Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, today Senator Reid and I are introducing legislation to help address a number of budgetary excesses and accountability lapses at the Federal Reserve Board. When the General Accounting Office (GAO) released its comprehensive and historic report about the management of the Federal Reserve system--which took over two years to assemble --we learned about disturbing financial practices and management failures within the Federal Reserve system. The report is packed with examples of where the Fed could substantially trim costs, and it makes specific recommendations for changes in Fed operations. Unfortunately, the Federal Reserve dismissed most of the GAO's recommendations as irrelevant or unnecessary. The GAO report shows that during the late 1980s and early 1990s, Federal Reserve expenditures jumped by twice the rate of inflation, while the rest of the federal government has been downsizing. This runaway spending is remarkable given Chairman Greenspan's advice about the need for belt-tightening in the rest of government. The gold-plated hood ornament of the Federal Reserve System's questionable practices is, in my judgment, its huge cash surplus account that's funded with billions of dollars in taxpayer money to protect against losses, despite the fact that the Fed hasn't suffered a loss for more than 80 consecutive years. When the GAO's report was released a couple of years ago, the Fed had squirreled away some $3.7 billion into the surplus account, which was up some 79% from its level in the late 1980s. Now the Fed has increased the surplus account by another 40% to about $5.2 billion--even though the GAO concluded that ``it is unlikely that the Federal Reserve will ever incur sufficient annual losses such that it would be required to use any funds in the surplus account.'' Our bill, the ``Federal Reserve Fiscal Accountability Act of 1998,'' includes many of the changes recommended by the GAO. It would do the following: First, the Federal Reserve is required to immediately return to the general fund of the federal Treasury the $5.2 billion of taxpayer's money that has unnecessarily accumulated in the Fed's surplus fund. In addition, the bill asks the GAO to determine the extent to which the Fed's future net earnings should be transferred to the federal Treasury each year. Second, the GAO, in consultation with the Federal Reserve, will identify and report to Congress a list of the Federal Reserve System activities that are not related to the making of monetary policy. After the report is completed, all non-monetary policy expenditures, as identified by the GAO, would be subject to the congressional appropriations process. We do not intend to inject politics into monetary policy with this provision. However, over 90 percent of the Fed's operations have nothing to do with interest rate policy according to the GAO. And there is simply no good reason why the Fed's non-monetary expenditures are immune from the same kind of oversight and review required of other federal agencies. Third, the regional Federal Reserve banks and the Board of Governors will be subjected to annual independent audits. This provision merely codifies what the Federal Reserve has been doing for the most part in recent practice. The detection of any possible illegal acts must be reported to the Comptroller General. Fourth, the Federal Reserve will be required to follow the same procurement and contracting rules that apply to other federal agencies. These rules should help to prevent the examples of favoritism highlighted in the GAO report and increase competition among contract bidders with the Fed. This requirement ought to substantially reduce procurement costs on a system-wide basis. Finally, we've made some changes to require the Fed to compete more fairly with the private sector in providing a variety of payment system services, such as check clearing and transportation to banks and other financial institutions. I invite my colleagues to join us as cosponsors of this much-needed legislation.

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 unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for 5 minutes.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I want to speak just for a moment about the Patients' Bill of Rights that we have introduced in the Senate and that many of us in the Senate hope can be considered on an expeditious basis by the U.S. Senate. The Patients' Bill of Rights is a piece of legislation designed to address some of the concerns we have about managed care. In many instances, health plans are denying patients the right to know all of the treatment options available for their not just the cheapest treatments available. The Patients' Bill of Rights would guarantee that right, along with the opportunity to understand your rights with respect to emergency care and a range of other rights that we believe should be inherent. I want to tell the Senate another story, as we have done almost every day the Senate has been in session, that describes, again, the urgent need for passage of the Patients' Bill of Rights. This is about a young woman named Paige Lancaster from Stafford, VA. In 1991, when Paige Lancaster was 11 years old, her mother took her to see her HMO pediatrician because she had complained of nausea and severe daily headaches for some long while. For the next 4 years, Paige repeatedly sought medical treatment for headaches from two other HMO pediatricians available. They prescribed adult-strength narcotics but never once consulted with a neurologist nor did they recommend during all this time an MRI, CAT scan, EEG, or any other diagnostic test, for that matter, to diagnose Paige's condition. Then in 1996, Paige's school counselor worried about this young girl's deteriorating high school performance. She recommended to the doctors that they perform some diagnostic tests to determine the cause of this young lady's debilitating symptoms. Mr. President, 4\1/2\ years after the first visit by this child complaining of severe headaches, the doctors finally ordered an EEG and an MRI. The MRI revealed a massive right frontal tumor and cystic mass that had infiltrated over 40 percent of her brain. One week later, Paige underwent surgery to remove the tumor. However, the surgery was unsuccessful because of the tumor's size and maturity. Paige then underwent a second and third surgery and radiation therapy, and she is, we are told, likely to require additional surgery and ongoing intensive care. What is so outrageous about this case is that the HMO covering Paige had in place a financial incentive program under which her physicians would receive bonuses for avoiding excessive treatments and tests. This is not something new. We know of managed care organizations in which the contracts with the physicians require that, if a patient of the physician shows up in an emergency room, the cost of that emergency treatment comes out of the payment to the physician--an unholy circumstance, in my judgment, because it creates exactly the wrong kind of incentive for physicians. In this case there is the same kind of incentive in reverse. The HMO had in place a financial incentive under which physicians would receive bonuses for avoiding excessive treatments and tests. Clearly, physicians should not prescribe excessive treatments and tests, but, just as clearly, physicians should not have to consider their own financial circumstances when determining whether they should prescribe a test. The Lancasters, Paige's parents, challenged the HMO's handling of Paige's case, but, unfortunately for them, the insurance for their children was provided by Mr. Lancaster's employer and was subject to something called ERISA, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. Under ERISA, the only available remedy to the patient is the cost of the benefit denied, in this case the $800 cost of the MRI. In other words, under ERISA, the HMO cannot be sued. The piece of legislation that we have proposed in the U.S. Senate, the Patients' Bill of Rights, would hold HMOs accountable by allowing patients to sue when their HMO's coverage, or lack of it, has caused them harm. The bill will also require HMOs to disclose any financial incentives that might cause the HMO doctors to skimp on patient care. Any incentives that exist between the HMO and the doctor must be disclosed to the patients. This young girl, Paige Lancaster, waited nearly 5 years for a diagnosis, one might argue, in part, because the wrong incentives existed between an HMO and a doctor. The incentives were about saving money rather than providing quality health care. We very much hope we can get back to the notion in this country that practicing medicine ought to be done in doctor's offices and hospitals, not in the office of some insurance company accountant 500 or 1,000 miles away. It is our hope that we will be able to bring to the floor of the Senate the Patients' Bill of Rights because we think this country needs it. We hope the Senate can debate it and pass it in the coming weeks. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. STEVENS addressed the Chair.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, we have been debating the tobacco bill in the U.S. Senate and will continue to debate that piece of legislation into next week and perhaps even beyond. I will begin a discussion on the subject of kids and smoking, and I will read into the Record pieces of information from the tobacco industry itself. Then, at the conclusion, I will ask the question and have all Americans ask the question: Were the tobacco companies and was the tobacco industry in America targeting our children as customers for their tobacco products? If the answer is yes, then the question is not any longer whether there should be tobacco legislation; the question will be exactly what kind of legislation must we pass and how quickly can we enact it. Let me begin with a few quotes. These are quotes from the tobacco industry that have been unearthed in various lawsuits and discovery proceedings. Brown & Williamson, a 1972 company document: It's a well-known fact that teenagers like sweet products. Honey might be considered. Talking about the potential of adding honey to cigarettes to make them more appealing to teenagers. RJR tobacco company, 1973: Comic-strip-type copy might get a much higher readership among younger people than any other type of copy. Talking about advertising, clearly a strategy that says--how do we advertise to kids? This from the RJR tobacco company. Brown & Williamson, 1973: Kool--The brand Kool--has shown little or no growth in share of users in the 26-and-up age group. Growth is from 16- to 25-year-olds . . . at the present rate, a smoker in the 16- to 25-year-age group will soon be three times as important to Kool as a prospect in any other broad-age category. Is this a company interested in getting kids addicted to cigarettes? Sure sounds like it to me. Philip Morris, 1974: We are not sure that anything can be done to halt a major exodus if one gets going among the young. This group--now speaking of the young, according to Philip Morris--follows the crowd, and we don't pretend to know what gets them going for one thing or another . . . Certainly Philip Morris should continue efforts for Marlboro in the youth market . . . R. J. Reynolds, 1974: They represent tomorrow's cigarette business . . . As this 14- to 24-age group matures, they will account for a key share of the total cigarette volume--for at least the next 25 years. In a 1975 report, a Philip Morris researcher writes: Marlboro's phenomenal growth rate in the past has been attributable in large part to our high market penetration among young smokers . . . age 15 to 19 years old . . . my own data, which includes younger teenagers, shows even higher Marlboro market penetration among 15- to 17-year-olds. That is a 1975 report from a researcher in Philip Morris. These are internal company documents: To ensure increased and longer-term growth for Camel filter--This according to a 1975 RJR memo--the brand must increase penetration among the 14- to 24 age group which has a new set of more liberal values and which represent tomorrow's cigarette business. RJR Nabisco, 1975, talking about increasing penetration among 14- to 24-year-olds. R. J. Reynolds, 1976: Evidence is now available to indicate the 14- to 18-year- old group is an increasing segment of the smoking population. RJR-T must soon establish a successful new brand in this market if our position in the industry is to be maintained . . . Fourteen to 18-year-old kids. This is a tobacco document that says, ``We have to go after this to maintain our position.'' 