown of Regent, ND, there is a student today who is able to use a computer and access the Library of Congress. Now, the Library of Congress has the largest repository of human knowledge that exists anywhere on Earth. Of all of the accumulated knowledge in human history--the largest body of that knowledge exists in the Library of Congress. In Regent, ND, that small library is now augmented by the largest library on Earth as a result of the information superhighway and the new revolution in telecommunications. Is that wonderful? It is more than wonderful. It changes our ability to educate. It changes our ability to do a whole series of things. In fact, as an aside, I read a while ago that the CEO of IBM Corporation gave a speech to shareholders. He said they are on the cusp of discovery in researching storage density sufficient so that he expects we will soon be able to put all of that information from the Library of Congress--14 to 16 million volumes of work, the largest repository of human knowledge on Earth--on a wafer the size of a penny. Think of that, a computer storage wafer the size of a penny encompassing all of the works of the Library of Congress. What does that mean? It is a wonderful opportunity in our future to use the Internet and to use telecommunications to enhance education and a whole range of things. I wanted to provide that framework simply to say, especially coming from a very small community in North Dakota, we understand the wonders and the technological marvels that exist in what we are talking about here and how it changes things. My hometown, 120 miles southwest of Bismarck, ND, 50 miles from Dickinson, and, for those who want to pinpoint it more precisely, 14 miles west of Mott, ND--my hometown is as close to the Hudson River as downtown Manhattan with telecommunications. Just like that, you can transmit data off the Internet. We have erased geography as a disadvantage. Now, in addition to the advantages of education that I have described with respect to the Internet and the information superhighway, there is another entire area of commerce that also provides significant advantages to people in my hometown and people in every hometown in our country. When I was a young boy, from my hometown we had to drive nearly 60 miles to go to a hospital. We had to drive 60 miles to a sporting goods store. When I was a young boy, that is what I wanted to do when my parents took me to the big town, Dickinson, ND, 10,000 people. I wanted to go to a sporting goods store. It was a small store with baseball mitts and merchandise. In my hometown, we had none. So I would go there and get lost in the sporting goods store, picking up the new baseball gloves, feeling and nurturing them, and wondering, what if I owned one of them? That was a big deal to me. It was true with respect to a Dairy Queen--50, 60 miles to a Dairy Queen; 60 miles to a clothing store. That is the way it was. Now, however, in my hometown you can't order a Dairy Queen over the Internet, but that sporting goods store is brought to my hometown by the Internet. The Internet changes commerce. Now someone in my hometown can dial up on the Internet a sporting goods store, a clothing store. Want to buy some new athletic shoes? That is available. How about a book? Amazon.com--we all know the success story of that company. My point is, we are seeing dramatic new areas of commerce available to people around the country, and around the world for that matter, which will improve their lives. I agree with that. We had a disagreement, the Senator from Oregon and I, about the piece of legislation in the Commerce Committee. I felt very strongly that what was proposed was dead wrong and he felt strongly it was right on target. We didn't disagree because we differed about the policy of what the Internet could mean to our country and to our people. I fully understand the full flow of benefits that will come from this. I understand and recognize that. Members know my interest is not in any way, ever, to impede the growth of the Internet or the growth of opportunity that people want to take advantage of on the Internet to market their goods, to build their business, and to do those kinds of things. At the same time, however, I recognize that while the Internet might bring a sporting goods store to my hometown, it will also bring some merchandise to my hometown that those few merchants in my hometown sell and must now collect a sales tax on when they sell it. I want to make sure, relative to the previous amendment and also some other amendments we will discuss, that what we do with respect to this form of new commerce has some relationship to fairness, fairness tied to selling on Main Street, sales from mail-order catalogs, selling on the Internet. I want to make sure what we are doing here is fair to all areas of commerce. That is why when Senator Wyden--who has been a leader on this, no question about that; he was the author in the Senate Commerce Committee of the underlying legislation--brought this legislation to the committee, I felt very strongly that the way it was constructed was going to cause a lot of problems. I opposed it vigorously, as he well knows. Since that time when it was passed out of the Commerce Committee, it has changed substantially. We now, I think, agree on one central principle, and that principle embodied in the underlying legislation is that we ought to have a moratorium of sorts so that we don't