Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me just make a comment. I know the Senator feels strongly about contract reform, and on the two amendments in front of us, the Senator from Oklahoma talked a lot about earmarks. But, of course, he is well aware that his amendment deals with far more than just earmarks. The issue of formula awards to State and local governments which are carried in this legislation, the issue of competitive grants, the contract competition model that the Senator seems to suggest the Senator believes is appropriate for the competition and research and development, many of which are very exotic and interesting and cutting-edge, world-class research projects in the Department of Energy--I do not know that--I guess the people who do know suggest that the contract competition model for some of those kinds of things does not work very well because you are looking at things that go well beyond just who is going to bid the lowest on the kind of research and very high-tech, exotic research we are doing in a wide range of energy fields. I generally have always supported contract competition. There is nobody who has been tougher on the Department of Defense, for example, on some of these contracts, particularly no-bid contracts to those who are contracting in Iraq. Next Monday will be my 20th hearing on issues like that. I strongly support competition in contracting. I think this amendment that has been offered is not an amendment that very well fits this bill and addresses, in a very broad-stroke way, some things that should not be addressed that way. So that is the reason I have offered an alternative to it. My hope is that the Senate will agree with the alternative. I might say, I believe this exact debate was held 2 weeks ago on the Homeland Security bill and has already been resolved by the Senate.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the Senator from Oklahoma is not going to win a debate we are not having. I agree with most of what the Senator from Oklahoma said. I support contract--but the Senator from Oklahoma himself suggested maybe we should have a different model for the highly exotic research contracts. By the way, they are not just a few. You go to the labs and take a look at the contracts that are going on around the country in very exotic, high-tech research; cutting-edge, world-class research. If, in fact, there should be perhaps a different model for that, it is not in this amendment. That is my point. I would be happy to sit down with the Senator from Oklahoma to bring an amendment to the floor that does address things in the right way, but to bring an amendment to the floor that has a very broad brush that covers everything when the Senator himself acknowledges that probably something other than that should be done with respect to these kinds of exotic research programs--he didn't respond to the issue of State formula grants and so on--but again, we are not having a debate about the merits of what you aspire to achieve. I want us to have contracting rules that give the American people the best value for their dollar, that advance this country in the most significant, capable way. We want the same things. But my point is, when one offers an amendment such as this that says, All right, do it all this way, and even--I would say to the Senator from Oklahoma, even the Senator acknowledges there are areas that perhaps shouldn't be handled that way. So let's do it in a way that resolves it in the right way. I know he is frustrated that we likely won't pass this amendment, but if he is going to bring it up time and time again, the next time or the time after, let's do it in a way that gets closer to that which we believe will address all of these issues the right way for the American taxpayer, and I will be on his side.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, without prolonging this debate, let me say to the Senator from Oklahoma there are other ways to get things done as well. I mean, look, some of the most significant contracts that have gone out of this town recently in the last 10 years or so--the LOGCAP contract which provides services by contractors in Iraq--sole-source contract, billions and billions and billions of dollars--most of it went to Halliburton and KBR, by the way; not all of it but the fact is massive amounts of money. I have held 20 hearings as of Monday on these issues. You know what. Finally, they are bidding all of those contracts. Finally, they are bidding them. When you hold up some of the abuses, you can actually require change, in my judgment. Yesterday the inspector general said those who were providing electrical services to the military bases in Iraq were responsible for the electrocution of soldiers because they were hiring third-country nationals who didn't know how to ground electrical wires, didn't know how to speak English. You know what. Those contracts are now going in other directions. There was a contract to provide water to military bases and the nonpotable water was more contaminated than raw water from the Euphrates River, paid for by our taxpayers to contractors who didn't have the foggiest idea what they were doing and got billions of dollars of contracts they didn't have to bid on. The fact is this sort of thing is despicable and needs to change. I take no backseat to any Member of the Senate about trying to change these things. I have held 20 hearings on these contract issues in recent years. The Senator from Oklahoma comes and raises important questions, always. I understand that. My point to him was simple: This amendment, in my judgment, doesn't respond to all of the issues the Senator needs to respond to if the Senator is going to do an amendment that does reform contracting. I am very interested in working with him. He is on the right subject, in my judgment, just the wrong amendment. I wanted to say, there are a lot of ways to change things. Yes, with an amendment here on the floor of the Senate; in committees; and I am sure the Senator from Oklahoma does that as well; pressing Federal agencies. You can get change by putting all of the spotlights on the same spot in a Federal agency to say, How do you justify this? We demand you change. So there is a lot of good work that goes on by people who care about forcing change, and many of us have done it. I wanted to say there are a lot of ways to do this and I encourage the Senator from Oklahoma to continue. I want to be a part of constructive change on contracting. I have been in the past and will be in the future.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me ask if the Senator would agree, if he would withhold--I believe the Senator from Missouri wishes to make a very brief statement and she may be offering an amendment--I don't know that she is going to require a vote on it--and then we could line up--I believe we will have three recorded votes.

Mr. DORGAN. If we could turn to the Senator from Missouri at this point and then we could line up three successive votes on the Coburn amendments, two by Senator Coburn and one by myself and Senator Bennett.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. DORGAN. The Senator is not describing my position. I did not suggest carving out earmarks. The Senator has not heard that this afternoon.