1978, Lorillard cigarette company: The base of our business is the high-school student. Philip Morris, 1979, writes: Marlboro dominates in the 17 and younger category, capturing over 50 percent of this market. What a cause for celebration at Philip Morris in 1979! Marlboro dominates the 17-and-younger category, capturing over 50 percent of this market. Marlboro Red, 1981, a Philip Morris researcher writes: . . . the overwhelming majority of smokers first begin to smoke while in their teens. At least part of the success of our Marlboro Red during its most rapid growth period was because it became the brand of choice among teenagers who then stuck with it as they grew older. Does this sound like a set of documents--and I am going to go on at some length to talk about these documents from the industry--does it sound like a set of documents from an industry without morals, without values? From an industry that sees 14-year-olds with dollar signs painted on their baseball cap? Is that a company or an industry without values? I think so. The Tobacco Institute, 1983. It says: [Brown & Williamson] will not support a youth smoking program which discourages young people from smoking. Well, there it is, I guess. They know who their customers are, and they target their customers. They try to addict these kids to cigarettes. And then they say, ``We will not support a youth smoking program discouraging young people from smoking.'' ``Strategies and Opportunities,'' by R.J. Reynolds, 1984: Younger adult smokers have been the critical factor in the growth and decline of every major brand and company over the last 50 years. They will continue to be just as important to brands [and] companies in the future for two simple reasons: The renewal of the market stems almost entirely from 18-year- old smokers. No more than 5 percent of smokers start after age 24. . . . Younger adult smokers are the only source of replacement smokers. . . . If younger adults turn away from smoking, the industry must decline, just as a population which does not give birth will eventually dwindle. That is according to a strategies memo from R.J. Reynolds. R.J. Reynolds, 1986, Camels. [Camel advertising will create] the perception that Camel smokers are non-conformist, self-confident, and project a cool attitude, which is admired by their peers. . . . Aspiration to be perceived as cool [and] a member of the in- group is one of the strongest influences affecting the behavior of [young adults]. Well, those are just some, and the list is long. After reading what has been unearthed from the bowels of the records of the tobacco industry about their attempts to addict our children to cigarettes, starting with a single sentence by one cigarette company that says ``the base of our business is the high school student,'' does anyone doubt that we have a tobacco industry who, for years in this country, has decided that their customers must be children? Because when you reach age 30--just as one of the researchers suggested, and wonder what will further enrich your life that you are now missing, you will not conclude that smoking is the activity you have missed. No adult that I know says, at age 30, ``Gosh, if I could just start smoking, I would further enrich my life.'' The only opportunity for new customers for the industry is to addict a child. That brings me to the point of the legislation on the floor of the Senate. Some say this is punitive. Some say, ``What's all the fuss about?'' Well, fuss is about a country that says to the tobacco industry: Tobacco is a legal product, but for adults, and it is amoral to try to addict our children, and we want to stop it. We want to say to the industry, ``We will not allow you to continue to profit by trying to addict America's children to nicotine. We will simply not allow it. And if you don't like it, tough luck. And if you lose money, too bad. But you cannot continue with impunity in this country to try to addict America's kids to cigarettes.' '' There have been a lot of claims about this legislation. I want to talk about a couple of those claims. We know from statistics that America is full of a lot of wonderful people. I do not know anyone that I am acquainted with who would want to live elsewhere. It is not that the rest of the world isn't wonderful--this is just a great place. And we are blessed to be able to live here in this time. But there are challenges. Among those challenges is that every day 3,000 additional kids in our country start to smoke, and 1,000 kids will die because they started to smoke today. Today, and every day, when those 3,000 take their first cigarette, they consign --one-third--all with names, all with families, all with potential careers and dreams and hopes and aspirations--one-third will be consigned to die because they took up a habit that can kill you. And 300,000 to 400,000 people a year die in this country from smoking and smoking-related causes. Smoking rates among high school students--10th and 12th graders--have increased for the last 6 years in a row. In my State of North Dakota, according to statistics 39 percent of high school kids under age 18 smoke. We can do something to stop this, and that is the genesis of the tobacco legislation. Senator McCain, from the Commerce Committee, the committee on which I serve, passed a piece of legislation to the floor of the Senate. I voted for it. Senator Conrad, my colleague from North Dakota, has done exceptional work in this area working with Senator McCain. Incidentally, Senator Conrad produced his own piece of legislation with a task force. But we are attempting, on the floor of the Senate, to pass a piece of legislation that tells the tobacco industry: ``You cannot addict America's children. We won't allow it.'' In this debate, we are describing the record of the industry, because some still deny that the industry is targeting our kids. I do not think they can deny it any longer with any credibility. I think unearthing all of these memos, strategies, and words of the industry itself, saying--``We're going after your kids''--I think that destroys any credibility anybody had who says that the tobacco industry isn't targeting America's kids. What does this legislation do? The legislation will increase the cost of a pack of cigarettes. The legislation on the floor will increase it by $1.10 a pack over 5 years. What is going to happen with this money? Let me describe how the money will be used. First of all, the largest share of the money, 40 percent, will be returned to the States to compensate the States for the costs they have incurred as a result of tobacco-related illnesses-- for example--the substantial increase to health costs, Medicaid, and others. The substantial increased costs that the States have incurred as a result of tobacco-related causes will be reimbursed by this price increase of tobacco. The medical costs of smoking are estimated to be somewhere around $50 billion a year annually. Lost economic productivity, as a result of the medical conditions caused by smoking, is somewhere around $47 billion a year. The States incur medical costs of about $4 billion just caring for smokers. This legislation will reimburse them and their taxpayers for that range of costs that I have just described, somewhere close to $100 billion. Twenty-two percent of the funding--aside from funding I have just described that will go to States--will be devoted to public health programs. Half will be dedicated to educate children about the dangers of smoking, to fund programs to reduce youth smoking, and a counteradvertising program to offset the extensive marketing efforts of the industry. Rather than create the big bureaucracies that the tobacco industry claims would happen, what will happen is, these funds will be used by the States to try to develop efforts and coordinate advertising and other smoking cessation programs that we are convinced will work to teach and to persuade America's kids not to begin smoking. Twenty-two percent of the funding will go to health and medical research largely through the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Frankly, I cannot think of anything we do in this country that has more impact, value and importance to every American than investments in health research. What is happening at the National Institutes of Health is really quite remarkable. From breathtaking changes and breakthroughs in health coverage to health remedies which attempt to deal with disease and problems. And what we are trying to do is to increase the amount of investment and research for health care at the National Institutes of Health. That makes a great deal of sense to me. So we are talking about a range of things--offsetting the costs the States have, smoking cessation programs, counteradvertising programs, prohibition on the industry's advertising, substantial investments in the National Institutes of Health, and a range of other things--that I think will be very beneficial. It will also allow someone 20 years from now to say that these companies were unable to devote advertising and unable to devote efforts to try to addict 14-year-olds. First, because you cannot advertise to them, and second, because we are going to counteradvertise, and we are going to have smoking cessation programs and other efforts to try to prevent you from addicting America's children to cigarettes. There is in this piece of legislation some assistance for farmers, as well, because tobacco farmers will be impacted by this legislation, and we should be mindful of the problems caused for tobacco and to tobacco farmers as a result of this piece of legislation. Senator Ford has crafted an amendment that I think goes a long way in addressing the issue that will affect tobacco farmers from this legislation. We will be talking about that, I think, next week. We have liability issues that are dealt with in this piece of legislation. I mentioned advertising restrictions. We had a problem affecting veterans that I think has been solved thanks to the work of Senator Rockefeller from West Virginia and Senator Warner, as well as the Senator from Arizona, Senator McCain. Those are the issues that I think are very important to our country with respect to the tobacco bill. My hope is that in the coming days, whether it be 3 or 5 days or a week and a half, that we will pass in the Senate a piece of legislation that all of us can be proud of. I defy anybody, I defy one person of any political persuasion or of any philosophical bent, I defy one person to stand up on the floor of the Senate and defend this sort of behavior: Page after page after page of evidence that this industry knew that the teenagers of this country were their target audience and deliberately tried to addict children to smoking. I defy anybody to read this evidence and then tell me that is not the case. If you believe, as I do, that this industry has seen dollar signs on the heads of America's kids, and you believe that is wrong, then we must believe, together, that we have a responsibility to pass legislation of this type. I am not saying every word is sacrosanct. There are plenty of ideas here to add to this that perhaps can improve it. I say at the end of the day we had better pass a piece of legislation that acknowledges the bankruptcy, the moral bankruptcy approach we have seen when we unearthed the information from the bowels of the tobacco industry.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, and I shall not object, I wonder if the Presiding Officer might entertain a consent request that I be allowed to follow Senator Byrd.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I believe we are in morning business.