have State or local governments creating regimes of taxation here that could be punitive or could retard opportunities on the Internet in a punitive or discriminatory way. We agree with that and we have constructed legislation which I think will accomplish that and doesn't disadvantage any State or any local government. If there is a State or local government that has plans today to say let me be punitive in the way I apply a tax or construct a tax dealing with the Internet, I say I am not in your corner. I am not on your side on that. You are wrong; you ought not do that. I didn't want to snare in the net the kinds of State and local taxes that are applied to virtually all other kinds of commerce and do it in a way that would say to those who are at home on Main Street that you will be at a disadvantage because we have created a special safe harbor or special tax haven for certain kinds of electronic commerce. That has always been my concern. As long as the Senator from Oregon is here, I will engage him in this conversation. I think we are coming to the same point, Senator McCain, Senator Wyden, myself, and others, with respect to what we want to accomplish with this legislation. It is a system which, as we see the Internet begin to grow in its infancy--and it still is in its infancy-- is nondiscriminating with respect to how taxes are imposed among different forms of commerce. I yield for a comment from the Senator from Oregon about whether he sees us coming to that same point and whether he shares that goal.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, it is my intention--I did not provide an opening statement as we brought the bill to the floor. Senator McCain, who is managing the legislation, and I and Senator Wyden and Senator Bumpers and others talked about the schedule. I wanted the vote to be able to occur in a way that would allow Members to cast their vote and catch their airplanes, so I deferred on an opening statement. It is my intention to provide an opening statement to discuss the framework of, I think, some of the amendments that we will be debating as we continue this legislation this afternoon and also perhaps next week. Let me, if I can, describe the circumstances that brought this legislation to the floor. Mr. President, we are not under a time limit at this moment, are we?

Mr. DORGAN. If I might, I would like to provide my opening statement. If the Senator would yield the floor so I might provide the opening statement on this side. There are a number of things I would like to discuss with the Senator from Oregon, but I think it would be appropriate for me to give the statement that I deferred previously.

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

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I have not made an opening statement on this piece of legislation. I will do that at some future point. I want to allow the Senator from Arkansas to proceed with his amendment. I will, at some more convenient time, make an opening statement. I have some very strong thoughts about a whole range of issues, including the issue that is going to be raised by the Senator from Arkansas. But I think in an attempt to try to move this along--we want to get to a first vote on this at some point--I will ask the Senator from Arkansas to proceed and then at some point in the proceeding I will make an opening statement. Amendment No. 3677 (Purpose: To authorize collection of certain State and local taxes with respect to the sale, delivery, and use of tangible personal property)

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I ask unanimous consent to speak for 1 minute.

Mr. DORGAN. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, let me just add to the comments of the Senator from Arkansas. This is a toothless argument that doesn't even wear well with age--that this is a new tax. I have heard that for 8 years. There is simply no demonstration of truth to that argument. It is demonstrably untrue. This is not a new tax. The tax already exists on that form of commerce. It is not now being paid. The Senator from Arkansas does not propose to change the fundamental question of whether that transaction is taxed or not taxed. So when I hear comments from friends of mine saying that this is a new tax, I say they are wrong, dead wrong and the facts demonstrate that. So I hope Senators will support the Senator from Arkansas. I think he has offered a good amendment.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me, in just the 10 minutes that I am allotted, make a comment about the amendment offered by Senator Bumpers and also to comment about the underlying bill. Senator Bumpers offers an amendment that I think is very important and one that I intend to vote for and feel is a good amendment. The bill brought to the floor of the Senate, in its original form when it was passed out of the Commerce Committee, was totally unacceptable to me. I voted against it, worked against it, and felt its provisions were counterproductive. But since that time, the Senator from Oregon, Senator Wyden, Senator McCain, I, and others, have worked together; and the bill that will now be presented--I believe changed also by the managers' amendment--is a piece of legislation that has merit. But I think the legislation will be improved by the amendment offered by the Senator from Arkansas as well. This legislation is called the Internet Tax Freedom Act. And all of us understand that the information superhighway and new technology mean that commerce in this country is changing. Nowadays, if you want to buy a book, you can walk down to a bookstore someplace and buy a book. You might be able to look in a mail-order catalog and buy a book, or you might be able to go to your computer and buy a book. In either of those cases, you are a consumer purchasing a book. You can do the same with a saddle, if you happen to ride horses. You can do the same with a car. For that matter, you can do the same with virtually all merchandise these days. And the Internet, used for commerce purposes, is exploding all around us. The question is: When people are accessing the Internet or, for that matter, a mail-order catalog, or going downtown to make the purchase at a local business, what are the tax consequences? What kind of taxes do they pay? To whom do they pay those taxes? These are important issues. I am not someone who believes we ought to impede the use of the Internet in any way with punitive taxes. I believe that if there are punitive or discriminatory taxes that would impede the ability of the Internet to serve this country's commerce interests, then let's stop that, let's prevent the States from doing that. I have always said to the Senator from Oregon, who has been a leader on this issue, you and I do not disagree on that score. If there are taxes imposed that are punitive, then I say, stop it. But the other question that is raised by the Senator from Arkansas is a very important question. Someone decides to start a store on the main street of Fargo, ND, or Little Rock, AR, and they decide to open for business. They rent a place, buy a sign and put it out front. They hire some people to work in the place, get some inventory in, and then they open the door. And they are proud; they have some flowers around for their grand opening. There they are; they are in business. Then someone walks down the street, sees their picture window, goes on in, and buys a product. When that person buys that product, in Little Rock or in Fargo, ND, that person is going to pay the local retail taxes that are imposed by that State. That is the way it works. That is the way it always works. Then we see an increase in mail-order sales. What happens with mail- order sales is that someone sends a catalog into the home. The person sitting in a home orders the same products, does not go down to a store to order but just orders it through the mail, and gets those products sold without a sales tax attached. If that State has a 6-percent sales tax, it means that catalog seller has about a 6-percent advantage over the person who has hired the employees, rented the building, and holds himself open for business on Main Street. The Senator from Arkansas is correct--and I think not many people know this--when the person orders from the mail-order catalog and gets the merchandise, that individual has a responsibility--in almost all the States--to pay a use tax. Most people will never do that because they do not know that requirement exists, don't have the forms to comply in any event, and would not want to fill out a set of forms for 86 cents or $1.86. So the fact is, it does not happen. Now, add to mail-order catalog sales the question of Internet sales. And what are the tax consequences there? What will be the impact on the Main Street businessperson who is competing with that Internet seller, competing with the mail-order seller? What will be the impact on that Main Street merchant? That is the question that is raised by the Senator from Arkansas. It is a very legitimate question. I come from the Jeffersonian wing of my political party. The Jeffersonian wing believes, as Thomas Jefferson did, that this country is made strong by broad-based economic ownership. A lot of men and women across this country are in the market system, opening up for business, with a network of small businesses doing business all across America. We ought to be mindful of how those folks on Main Street that are risking all their savings to open their businesses are treated with the tax system. If you are a real person that has a business on Main Street you are treated one way for tax purposes, but if you have a catalog firm or Internet selling operation you are treated a different way. The Internet Tax Freedom Act, at its roots now, as it has been changed, is an attempt to say we don't want anybody to see this Internet system as some huge peach out there that they can take a big bite out of for tax purposes in a way that is punitive and impedes or retards the growth of Internet. I agree with that. But the Senator from Arkansas raises another question: Do we want the Internet and/or mail-order sellers to have an advantage over the folks who open their businesses on Main Street with respect to the imposition of State and local taxes? The answer to that ought to be no. This ought to be tax neutral. The whole system ought to be tax neutral. No matter how you are selling your product, you ought not be in a circumstance where you are selling it at an advantage over the person that hired the people, found the location and is open for business on Main Street. That is the point the Senator from Arkansas is making. This is not a new issue, incidentally, for mail-order catalogs, but it certainly is a new issue with respect to the Internet. I guess it was probably 7 years ago when I was in the other body serving on the Ways and