Mr. DORGAN. I ask unanimous consent to speak for as much time as I may consume in morning business.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I spoke 2 weeks ago on a subject that I care deeply about. I want to just make a couple of additional points about it, and that is this orgy of mergers that is occurring in America today. You can't wake up and take a look at the business section of any newspaper in the country without seeing another big megamerger announcement. I come from, I believe, the Jeffersonian side of my party and share very deeply the notion that the broad-based political freedoms in this country are nurtured by broad-based economic freedom. Broad-based economic freedom comes from dotting the landscape all across this country with individual entrepreneurs, businesses, broadly based and owned businesses all across this country. That represents the free enterprise system, people having dreams and hopes and starting a business and nurturing this business. It doesn't mean to say that big is always bad or that small is always beautiful. It is just to say this country works best, our free enterprise system works best and the market system works best when this is not dominated by enterprises that choke competition. We have decided in law a long, long while ago those that are choking down competition and trying to clog the arteries of the marketplace are violating the law. There is precious little enforcement these days. Antitrust activities are kind of out of favor. But we are seeing an alarming growth of mergers in this country. As I start, let me again say not every merger is bad. I am not here to say that. There are times when the mergers of a couple companies make sense. But what is happening now is a wave of mergers that ought to be alarming to this country. Former Senator Hart, Phil Hart from the State of Michigan, did a lot of work on this issue. There is a building named after him here on Capitol Hill. He is probably the last person in Congress to talk much about merger activity and antitrust enforcement. It is not sexy and it does not win any friends. But it does lose friends. Let me describe what happens. This chart shows merger completions in the last 15 years. Take a look at the exponential growth of mergers. This merger mania means you have fewer enterprises. They are buying each other, merging, some hostile takeovers, and two become one. It is like getting married. You have two people that court each other; you have two companies that court each other and they get married. You read it in the paper, but you don't even know they are dating. Sometimes it is a forced marriage as the case with hostile takeovers. Here on this chart are all the marriages going on in corporate America--two become one. The railroad industry--we used to have a lot of railroads. Now we have a very few railroads. They tell us what they are going to haul and how they are going to haul it. If you don't like it, tough luck. The airline industry--we used to have a lot of airlines in this country. Now we have a few. They have retreated into regional hubs and dominate the hub and say here is where we will fly and here is what it will cost. If you don't like it, go buy a jet. The telecommunications industry--you talk about what is happening in telecommunications. All of these big telecommunications companies are looking around for suitors to find out who they can romance and who they can add to their collection. Pretty soon, ten companies become five and five become one. We have Baby Bells--they are not so baby anymore. Now they are getting married. So there are fewer Baby Bells because they are combining. Let me just go through a couple of other charts to describe this circumstance. Here we have the value of merger activity in this country. In 1998, $1.7 trillion. It is moving up exponentially. Those who say that we believe in the free enterprise system, those who say that the market system is critically important to the success of this country ought to be concerned about this. Let me show a chart briefly with respect to the largest mergers. I showed this 2 weeks ago and it has since changed because we had a chemical company and a pharmaceutical company that started dating and then they decided to announce they were getting married--Monsanto and American Home Products. On this chart are the 25 largest corporate U.S. mergers through June 2, 1998. Seventy billion, CitiCorp wants to join with Travelers Group. Fifty-nine billion, BankAmerica wants to join with National Bank. While I am speaking about it, the banks, they of course, are a go-go industry with respect to mergers. Last year, there were 599 bank mergers. The biggest banks are merging as quickly as you can open your paper these days. About 75 percent of the domestic banking assets are held by 100 of the largest banks. The Federal Reserve Board has a policy. In fact, if you are big enough, they call it ``too big to fail.'' If you are big enough, you are never going to be allowed to fail because the consequences of the failure would be too detrimental to the country. There used to be 11 too-big-to-fail banks. Eleven is now 21 because all the big banks are getting bigger. So the next merger you see with one of those banks, there is no risk to them. They can't fail. The American taxpayer has to pay the risk of a merger that turns sour. Small community banks especially understand this problem. Let me talk about the testimony of the president of the Independent Bankers Association of America. He says ``The evidence shows that increased concentration in banking has not benefited bank customers.'' He adds that ``larger banks charge higher fees, bank mergers have an adverse effect on consumer deposit prices, and small business lending receives a short shrift in a world of ever-larger banks.'' Banks are just one area. I just stop to say that if you take a look at this list, it is banks, railroads, telecommunications companies, defense companies. Frankly, I think it is alarming. I think Congress ought to pay some attention to this. I represent a lot of farmers. Family farmers aren't merging. They are out there fueling up a tractor, trying to plow in seeds, hoping to get a crop. But when they market, they market back up through the neck of the bottle. If they market meat, if they are raising a cow and are going to market the meat from the cow. In 1980 the big four packing plants had 36 percent of the market. In 1994, the big four meatpacking plants in this country had 82 percent of the market. This means that if you are a farmer trying to market up through the neck of that bottle, the products of meat--in this case perhaps pork or beef--you are discovering that you are marketing up towards a monopoly. On the top they tell you what they will pay you for it. The same is true for the grain farmer. My point is it doesn't matter whether you are on Main Street or running a family farm. If you are operating in an economy in which big interests are clogging the marketplace arteries, you have to be concerned that this system doesn't work for you. Congress has a responsibility and there are laws on the books that would require us to look carefully and closely at merger proposals to see, is this in the best interests of the country or will this injure the marketplace? Will this injure the free enterprise system? In some cases, maybe not; in some cases, maybe it will. In those cases, Congress has a responsibility to act. We had a circumstance with respect to airlines. For example, not too many years ago we had a whole raft of merger proposals go to the Department of Transportation. The then-Secretary of Transportation never met a merger she didn't love. It didn't matter what it was. ``Just bring them up, and we'll try to merge them. We say amen, and we stamp `Approved.' '' The result is that we have had fewer airlines that retreated into regional monopolies. I think whether it is railroads, airlines, meatpacking plants, banks, or telecommunications companies, this country functions best and our market system and free enterprise system functions best when you have robust, aggressive competition. I worry very much that those who are supposed to be minding the store are paying precious little attention to some of these issues. Finally, let me say an encouraging word about one person who is paying some attention, and that is Joel Klein over in the Justice Department. I will not talk about any of the specific cases before them, because I am not interested in doing that. But he is someone who heads the Antitrust Division. I hope this Congress provides substantial resources so that he has the capability and the people over there to investigate these mergers to determine whether they are in the best interest of the country or whether they violate the law with respect to antitrust. I want those who are supposed to be the referees with respect to the market system to make sure that competition abounds and the market system works. I want Mr. Klein, head of the Antitrust Division at Justice, to have the resources necessary to do that, and I hope my colleagues agree with me. I am going to speak at greater length at another time. I apologize to the Senator from Arizona. He has been waiting. I wanted to make the point on mergers. I hope my colleagues on both the Republican and Democratic sides who have an interest in this issue and an interest in making certain that those mergers that are fine proceed unimpeded, but those that restrict and constrict and impede the market system ought to be looked at with a fine-tooth comb to determine whether they ought to be approved or rejected. I will have more to say on this at some point later. With that, I yield the floor. Mr. KYL addressed the Chair.

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 unanimous consent to speak for 15 minutes as if in morning business.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, as I finish my time I want to turn to a separate matter for a moment to discuss some meetings that I held in North Dakota during this past week. While the U.S. Senate was not in session, I held a number of farm neighbor meetings around North Dakota to talk about the farm crisis that exists in our part of the country. It is not something you read much about, but it exists and it is serious. We have seen all kinds of natural disasters and they break your heart. We have seen tornadoes, earthquakes and floods. We have had floods in North Dakota, our neighboring State of South Dakota had devastating tornadoes over the weekend. They are all tough to deal with. But there is another kind of crisis and disaster that occurs that does not come from a single event that climaxes in massive, visible immediate destruction. I am talking about a farm crisis that is devastating farm families in States like North Dakota. Chronic grain disease, such as scab that results in vomitoxin, chronically low farm prices, a wet cycle, diminished production, and a range of other things have combined to put literally thousands and thousands of family farmers in harm's way. By harm's way, I mean these farmers are not going to get financing to put in another year's crop. They are going to see their lifelong dream of operating their family farm gone, ripped apart and torn to shreds. At one of the farm neighbor meetings I had, there were three generations of farmers sitting there--a granddad, a dad and a son. The son was about 20 years old, kind of a husky young man. The granddad started that farm many, many decades ago, and the father took over that farm. Now the son is getting ready to graduate from college and would like to come back and farm as well. But the son said he wasn't sure he was going to be able to do that. In fact, the dad wasn't sure he was going to be able to hold on to the farm even if his son did want to farm it. Three generations of farmers and their hope for the future is gone. At one of the farm meetings we had, the sky clouded up with big black storm clouds to the west. A storm was imminent, when one of the farmers stood up and explained what a lot of people probably do not understand. He said, ``You know, I've lost money 4 years in a row. I run a small grains farm. I put my kids through college. This is what I love to do. It is what I know to do,'' and he said, ``yet, the grain prices are far below my cost of production. We have had crop disease and every problem you virtually can conceive of, and I don't know how long I can keep farming.'' He said, ``See that cloud bank out west. Those storm clouds that will be here in an hour or so, that's pressure. That's pressure for us, and people don't understand that. That might ruin what little crop that has started to come. That might wash out seeds that haven't yet sprouted. That is pressure.'' You don't think much about that until you sit on those farmsteads and visit with the farmers who are trying to make a living under very difficult circumstances. Farmers are the only business men and women in this country who have the following kinds of problems of risk: One, when they plant a seed after they plow the soil in spring, they have no idea whether the crop is going to grow, whether it be wheat, barley, flax, or corn. If it grows, maybe a month later the grasshoppers come. Maybe it is insects, maybe it is hail, maybe crop disease or maybe a dozen other things conspire to destroy that crop. But maybe the crop doesn't get destroyed and the farmer harvests the crop and takes it to the grain elevator. Then maybe, as is the circumstance today, that farmer gets $2 a bushel less than it cost him to produce the wheat. Then the farmer wonders, ``I took all these risks and end up losing all my money, all my equity, and then I am told by my banker that the U.S. Congress changed the farm program and reduced price supports so I can't cashflow anymore. Because Congress changed the farm programs, I no longer have the loans available to me to put in the spring crop.'' And they rightfully wonder what is happening to our country. We must, as a country, do something if we want to save family farmers. This country has an obligation to stand up in international trade and farm policy. We need to say that a network of family farms in our country's future matters to this nation. We can do better in a range of areas. We need a better crop insurance program, a better price support program, and better trade policies that prevent other countries from unfair trade practices against us. We can do all these things. This Congress, in my judgment, has a responsibility now to respond to the growing farm crisis. I hope my colleagues who come from farm States will understand that this is not some parochial issue. It is not some parochial concern that is of no consequence to anyone else. It is of consequence to everyone in this country whether or not our family farmers have an opportunity to survive and succeed. I think it is interesting, Mr. President, that the price of wheat has gone from $5.50 a bushel to $3.50 a bushel, nearly $2 below the cost of production for a bushel of wheat. And yet, at the same time, the folks in town go to the grocery store and they discover the price of bread has increased a bit. The price of wheat has dropped like an anvil, and the price of bread keeps going up. The price of wheat drops, the price of cereal keeps going up. What it says is that family farmers are down there at the bottom of the economic totem pole. Yet, they are the ones who produce. They plow the ground in the spring, they harvest it in the fall, they take all the risks in between and, in all the circumstances, they are the ones who lose the money. At the same time the big millers have record profits and the big grocer manufacturers have record profits. You can take a look at the big grain trading companies--record profits. Everybody profits, except those who have to put on work clothes to plant the field and harvest the crop. It is everybody who doesn't have to work in that kind of a situation who makes a record profit, while the farm families are going out of business. In my home State, they have had to call auctioneers out of retirement to handle the number of auction sales for family farms going out of business this year. There is something wrong when we say as a country, ``Gee, our economic policy is working quite well,'' and then we see all these family farmers going out of business. One part of this is trade, and I might just finish today by mentioning trade. In almost every circumstance, this country has refused to stand with its producers on trade, and that is especially true with farm producers. It has refused to do what it should have done on United States-Canada grain trade in which this country is flooded with subsidized Canadian grain. It refuses to do what it should do with respect to China, Japan, and Europe. Just last week, we finally began confronting unfair trade, when the Secretary of Agriculture took action against the European Union for sending a ship that docked in California loaded with barley. That barley was deeply subsidized, to the tune of over $1 a bushel. Secretary Glickman, to his credit, took the first action. It was a step, it was a baby step, but, nevertheless, a step in the right direction. In taking it Secretary Glickman is saying to the European Union: ``You can't do that to this country. You can't do that to our farmers. You can't take money directly out of our farmers' pockets. In this case of unfair trade, you can't do that with impunity. This country will not allow you to do that.'' Mr. President, I am going to speak later this week about farm policy and some of the related issues that we have to deal with--crop insurance, trade, price supports, investment in research for crop disease, and a whole range of other things. I say to my colleagues, this is critically important. There is, indeed, a farm crisis and we have a responsibility to respond to it in a thoughtful and important way. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, as we near the summer of this legislative session and discuss the agenda remaining for this Congress, I want to raise, as my colleagues and I have for many, many days in this Chamber, one of the pieces of legislation we want considered in the Senate during this session of the Senate. That legislation is the Patients' Bill of Rights. About 160 million Americans are now enrolled in managed care organizations. HMOs--health maintenance organizations, one of the main types of managed care--can save money and they can improve care. But by the same token, managed health care organizations can cause real serious problems for many Americans. I want to describe just a few of them and describe why we believe a Patients' Bill of Rights should be enacted by this Congress. To describe part of the problem with managed care organizations, let me tell the story of a woman who had just suffered a brain injury. As she was lying in an ambulance being hauled to a hospital, with her brain swelling, she advised the ambulance drivers that she wanted to be taken to the hospital that was farther away, rather than the nearest hospital. She survived and was asked later why she issued directions to be taken to the hospital farther away. She said she had learned a lot about the hospital that was nearest to the ambulance at that point, and it was a hospital that by reputation had made health care a function of its profit and loss statement. She did not feel comfortable presenting herself to an emergency room where her care was going to be a function of someone else's profit and loss. And that is something that concerns a lot of the American people these days, especially as health care moves more towards for-profit health care, more towards managed care. Let me give you another example. This example, whose name is Wendy Connelly, a wife and mother from Sherwood, OR, is yet another reason why we need a Patients' Bill of Rights. In 1994, Wendy Connelly experienced symptoms of what she feared was a heart attack, including heaviness in her chest and a heart that began beating wildly, at a rate approaching 150 beats per minute. She thought she was having a heart attack, so Wendy sought treatment at the local hospital emergency room, as one would likely do in that situation. Fortunately for Wendy, the doctors on call treated her for what was not a heart attack, but rather, a previously undiagnosed thyroid imbalance. When she first began to fear the worst, Wendy had contacted her HMO's on-call physician for advice. Obviously, he was unable to make an over- the-phone diagnosis for her, and he told her to seek emergency room care if her symptoms did not subside. And so she did. But when the bill came due, the HMO denied payment of Wendy Connelly's claim. They said that her case was not deemed emergency care. The HMO was basing its decision on the final diagnosis, not the heart-attack like symptoms that sent her to the emergency room. Wendy Connelly, to her credit, felt that the HMO was wrong in its denial, and so, for more than a year, she sent letters explaining what had happened. Even her doctors and the hospital that treated her urged the HMO to cover that claim. Finally, the HMO conceded and she was no longer liable for the costs that she incurred more than a year before. But she decided that she would help others in this situation who were being unfairly denied coverage, so she filed a complaint against the HMO with the Oregon Department of Insurance. It was found by the Department of Insurance that what had happened to Wendy Connelly was a routine practice for this insurer. If a person went to the emergency room but found that the final diagnosis is not something that would require emergency care, despite what the presenting symptoms were, then the claim was denied. Here is what Wendy said: I went to an emergency room (because) I thought I was having a heart attack. . . . I felt that if I went somewhere else or delayed longer, I would (have been) putting my life in jeopardy. But all across the country now we discover these cases, time after time after time, of the managed care organizations deciding that they won't cover someone showing up in an emergency room. Or, in fact, some of them have clauses in their contracts with their doctors that say if a doctor's patient shows up in the emergency room, it comes out of the doctor's compensation for the managed care organization. You talk about a terrible incentive; you talk about a conflict of interest; that is it. We have proposed a Patients' Bill of Rights, proposed by Democrats and Republicans, in the Congress. Let me go through, just for a moment, what some of these rights would be. Patients in this country ought to have an opportunity to know all of the medical options available to treat their illness or disease--all of the medical options, not just the cheapest. A number of managed care organizations have gag rules in their contracts with their doctors. They will only allow their doctors to tell patients what they want the patients to know. If there are other treatments available, perhaps better treatments, treatments that are more appropriate but perhaps more expensive, then they have no obligation to tell the patient that there are other treatment options. Many patients worry, and some investigations confirm, that often the patients learn not all of the treatments available but only those which are the cheapest. You have a right to choose the doctor you want for the care you need, including specialty care. One person from my home state of North Dakota whose employer recently switched to a closed network health plan has a chronic heart condition. But his new health plan has refused to allow him to see the cardiologist who has been caring for him for this heart condition for a decade. This employee has no option to choose a health plan that will allow him to continue seeing his cardiologist, even though he says he is willing to pay for that right. So under the Patients' Bill of Rights, patients will have the right to choose the doctor they want for the care they need. You have the right to emergency room care whenever and wherever you need it. In fact, a Missouri managed care organization plan sent all of its customers a letter saying a trip to the emergency room with a broken leg, or a baby running a high fever, should not generally be assumed to be covered. The letter read like this: An emergency room visit for medical treatment is not automatically covered under your benefit plan. An Arkansas woman suffered a broken neck in a car wreck and was rushed to the hospital. Her managed care company refused to pay for her emergency room care--this is a patient with a broken neck from a car accident--because she failed to get prior authorization. Managed care organizations think that the first thing to do when you break your neck in a car accident is to seek prior authorization to get to an emergency room? So, another of the patients' rights is the right to emergency room care whenever and wherever you need it. You also have the right to a fair and speedy process for resolving disputes with your health care plan. You have the right to considerate, respectful care without discrimination. You have the right to keep your medical records confidential. Why is it important that these rights be made available to patients? Because too many managed care organizations are denying those basic rights to American citizens and to those who are sick right now. We have a proposal that has been dealt with by the Senate, dealing with mastectomies. Why should the Senate be talking about the length of hospital stays available for a woman who has a mastectomy? Because managed care organizations are taking these women into hospitals for mastectomies, radical mastectomies, and 8, 10, 12 hours later, with tubes coming from their bodies, sending them home. And the same is true with drive-through baby deliveries. That is why Congress addressed that particular problem in 1996. Is this body part by body part legislation the best way to address these issues? No, not for Congress to be dealing with these specific procedures. But why are we even confronted with this? Because health care all too often--regrettably, for those who are sick, for those who are in need of health care--has become more a function of dollars and cents, more a function of someone's profit and loss, than someone else's critically needed health care. That is why we want a Patients' Bill of Rights passed by this Congress. Some say this will cost a lot of money. No it will not. The ultimate cost for the American people is to deny treatment, to deny coverage, and deny opportunity for those who are sick to get the treatment they need. If you want to mushroom the health care bill in this country, then keep doing what we are doing and say to the American people: If you break your neck, we won't pay for emergency services for you because your first stop should be some accountant's desk to get prior authorization. Your first stop, before the doctor's office or the hospital room, is to appeal to some accountant in an insurance office 500 miles away to ask what kind of health care delivery that managed care plan will give you, your child, your parents, or your family. That doesn't make any sense. Doctors all across my State and across this country support the Patients' Bill of Rights, because they understand medicine ought to be practiced in the doctor's office and in the hospital room, not in some insurance company's office by some junior accountant who is 500 or 1,000 miles away from the problem the patient is suffering. Mr. President, I hope very much that in the coming weeks this Congress will include on its agenda a Patients' Bill of Rights so that all Americans will understand their rights and all managed care organizations will understand their obligations to people in this country when they need health care.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield so I might ask a question?