Means Committee, probably 8 years ago, and got a bill through the subcommittee on the Ways and Means Committee to do just exactly what the Senator from Arkansas is proposing. It was very controversial. It never got beyond the subcommittee. I got the subcommittee to vote it out. But then our committee got millions of post cards from across the mail-order spectrum saying that the attempt here was to increase taxes. That is not true at all. The Senator from Arkansas doesn't propose, and I would never propose, we increase taxes on transactions. That is not the case. There is no proposal here that would increase anybody's tax. The question here is: How do you treat different kinds of commerce in a way that is fair with respect to the imposition of State and local taxes? Some say let's treat it in this way: Have the Federal Government set itself up as the referee and create moratoriums and prohibitions and all kinds of mandates with respect to the State and local governments. I don't happen to favor that. I don't think that is the right approach. Others say let us find a way to be helpful to the State and local governments to do what is necessary to even this out so we don't have discriminatory taxes imposed on one kind of seller versus another kind of seller. That is what I think is addressed by the Senator from Arkansas. I do want to mention with respect to the larger bill that is before the Senate, this is very important. If this is done in a way that is inappropriate, in a way that we really don't understand, in a way that changes words sufficient so that we have a blizzard of litigation in all the State courts all across the country or in a way that creates safe harbors for certain kinds of people doing certain kinds of business or punitive tax treatment because competitors are not faced with the same consequences, then we will have done a disservice. The moratorium that is described in the legislation is a moratorium that I think is appropriate. It says let's take a time out for a few years. We will take a time out and we will evaluate where we are. We will grandfather the States that have certain kinds of taxes, but we won't impose different taxes until we understand what we are doing here. I agree with that. The New York Times in their editorial this morning says the Senate, which debates this bill today, should resist extending the moratorium to 5 years. I agree with that, as well. We will have Members come to the floor and say, ``Gee, the moratorium is a great idea. Let's slap a moratorium on the States.'' I support a thoughtful, sensible moratorium to give time regarding what is happening here, but a 5-year moratorium is far too long. Those who propose that with an amendment--I am sure they will; I am told they will--I hope we can defeat a 5-year moratorium. That is wholly inappropriate. Those are the comments I want to make in support of the effort made by the Senator from Arkansas. He does the Senate, in my judgment, a real service. As he leaves the Senate, I will miss him walking up and down the aisle telling us about his home State, but I will miss him most importantly for the causes he fights for and the aggressive, energetic manner that he fights for these important things. Sometimes he wins, sometimes he loses, but the prospect of winning and losing doesn't affect the kind of things he knows in his heart are right. He is as aggressive as anybody in this Senate in fighting for the things he finds important. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the Senator from Nebraska asks an important question. I want to emphasize again that the President has sent down an emergency request. He sent down an emergency request and said what is needed in order to address the farm crisis is $7.9 billion. Now, I will say to my friend, as I indicated when I started this, when the emergency request comes--and it will--to deal with this hurricane that just hit, I am going to vote for it. Perhaps other hurricanes will hit during this season. I have voted for aid for earthquakes, floods, fires, and hurricanes; and I always will because this country has a responsibility to do that. I won't think twice about it. We don't have hurricanes in North Dakota, but when a hurricane hits in this country, count me as someone voting for the emergency request. FEMA and others will evaluate what is necessary, and the President will send us a supplemental emergency request. I have always voted for them and I will again. It wasn't, as I said, a fire, flood, earthquake, tornado, or hurricane that caused the crisis that required the President to send up this emergency request. It was the collapsed prices and crop disease. It was the worst crop disease of a century combined with a total collapse of prices. Now, why do we have some people who ought to be voting in support of this emergency request reluctant to do so? As the Senator said, it is ideology. This Congress, a couple years ago, passed something called the Freedom to Farm bill. I didn't vote for it. I didn't think it was appropriate. I don't think you will have family farmers in this country when prices drop off the cliff and you don't have an adequate safety net for them. If you don't have a price support for them to get across the price valley, farmers can't make it. The big corporate farms will get across the valley because they have the financial strength to do it. Some may decide that they don't care about family farmers or whether