Mr. DORGAN. I think there has been a misunderstanding. I will, as matter of courtesy, not object. But I would have objected earlier if the request was that we had 30 minutes on the majority side uninterrupted, because Senator Wellstone is here and I was here. The Senator from Wyoming, I know, was here as well before the other speakers. As a matter of courtesy I will not object. I regret that there has been a misunderstanding.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, my understanding of the unanimous consent request made by Senator Coverdell was that he wants to get two on the majority side to use 10 minutes each. And we thought that was acceptable. Senator Enzi wanted to introduce a bill. I now understand that Senator Enzi wishes to consume up to 10 minutes. The difficulty with that is I must be somewhere downtown at 10:30. If I had understood that Senator Coverdell was seeking 30 minutes on that side before anyone was recognized, I would have had a different view, although I recognize that Senator Enzi came, in fact, before the previous two speakers this morning. I understand that. But we did it as a matter of courtesy to say it was acceptable to us to have two Republican speakers to go for 10 minutes each provided we then be recognized. The Senator from Wyoming, I understand, wants to introduce a bill. Does the Senator from Wyoming intend to consume up to 10 minutes?

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I add my congratulations and my thanks to Senator Chafee and Senator Baucus especially. My colleague, Senator Conrad, has described how important this piece of legislation is. I know both the chairman and ranking member worked very hard for a long, long while to make sure that the result was a result that is fair to all parts of this country. A lot of people don't think much about road issues. Not many people think about roads when they are driving on a good road. They don't think about roads much until they hit a bad road. They don't think about bridges until they read a story or see a bridge that is in disrepair or has fallen down and caused a loss of life. The investment in this country's infrastructure--roads and bridges-- is critically important. In a State like North Dakota, that is 10 times the size of Massachusetts in landmass, yet with only 640,000 people living in the State, it is very difficult for us to maintain a broad network of roads and infrastructure without the kind of investment that will be made possible in this legislation. The Senator from North Dakota, Senator Conrad, mentioned the increase in funding that will exist with this legislation--from $111 million a year to about $170 million a year, just in excess of a 50-percent-per- year increase. That comes from the gas taxes that people pay when they drive up to the gas pumps and fill their car. That gas tax is used to invest in this country and invest in its infrastructure--roads and bridges. That is what makes possible this kind of legislation. This is a wonderful step forward. I know some debated the size and debated the formula, but the fact is, this is the kind of investment that makes you feel this is a better country because of it. If you go to other countries--I won't mention them--if you go to a half-dozen or dozen other countries and drive on their roads, you immediately understand that they have trouble financing their infrastructure. Their roads are in disrepair, full of potholes, some barely built, some not graveled. All you have to do is look at a country's infrastructure to see what kind of country it is. Is it a country which devotes the resources to roads and bridges and the things that make transportation possible and the transportation of grain and commodities and items of commerce back and forth possible? The answer is yes. One of the important things about this bill is, we decided long ago that transportation should be national in scope. If you are going to haul fresh fish or frozen shrimp from the State of Washington to the State of Maine, you are going to need roads across the center of the country, even if it is not very populated. Yes, you might drive through Wyoming and North Dakota. There aren't many people there. It is a lot less crowded than New York and California. But the roads to get from here to there are just as important as a mile of road in New York City. That is what the need of a national highway program is all about. When Dwight D. Eisenhower decided to build an interstate highway system, he didn't say, let's spend all that money just where people live; he said, we are going to build an interstate highway system and we are going to build it to connect the entire country, and we are even going to make that investment in sparsely populated States because that is what allows people to move around this country. That is the long way of saying this is a good bill and advances the interests of our country. Let me make one final, quick point. I have worked 5 years on a small piece of legislation that probably will not mean much to some, but it is in this piece of legislation we will consider this afternoon. In five States, it is perfectly legal in America to put one hand on the driver's wheel of a car and another on a fifth of whiskey. Drink and drive and you are perfectly legal. You just can't be drunk. No problem drinking while you drive. In 22 States, if the driver can't drink, it is fine for the people in the back seat or the person in the front seat next to the driver to drink while you drive. For 5 years, I have tried to get that changed. Some say I have no right to tell some State that they have to have a prohibition on open containers in their State. Maybe they think I have no business doing that. I have a right to say to anybody anywhere in this country who drives into an intersection in any city, any State, that they ought to have some reasonable expectation they are meeting a car in which the driver isn't drinking or in which there isn't alcohol being consumed in the car. We have a right to aspire to that in this country as a sense of national purpose. Drunk driving is a major problem in this country. Every 30 minutes, another family receives a call. My family received the call. A loved one was killed in a drunk-driving accident. Every 30 minutes, every hour, every day. This is not some strange and mysterious illness for which we do not have a cure. We know what causes it, and we know what cures it. This piece of legislation today includes a provision that States will enact a prohibition on open containers, and it has a sanction if they do not. The sanction is not quite as strong as I proposed, but, nonetheless, it is still a sanction. This advances some things that I have felt strongly about and worked on for 5 years. The Senate voted on this provision. It was somewhat controversial, but it passed the Senate, and I am very pleased that, in the conference with the House, we were able to keep this provision. I also know that because this provision exists and because this Congress took this step, lives will be saved. I commend those who worked with me to fight for that piece of legislation. Finally, let me say thanks again to all of those who worked so hard. A lot of folks worked around the clock a couple days on this. Their names probably will not be called on the Senate floor, but thanks to them for their commitment. Mr. President, I yield the floor. Mr. GRAMM addressed the Chair.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I have come to the floor to talk about two challenges as we begin a break, now, for the Memorial Day recess here in Congress. We are talking about a wide range of things: Iran, missile sanctions, tobacco, appropriations bills, and a wide range of subjects. There are two subjects on which there is deafening silence here in Washington, DC, and in the Congress, and I want to talk about both of them because I think both are challenges for this country. One is our worsening trade deficit and the announcement 2 days ago that, once again, our merchandise trade deficit for 1 month reached another record $20 billion in a month; and, second, the new wave of mergers in this country. I want to talk about both of them just briefly. First, a chart. This chart shows in recent years the average monthly trade deficit in this country, the average monthly merchandise trade deficit. You can see what is happening--a month in 1991, $6 billion; it is now 1998, $20 billion, February through March, in a month. Some say the trade deficit doesn't matter much. If it doesn't matter much, they must be just ecstatic. If ignorance is bliss, those who think trade deficits don't matter have to be just ecstatic. Look at what is happening here. This red represents a flood of red ink in international trade. Our all-stars in international trade are our farmers. Yet, farm imports into this country are going up and farm exports are going down. I think today there is a ship docking in California with a load of barley from the European Union. It is going to dock in Stockton, CA. It has feed barley being sent into this country with a $1.10-a-bushel subsidy. Shame on us for letting that ship dock. That is unfair trade no matter how you describe it, and it undercuts our producers, undercuts our farmers, takes money right out of American producers' pockets, and it doesn't seem to matter much to anyone. It just seems the trade deficits are OK, there are not problems, and nobody seems to want to do much about it. That unfair trade on that boat is just one small example. The flood of grain coming in from Canada, unfairly subsidized grain, in my judgment, being illegally dumped in this country--nothing is done about that. How about the closed markets, yes, in Japan and China? Take a look at the figures this week and see what is happening with China. There is a $12 billion trade deficit in the first 3 months, $12 billion the first 3 months with China. That is a $48 billion, nearly $50 billion yearly trade deficit with China. Mr. President, $15 billion the first 3 months with Japan, that is a $60 billion a year trade deficit with Japan. This doesn't make any sense. This hurts our country. Trade deficits must be repaid. It is not free money. And it must be repaid in the future by a lower standard of living in this country. That is not a theory. That is real. These deficits must be repaid, and those who react with glee to this do not understand what this means. It means we are borrowing, and borrowing heavily, for a trade system that is out of balance. With all due respect to all those who negotiate our trade agreements, I will say this: Will Rogers once said the United States has never lost a war and never won a conference. Why do we send trade negotiators overseas to lose in 3 weeks? And they do. I can't think of a trade agreement negotiated recently that represented this country's national economic interest. We have incompetently negotiated trade agreements and trade agreements that are rarely enforced, and it is time for this country and this Congress to understand this is heading in the wrong direction. I am not suggesting cutting off all imports. I am saying to our trading partners, as a country it is in our economic interest that when we take your goods, you be required to take ours. We need to get more wheat into China, more pork into China, more manufactured goods into China and Japan, more beef into Japan. I can spend an hour talking about these problems. Nobody works much on them, because trade policy too often has become foreign policy, and the State Department has its mitts in all of this. It worries that if we get tough with Japan and say, ``You can't run a $60 billion trade surplus with us every year,'' Japan will be miffed. Well, let Japan be miffed. Let's talk about this country's interests. Let's talk about our long-term interests. Having gotten that off my chest, I hope the deafening silence on trade deficits will no longer continue. I hope this Congress, in the coming months, will consider the legislation that I, Senator Byrd, and Senator Stevens have introduced which talks about the creation of a commission on an emergency basis to make recommendations to Congress to deal with this trade deficit, to focus on it and respond to it. Mr. President, I have one final item, and that is the wave of mergers in this country. In the last century, there have been five merger waves. We are in the fifth. This is far, far in excess of any mergers in the past. I want you to take a look at the line on this chart, going back to 1983, on the number of merger deals, and it goes up