they exist. They may worship at the altar of a ``free market'' that doesn't exist in agriculture. They decided that we were going to cut farmers loose. Even if prices collapse after we pass this Freedom to Farm bill, they are going to refuse to budge because they have so much pride in the work they did a couple years ago that they don't want to admit it was wrong. I am not asking anybody to admit that. I am just saying that farm prices have collapsed. Wheat prices have dropped 57 percent since passage of the farm law. North Dakota farmers lost 98 percent of their net income in one year. The same is true through much of the Midwest in the farm belt. At this point, shouldn't Congress stop, look, and listen and say this is a crisis? Does this country want family farmers with yard lights that light up the hopes and dreams on the family farm out there in the country? Do they want family farmers in the future? They should for a lot of social and economic reasons. Then Congress has to come forward now and address this issue that the President has recommended with an emergency request. The Senator from Nebraska has gone through and talked about what it means to these States. I want to describe it in slightly different terms. There is not a Republican or a Democratic way to go broke. Family farmers don't care about party labels, tickets, or politics. They care about whether they are going to be able to make it through the winter? I talked about a young man named Wyatt the other day. He is a sophomore in school right now in Stanley, ND. He wrote a letter to me that brought tears to my eyes. He said, ``My dad is a family farmer.'' After he described what the family was going through, he said, ``My dad can feed 180 people and he can't feed his own family.'' That describes better than almost any description we can offer how productive our family farmers are. Yet, they are being wrung dry by prices that have collapsed, and they are told that even though they are all-star producers, somehow they don't matter. It seems to me that we must, as a Congress, address this issue, and the point is this: There are those who say let's address this issue by doing what is called increasing the AMTA payment by some 19 cents a bushel for a bushel of wheat. That is like walking up to somebody bleeding to death and holding out a Band-Aid and saying, ``Aren't I wonderful? Here is a Band-Aid.'' The people proposing it know better. They have told me in private that it will not address this problem. It won't get those farm families into the field next spring. Tens of thousands of them will be broke and forced out of business before they can get into the field next spring because this is a half-baked solution. It is, as I said, like offering a 4-foot rope to somebody drowning in 10 feet of water. Let's not have half-baked solutions. Let's not pole-vault to get over the election. Let's pass the emergency request of the President to solve this problem. We need to help these farmers have the hope that they can get in the field next year, plant a crop, harvest it in the fall, and have some hope that perhaps prices will rebound and they will be able to continue farming in this country in the future. Either we are going to decide to solve this problem or we are not. That is what this is about. First of all, I respect the fact that I come from a political party that lost. I understand that. I understand winning and losing. I belong to a political party that doesn't control this Chamber. I understand that. I am perfectly willing to lose from time to time. We do. In fact, it is getting habit-forming. But I am not willing to lose quietly on this issue. Up until the last 2 minutes of this legislative session, I intend to be on the floor demanding that this country respond to the urgency of this matter, just as we would if it were a natural disaster. I will be demanding that we respond to the hopes and dreams of family farmers that are going to lose their family farms if we don't act. They will lose it in the next week, the next month, or the next 4 months, and they will lose it as sure as I stand here, if we come up with half- baked solutions. I know the Senator from Nebraska wants to add to that. Let me just say again, it is the old silk-purse-out-of-a-sow's-ear thing. We have people here resistant to doing what they know in their heart is the right thing to do because they are worried because it would look like a 180-degree turn on Freedom to Farm. Don't worry about that. Let's figure out what we can do together, all of us together. Let us do what we know in our hearts will help the farmers get into the fields next spring and have some hope that maybe they can make a decent living. If we do that, we will have done something to strengthen this country and invest in this country's future. Then we can then go home with pride and say to those that Thomas Jefferson described as the ``best Americans,'' those producing our foodstuffs on the family farms, that we have done something to assure their future and give them an opportunity. Our economy is doing better. Inflation is down, unemployment is down, and the deficit is almost gone. All of those numbers are good and the country feels better about the economy. We should be able to say to family farmers that we will not, in these good times, turn a blind eye to their economic plight. They matter to this country. I would be happy to yield to the Senator from Nebraska once again.