like this, as you can see. The projected dollar amount on mergers and acquisitions is up to $1.1 trillion for this year. What does all this mean? Are mergers always bad? No. Can you get into a merger wave that strangles our marketplace? Of course you can, and that is what is happening in this country. I want to go through some of the mergers. Some of these companies decided to get married, and we didn't even know they were dating. All these secret talks were going on, and two companies were so fond of each other that they decided to get married. We have Citicorp and Travelers Group at more than $70 billion. They were romancing for a couple of weeks and announced to all of us, a huge bank and a huge insurance company want to get hitched. BankAmerica Corp., NationsBank, that is not surprising. We have banks throughout this list. The big banks are getting bigger. Down at the Federal Reserve Board, they have a list. It used to be a list of 11 banks. It is called ``Too Big to Fail.'' It means these banks will not fail because we cannot let them fail; the consequences to our country and economy will be too significant. That list now is not 11, it is now 21 banks and growing. Twenty-one banks are too big to fail. And that is what these mergers are giving us-- bigger and bigger banks, too big to fail --while the little folks out there, the family farmers and Main Street business enterprises, are apparently too small to matter. These folks have their merger risks guaranteed by the taxpayer, and the rest of the folks find choked markets and higher prices. Take a look at the banks. You are paying higher bank fees. Banks are getting bigger and merging all over the country, and customers are paying higher bank fees. Take a look at the meatpacking industry. Three or four companies control the neck of the bottle on meatpacking. It pushes down low prices on the backs of farmers and ranchers. Take a look at the airlines. We deregulated the airlines. Now we have about six major airlines in America that have retreated into what are largely regional monopolies without regulation. What about railroads? We've seen merger after merger after merger. Now we have just several major railroads left in America. What happens is the people on Main Street, the consumers, the farmers, and others are told by the railroads, ``Here is the way we are going to serve you. We are going to bring our cars by here. You better have what you want put on there in time, or you lose out. We will tell you what you pay, and if you don't like it, tough luck.'' That is what a merger is. Concentration of markets means you injure the marketplace. When you have two big companies merge and you have one behemoth company, this country has lost something by diminishing the marketplace because you have less competition. Our marketplace works based on competition. When you have less competition and more concentration, it hurts our marketplace. I hope there is energy in the Congress to help the Justice Department and others who review these mergers to find out are they more than just good for the companies, are they good for the country. This list of the 25 largest corporate mergers completed or pending through May 11 is a fascinating list. There are a lot of banks, as you might well know, and communications companies. This next list talks about mergers and acquisitions over $1 billion involving U.S. companies between 1983-1998. In 1983, we had 10 deals over $1 billion. This year, there were 143 separate merger deals over $1 billion each. Of course, the largest ones are just behemoth, setting all kinds of records. I am not saying all mergers are bad all the time. I know of circumstances where two companies have merged and it was beneficial to everybody. I understand that. But we have an orgy of mega-mergers going on in this country today that I think does threaten the marketplace. I say to Joel Klein over in the Justice Department, and others, be active, be aggressive. He recently testified before the U.S. House of Representatives that he needs some more resources in antitrust to deal with these issues. I am somebody who says, let's give him the resources. I want this marketplace to work. It works when we have robust, aggressive competition. It chokes and clogs when we have concentration at the top. So I bring to my colleagues' attention these charts just to say we have gone from 10 mergers over $1 billion in 1983 to 20, 26, 34, 35, 47--it goes on up. Now we have 143 different merger propositions over $1 billion each, something we ought to care about. There has not been anybody around this Congress for a long, long while to care about it. Senator Phil Hart, a great Senator for whom the Hart Building was named, spent a lot of his career here worrying about the issue of mergers and concentration. I hope, once again, we will see some from this Justice Department and from some in this Congress who will take a close look at all of these. That is not to say they are all bad, some might make sense, but to say there is more than one interest involved in these issues. There is more than one interest. One interest might be the two companies who want to make more money and grab some markets. The other interest must be the interest of the American people and a free-market system that will only remain free if we have competition and only remain free if we don't have concentration and monopoly that chokes down markets. I hope, perhaps in the coming months, that I can stimulate some additional discussion about this issue with some of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. Mr. President, I see my time has expired. I yield the floor. Mr. WELLSTONE addressed the Chair.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Wyoming for his courtesy. I appreciated his statement as well. Mr. President, the Senator from Hawaii has asked that he be given unanimous consent to follow the presentation by Senator Snowe.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I thank the majority leader, Senator Lott, for bringing the tobacco legislation to the floor of the Senate this week. He had indicated previously that he would do so, and he has kept that commitment. I think it will be helpful in this country to debate that issue this week on the floor of the Senate.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about an issue dealing with agriculture. Later this week, sometime this weekend, a boat will pull up at a dock in California loaded with 1.4 million bushels of European barley. This barley was sold into this country with a subsidy of well over $1 a bushel. It is now being hauled from the European Union to the shores of the United States, deeply subsidized, unfair trade, undercutting our family farmers. It is an outrage, and it should not happen. We suggested that the sale be terminated when it was announced, but it was not. I suggest today that perhaps somebody ought to refuse to unload the barley when it reaches the shores of California. Let me describe for a few moments why this is just a symbol of a very serious problem in the farm belt. I want to show a series of charts because I want the American people and my colleagues to understand that we are confronted with the question of whether we want any family farmers in this country's future. We are seeing family farmers going broke in record numbers. In my State, there was a 55- percent increase in auction sales over last year. They are calling auctioneers out of retirement to handle the auction sales, because there are so many sales of family farmers having to quit. Now, farming isn't just a business. These are families living on the farm. There is a yard light that illuminates the place that represents the dreams of a family that wants to farm. These farms represent the economic blood vessels that pump life into our small towns. It is a way of life that is very important to this country. There is a real difference between family farmers and the agri- factories that farm from California to the State of Maine with large mechanized corporate farming. The family farm makes a difference in our society. It is the seedbed of family values that has nurtured and rolled itself from the family farms to small towns, to America's cities. If America decides it doesn't care about whether there are family farmers, it will have lost something valuable. I received a letter from a farmer just the other day. Its just one of many such letters from other farmers. I am getting many calls and considerable mail from farmers. This particular letter says, ``It has come to my attention now as a farmer that the United States is preparing to let an entire industry''--that is, family farmers--``die. If an airline strikes, the President intervenes; if UPS strikes, the President intervenes; if a railroad suggests a strike, the President is up in arms. But when farm commodity prices fall and family farmers are in peril, nobody seems to say much.'' Let me describe the circumstances of our North Dakota farmers. I met with a group of North Dakota producers this past Saturday with my colleague, Senator Conrad, in Fargo, ND. We visited, once again, about the problems and what can be done about them. Here is what they face. Our three largest crops--spring wheat, durum wheat, and barley--had a 41-percent reduction, a 21-percent reduction, and 41-percent reduction in gross income from reduced yield and price. Ask yourself, if you were in business and you have a 40-percent reduction in your gross sales and a reduction in your price, what is going to happen to your business? These are family farmers. They don't have deep pockets. So here is what has happened, as a result, to net farm income. Take all the farmers out there in North Dakota and evaluate what happened to the net farm income. Net farm income in 1996 was $764 million, divided among 30,000 farmers. In 1997 net farm income was down 98 percent, down to $15 million in net farm income. Divided among all those farmers, that is less than $500 net income per farm. But this doesn't tell the whole story, because almost all of that net farm income goes to the state's largest farmers, and almost all of the middle- and lower-income farmers are seeing huge losses. Let me show my colleagues what has happened to the price of wheat. One can make the case, or not make the case, that this has something to do with what Congress did. It probably has some small amount to do with what Congress did in passing a new farm bill, and maybe it has something to do with a lot of other things happening in the world. Let's look at the price of the wheat. We passed a new farm bill back in April 1996. You see what happened to the prices received by farmers for wheat since May 1996. It has gone down, down, down, way down. It is now at the lowest level in five years. That is what farmers live on. The price determines whether they are going to make a living and stay on the farm. The price of wheat has gone down 44 percent. It is down, down, way down. Let me show you what has happened to farmers' costs of production. Seed, fertilizer, fuel. They are all up, up, up, way up, month after month, year after year. Let me show a chart, if I might, that talks about some of these specific trends. If you are a farmer, you need to have a tractor to plow. We don't do it with mules anymore; we do it with tractors. What has happened to the price of tractors? Farmers can tell you in an instant. The price goes up, up, straight up. The price of a combine is also up, up, straight up. How about the price of anhydrous ammonia, the fertilizer needed to provide the nutrients to these crops? You can see what has happened. There has been a huge spike in the last few years. The price of fuel is up. In the last five years, there has been a 70- percent increase in the cost of the inputs that many farmers have to buy to put a crop in the ground. This isn't like other businesses. When you are a family farmer, you can't pass these costs along. People do not think much about family farmers, unfortunately. They get their butter from a carton; they get their milk from a bottle, or a carton; food from a can, or perhaps a box. But it all comes from the farm. It all comes from someone who gets up early to do the chores, and then gasses up the tractor, and goes out and plants the field. Will Rogers some 60 years ago said, ``If all the cows in the country failed to show up at the barn one morning to be milked, why, that would be a problem.'' He said, ``If all the lawyers and accountants in America failed to show up for work one morning, we wouldn't miss a lunch.'' He was describing what is really important. Where does all of this come from? It comes from the ingenuity and risks taken by families who decide they want to farm as a way of life. The price of a loaf of bread has almost no money in it for farmers. Here is the price of a loaf of bread. Here is what the farmer gets. Just about the heel, if that much. So wheat 2 years ago was $5.50 a bushel, and now it is $3.20 or $3.30. Has anybody seen the price of a loaf of bread come down? I don't think so. What is happening is, the people who make the bread are making record profits. The people who haul the grain on the railroad tracks are making record profits. The people who put it in a plant and then perhaps puff it and then sell it on the grocery store shelf as Puffed Wheat are making a profit because it is more profitable to puff it than it is to grow it. I wonder if there is not something wrong with this picture for America. The snap, crackle, and pop, the puff, and the crisp all have more value than the wheat. The package, the advertising, and the transportation have more value than the wheat. This country can't decide on a policy that says family farming has merit and it is important to this country? Finally, bread profits soar at the same time that wheat prices come down and family farmers go broke. Something is wrong with that picture. This chart shows it on the same page. Bread costs continue to rise, and the price of wheat continues to fall. I went to a small school. There were nine students in my class. They taught math at my school, maybe not higher math, but I can add and subtract. I understand what adds up and what doesn't. This doesn't add up. It does not add up if you care about whether this country has a future for family farmers. Farming is not just a business. There are a lot of reasons that we are in trouble on the farm. Farmers are told by Congress that, we are not going to have a safety net for you anymore, and that we are going to pull that safety net out from underneath our farmers. Farmer are unlike most other business. They take huge risks: First, they risk that when they plant a seed, it may not grow. So the cost of that seed might represent a loss in the farmers' pockets. Second, if the seed grows, it may be in June or July that a hailstorm will come and destroy the crop. Or the bugs will come and eat the crop; or crop disease, scab or vomitoxin, will come and destroy the crop. Maybe none of those things happen. Maybe you plant a seed and it grows and none of those natural disasters occur. Then you combine the crop to get it off the field and take it to the grain elevator, only to discover that it costs you $5 a bushel to produce it and you get just $3.35 a bushel to sell it. The result is that your family is going to have to move from the farm. That yard light is going to go out. Someone will farm that land. It will be a big operator, or a big corporate farm. They will just fold it into their bigger corporate farm, and there will be tractors that will plow for miles. But that yard light will be out forever, and that small town will continue to die. The county will shrink. The rural life style will wither. A wonderful author from my home State, who was a world-renowned author, died a couple of years ago. He made a prediction in his book. He stated it more eloquently than I can . He said that this country resulted from an agrarian lifestyle which created the family values that nurtured America and refreshed America. He reminded us that the family values that refreshed America continually came from the family farm, where neighbors understood that you have to help each other because the people can't do it alone. Without our family farms, those family values that rolled from rural America to our cities will be lost. It is not to say that farmers are better than anybody else or have more value. It is just that farming is different. It is a family occupation. Yet, it has enormous risks. For years in this country we decided that we were going to try to provide some help to offset those risks. They do it in every other country. We are the only superpower. We are the only nuclear superpower, military superpower, left. We are certainly an economic superpower. Almost any other country with any economic clout decides that, as part of its budget, it makes sure it continues to have a network of family farms. Therefore, it provides some price supports against all of these risks that family farmers face. But not us. We decided farmers should compete in the open market despite the fact that there isn't an open market. As I said when I started, the ship that is going to dock in California at the end of this week will haul 1.4 million bushels of European Union barley subsidized to the tune of more than $1.10 cents a bushel. There is no American farmer that can compete with that. It is simply unfair. But that is just the tip of the iceberg. In every direction you look in international trade, our farmers are injured. The California dock is not the only place. Go to the Canadian border, where we are flooded with unfairly traded Canadian imports. Go to the Mexican border and see what NAFTA has done with respect to the unfairness of agricultural trade. Go to China and ask why we can't get sufficient amounts of wheat or pork into China. Go to Japan and ask why it costs $30 a pound to buy a T-bone steak in Japan because you cannot get enough American beef in Japan. We are rife with trade problems that injure the American farmer every single day. And our trade policy is apparently to sit on our hands and do nothing about it. It seems to me that we can't enforce trade agreements. But first of all, we need to negotiate good agreements. Let me mention Will Rogers once again. Some 60 years ago, Will Rogers also said that, ``The United States has never lost a war and never won in a conference.'' First, we ought to get trade negotiators to go out and negotiate good agreements for this country. They ought to be hard-nosed economic trade agreements and not some soft-headed foreign policy negotiations about what we ought to do to help other countries. I am not against helping other countries, but first I am for helping family farmers. We need trade policies that do not injure them. We need to help them. If they had any gumption, they would be at that dock out in California this week meeting the ship and suggesting that the ship should never be unloaded on American shores because it is symptomatic of everything that is wrong with our trade policy. Second, we ought to decide that it matters to have a support price for family farmers. No, it would not be a giveaway nor a subsidy to farmers. The subsidy in American food policy is that we have the highest quality food anywhere in the world for the lowest price anywhere in the world. We have a cheap food policy that provides a subsidy to the consumer. This is at the expense of family farmers who can't make a living because what they grow they have to sell at well below the cost of what it took them to grow it. That adds up to a deficit, and that adds up to serious trouble. In my judgment we ought to use every tool that is available to us as a country. Could the export enhancement program help? Maybe. Is it being used now? No. Why have we decided to disarm ourselves? The European Union uses their export subsidies to sell their grain from their family farmers into North African markets and they have 10 times the subsidies we have ever considered using. So, why does our country say, if they are going to take our African markets away from us, that is just fine, and we can't do anything about it? Would we disarm in any other way? Why would we disarm on trade competition? Why would we not say, on behalf of American producers, that we will stand up for you? This country believes in you. This country cares about you. Why on Earth will this country not decide that it will stand up for its producers? We, in my judgment, must begin as a Congress now to evaluate whether the path we are on from the previous farm bill passed a couple of years ago is the right path or the wrong path. It was called the Freedom to Farm bill. Part of it was just fine. Part of it was to take government out of the decision of what crops a farmer was going to grow. I supported that part. But part of it was a devastating blow to farmers. It said, by the way, we are going to pull the rug out from under you in price supports, and we are going to say to you, compete in the free market when in fact there is no free market. It asks our farmers--the Johnson's, the Larsen's, the Olson's, because I come from that part of the country where we have a lot of folks with those names--it asks those farmers to compete not just against French farmers, not just against German farmers or Italian farmers. It asks them to compete against all those governments as well that deeply subsidize their sales into foreign countries. I ask the question today of Congress and also this administration whether they are willing to stand up and ask some tough questions about agricultural policy in this country. Do family farmers matter? Do you care? When you fly across the Dakotas and Nebraska and Kansas and the breadbasket of our country at night and look out the window of an airplane, do you care whether you see yard lights? Do you care about our farmers out there who are trying to make a living with great risk? Do you care whether they really have an opportunity to make it? Do you think they provide worth to our economy? Or is this just an economy now which says bigger is better, concentration has virtue, and that mergers and combinations have merit, because they have the financial clout and the capability to suggest that an economic system that rewards size and rewards bigness is the best system. I don't necessarily believe that. Oh, I think the market system is a wonderful system, but I also believe that in this country agricultural producers have never experienced a free market and will never experience a free market unless substantial changes are made not just in this country but other countries as well. I want to make one additional point. We now have a number of countries in this world in which our farmers can't market because we have embargoed them through sanctions. We have said we don't want to do business with Cuba; we don't like Fidel Castro. So wherever Cuba is going to buy wheat, it is not going to be from the American farmer. In Libya, we don't like Qadhafi. So where is it going to get its grain. It is not going to be from this country. Iraq, well, in the last year or so, we have shipped them a bit, but not much. Most of Iraq's grain comes from elsewhere because everyone knows the problems with Iraq. I can go through a list of countries in which the American farmer pays a price because we have decided to embargo them. I happen to believe that you ought never under any circumstances decide to cut off shipments of food. Nobody is going to shoot food back at you. It seems to me it makes good sense in this country as a matter of public policy to decide that food shipments and food sales ought to be the last thing you would ever sever. We have a lot of hungry people in the world. It makes no sense to me to see a country with as bountiful an opportunity and as bountiful a harvest as we often get decide that somehow this grain doesn't have value. Gosh, I think this grain is more valuable than nuclear weapons. I think this grain is more valuable than most of what people produce. This is a hungry world and a growing hungry world. It breaks my heart to see family farmers write to me day after day and come to me in North Dakota as they did this weekend and call day after day and tell me that their dream is ending. A woman called a couple of weeks ago, and she began crying on the phone. She and her husband, just out of high school, began to farm. They have never done anything else. And they scraped and struggled and rented some land and then bought a little bit of land. She said, ``We don't go to town on Saturday nights. We don't buy frills. We scrape by and we have always scraped by. We do nothing that is extravagant.'' She said, ``But, we finally have come to the end of the road. We are now in our mid-thirties. We have farmed for nearly 15 years and we have no other skills, but we just can't continue to make it unless farm prices improve. Our banker won't give us a loan. We can't put in the spring crop.'' When you hear those stories, it breaks your heart because we are losing something valuable. I would conclude today by simply saying this: My colleague, Senator Conrad and I, have spoken on the floor I guess a half dozen times on this subject. We want people to understand that this issue matters. This makes a difference to our country. There is a big difference between the right public policies and the wrong public policies. One offers people hope and one despair. One will help move us forward in trying to nurture and protect and help family farms in our future and one will move us backward towards farm failures and desolation and despair on the family farm. Let me end as I began. North Dakota State University did a study and showed us that just in the last year there have been almost $400 million in losses in net farm income. That is $400 million just from those three crops: spring wheat, durum, and barley. The problem is that in that circumstance I have described in our State, family farmers just can't make it. Something has to change. We need better trade policy, better price supports, commodity loan rates that give farmers a chance to market when it is advantageous to them, not just to the miller or the grocery manufacturer. We must fight for changes in policies. I know my colleague, Senator Conrad, and others will be talking about this issue, but it is critically important. I will come to the floor again and again to talk about what we must do to solve this problem. Recently, Dale Thorenson, a farmer from Newburg, ND wrote an opinion letter for the New York Times. He had received a gift subscription to the New York Times from his father-in-law, and thought that as a new subscriber he should write an article about the conditions facing farmers in North Dakota. I don't know if it has been printed yet in the New York Times, but it did get printed in the Grand Forks Herald. I hope the Times does print it because he eloquently captures the economic and policy dilemma that now surrounds our nation's family farmers. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this article be printed in the Record.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that privileges of the floor be granted to Adam Pawluk, Chrissie Timpe, and Meg Dimeling for today's session of the Senate.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, with the permission of the Senator from Michigan, I yield myself 8 minutes. Mr. President, I support the strongest possible defense against the most credible threats to our Nation s security. But I do not support this legislation, and I want to explain why. Nearly 30 years ago, the Department of Defense spent $21 billion in today's dollars on an antiballistic missile system. It was built in my State of North Dakota. The military declared that antiballistic missile system operational on October 1, 1975. On October 2, 1975, the next day, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to close it--mothball it. It was too expensive to run, and it didn't offer us much in the way of more security. It wouldn't protect this country. Mr. President, $21 billion for what? The bill on the floor today would require us to deploy a system as soon as it is technologically possible. A quarter century ago it was technologically possible to spend $21 billion and build an antiballistic missile site in North Dakota. That system had interceptor missiles with nuclear warheads on them. That was technologically possible. It was completely irresponsible, but it was technologically possible. I don't know whether this bill relates to that technology. The bill itself doesn't tell us what kind of technology we'd be required to deploy. I assume it relates to a hit-to-kill technology, where you try to hit one bullet with another bullet. The failure on Monday of a test flight for THAAD, a theater missile defense system, suggests that hit-to-kill is not nearly as possible as some suggest, at least not now. But I would ask the question: If it was technologically possible to create an antiballistic missile system in Nekoma, ND, a quarter century ago, it is technologically possible now, using the nuclear interceptor approach. Does this bill, then, require immediate deployment? Let's step back a bit and look at this bill in the context of the security threats this country faces. One threat is, indeed, a rogue nation, or a terrorist group, or an adversary getting an intercontinental ballistic missile and putting a nuclear warhead on it and having the wherewithal to aim it and fire it at this country. That is, in my judgment, a less likely threat than, for example, a terrorist group or a rogue nation getting a suitcase-sized nuclear device, putting it in the rusty trunk of a Yugo, parked on a New York City dock, and saying, ``By the way, we now threaten the United States of America with a nuclear device.'' The threat of a truck bomb or suitcase bomb, is that addressed by this bill's requirement to deploy a national missile defense system? No, this system doesn't defend us against that. How about a chemical weapon attack in the United States? No, this wouldn't defend us against a chemical weapons attack. A biological weapon attack here? No. A cruise missile attack, which is far more likely than an ICBM--a cruise missile attack? Cruise missiles are proliferating all around the world. Putting a nuclear device on the tip of a cruise missile and aiming at this country, would this bill defend us against that? No. It wouldn't defend us against that threat, either. A bomber attack, dropping a nuclear bomb? No. Loose nuclear weapons inside the old Soviet Union that must be controlled and we must be concerned about, does this deal with that? No. Obviously, this bill deals with one threat. And it is probably the less likely threat--an ICBM with a nuclear warhead aimed at this country by a rogue nation or by a terrorist group. But this bill tells us to deploy as soon as technologically possible--notwithstanding cost, whatever the cost. No matter that the cost estimates from the Congressional Budget Office range up to nearly $200 billion to construct and maintain a national missile defense system. Cost is not relevant here, according to this bill. It requires us to deploy when technologically possible. This bill also requires us to deploy notwithstanding the impact on arms control. The fact is that strategic weapons are being destroyed, nuclear weapons are being destroyed. Different systems are being destroyed today in the Soviet Union as a result of arms control: arms control has destroyed 4,700 nuclear warheads; destroyed 293 ICBMs and 252 ICBM silos; cut the wings off of 37 former Soviet bombers; eliminated 80 submarine missile launch tubes; and sealed 95 nuclear warhead test tunnels. That is an awfully good way to meet the threat--destroy the missile before it leaves the ground. Arms control is giving us missile defense that works right now. I have shown my colleagues this before, and with permission I will do it again. This is a piece of metal from a silo in Pervomaisk, Ukraine. The silo held a Soviet missile aimed at the United States of America. There is no missile there anymore. The warhead is gone. The missile is gone. The silo is destroyed. And where this piece of metal used to be, in a silo holding a missile aimed at this country, there are now sunflowers planted. Not the missile--sunflowers. How did that happen? By accident? No. By arms control agreements, by treaties. But this bill says, deploy a national missile defense system notwithstanding what it might mean to our treaties, notwithstanding what it might mean to future arms control agreements, notwithstanding what it might mean to arms reductions that occur now under the Nunn- Lugar money that we appropriate, which has resulted in sawing off bombers' wings, resulted in digging up missiles buried in the soil of Ukraine and Russia. I just do not understand the rationale here. How can we get this notion of defending against a small part of the threats our country faces? This bill doesn't address the cruise missile threat, or the suitcase bomb threat, or a range of other threats. It just tries to address this sliver of threat. And this bill requires us to deploy a system as soon as technologically possible notwithstanding any other consideration, notwithstanding how much money we are going to ask the taxpayer to pay, notwithstanding what the credible threat is at the moment, notwithstanding the impact on arms control agreements. I just do not understand that logic. I must say I have the greatest respect for the author of this legislation. I think he is a wonderful legislator. I hate to oppose him on this, but I just feel very strongly that we should continue with the national missile defense research program. I might add that the Administration is seeking over $900 million for research funding for this program this coming year. We should continue that aggressive research. We ought to continue working on a range of defense mechanisms to deal with threats, not just ICBMs, but cruise missile threats and a range of other threats, including the terrorist threat of a suitcase nuclear device in this country. But we ought not decide that one of those threats ought to be addressed at the expense of defending against other threats. Mr. President, let me make one final point. I have told this story twice before on this floor because I think it is important for people to understand what is being done in the area of arms control and missile defense right now--not what is proposed to be done in this bill. On December 3 of last year, in the dark hours of the early morning, north of Norway in the Barents Sea, several Russian antiballistic submarines surfaced and prepared to fire SS-20 missiles. Each of these missiles can carry 10 nuclear warheads and travel 5,000 miles, and can reach the United States from the Barents Sea. Those submarines, last December 3, launched 20 missiles that soared skyward, and all of our alert systems knew it and saw them immediately and tracked them at Cheyenne Mountain, NORAD, you name it. And in a few moments at 30,000 feet all of those missiles exploded. Why? Because this was not a Russian missile attack on the United States. In fact, seven American weapons inspectors were watching the submarines from a nearby ship. These self-destruct launches were a quick and inexpensive way for Russia to destroy submarine-launched ballistic missiles, which it was required to do under our START I arms reduction treaty. On the morning of December 3 of last year when, at 30,000 feet, those Russian missiles exploded, it was not an accident. And it was not a threat to our country. It was a result of arms control agreements that said we must reduce the threat of nuclear weapons, we must reduce delivery systems. The fact is, the Nunn-Lugar program, which we fund each year in order to further these arms reductions, is working. We also should, as we make certain Nunn-Lugar continues, be concerned about the ABM Treaty, be concerned about a range of other threats, and we ought to invest money in research and development on the ballistic missile defense system. But we ought not under any set of circumstances say a system here must be deployed no matter what its cost, no matter what the threat and no matter what its consequences to arms control agreements. That is not in this country's interests. That is not in the taxpayers' interests. Does our country need to worry about the proliferation of nuclear weapons? Of course we do. The nuclear tests by India in just the last 2 days demonstrate once again that we have a serious problem in this world with respect to the proliferation of nuclear devices. But what it ought to tell us is that we need to be very, very aggressive as a Nation to lead in the area of nonproliferation. We need to make certain that this club that possesses nuclear weapons on this Earth does not expand. We need to do everything we possibly can do in foreign policy to try to see that our children and grandchildren are not victims of the proliferation, wide proliferation of nuclear weapons that then hold the rest of the world hostage. But in dealing with the various threats we face, it seems to me the question for all of us is what kind of threats exist? And what kind of credible defense that is both technologically possible and financially reasonable can be constructed to respond to those threats? This bill is not the answer to those questions. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, my understanding is the amendment has been cleared on both sides. I urge the amendment be agreed to. THE PRESIDING OFFICER. If there be no further debate, the question is on agreeing to the amendment.