Mr. DORGAN. You didn't hear that during the debate.

Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield again?

Mr. DORGAN. The discussion wasn't just about earmarks. Perhaps it included them, but if the Senator is describing an amendment that only requires competition, or competitive bidding on earmarks, that is not the amendment.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the Senator from Missouri is an active, avid, and aggressive fighter for the interests of her State. I understand and recognize that. I would not expect anything else. But I will tell you a story about water and about the Missouri River. The Missouri River was a big old wild tangled river for a long time. It used to flood; it flooded a lot. In the spring, when the floods came from the river, it would devastate parts of my State, and South Dakota, and other States down South, and it would ruin the parks and flood them in St. Louis, MO, and so on. So some people came to North Dakota from the Federal Government and said: We would like to harness that Missouri River. They cannot play softball in the parks in St. Louis because of the flooding, and we would like to get the benefits of flood control. Our deal is this: If you will allow us, in the middle of North Dakota, to put in a flood that will come and stay forever--a big old flood, half a million acres of permanent flood, if you allow us to do that, we will allow you to have some benefits. We understand we are asking to flood your State in order to protect the downstream States. But if you allow us to do that, and if Montana and South Dakota will allow us to do that, we can put in these big old floods in the upstream States; and we understand there is a cost to you to have this flood, so we will let you move water around to benefit your State, and it will be good and you will appreciate it. The folks in my State, believing this was on the level, signed contracts and said that would be OK. They moved the Indians off the bottomland from reservations of the three affiliated tribes, and built the big old dam, and President Dwight Eisenhower came out to dedicate the dam. They backed up the water, and we have the half million acre flood. The Elbow Woods Indian Hospital is now under water, and has been for 50 years. So we have the flood that comes and stays. The problem with the way the river is managed, after they built six mainstream dams, in order to harness the Missouri River, the way they manage it today is the way they planned to do it 60 years ago. They said we have a vision. We will be able to navigate the river down South with barges, and we will haul material on barges. What a great thing. Think of the value of having barge navigation on the downstream reaches of the Missouri River. Do you know what. There are days when--and I can get you reports--there is only one miserable boat floating in the downstream reaches of the Missouri. Yet we are furiously releasing water from the upstream dams to support one little old barge. By the way, that barge is hauling mostly sand and gravel, which is something of relatively low value. So we have this big fight about how the river should be managed. In the old days, they predicted a lot of commercial value of barge traffic. But, in fact, that is not the case. The upstream value of recreation, tourism, and fishing is now almost 10 times the value of the downstream value of barge traffic. Yet the river is still managed for the minnow and not the whale, which is typical of the Corps of Engineers: Never change. Resist change. Never change, no matter what. So they did an evaluation of the river, and all of the States, except Missouri--which was an outlier, and they wouldn't agree to anything-- they did an evaluation, and finally a study was developed. That study had a lot more to do with the Endangered Species Act and managing those issues than for determining whether we are making the best use of the river system in our current management scheme. The answer is that the current management scheme makes no sense at all. We are releasing the water in the middle of a drought, which we did, by the way. It is a river system that has a capacity of around a 55 million to 58 million acre-feet of water. It was down to, I think, 35 million acre-feet of water, and we were releasing water to float one boat. That is unbelievable to me. Last year, I included funding for a study that will study the management of this river, what is appropriate and should be done, with some semblance of common sense here. I know people objected to doing that because the answer may well be an answer that moves away from what I have called a ``one State hog rule,'' meaning give us all you have when we need it, and keep it all when we don't want it. It is an interesting way to manage the river, but that is the way some States on the Missouri have suggested it be managed. It is not fair to us. We are waiting, 60 years later, for all of the benefits promised us if we would allow a permanent flood to stay forever in the middle of our State. Our ancestors did that. They said we will sign up for that, but we got all of the costs and have not yet received the benefits. With respect to the management of the Missouri River system, it is long past time that the river be managed with the recognition of its current use. When we are still releasing water for one little barge, on 1 day, on the lower reaches of the Missouri, somebody ought to have their head examined. We cannot examine their head, but we can examine the master manual. That is what we are going to do with this study. I have so much more to say, but let me resist and defer. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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 that at 5:15 p.m. today, the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the following amendments in the following order, with no amendments in order to any of the amendments covered in this agreement, with the time until then equally divided and controlled in the usual form; that after the first vote, the succeeding votes in the sequence be limited to 10 minutes each: Coburn amendment No. 1879, Dorgan amendment No. 1895--that is Dorgan-Bennett--and Coburn amendment No. 1884. Those three amendments are again No. 1879, No. 1895, and No. 1884.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, Senator Bennett and I have discussed--and I have also visited with the majority leader within the last hour--my hope that we will be able to go to third reading, with the consent of Senator Bennett and the majority leader, following these votes and following a period in which we would gather together whatever remains. There are a few amendments that remain that we can clear. We have waited all day, and we waited all day yesterday. Senators have had plenty of opportunity, plenty of time, and their staffs have had plenty of notice, to come and offer amendments. For the next hour, we will be here. We will have the vote at 5:15 p.m., and following that vote, it is my intention that we finish this bill very shortly following that vote by going to third reading. We don't want to preclude opportunities for people to offer amendments, but no one can hardly come to the Senate floor with a straight face and suggest they have been precluded from anything, given the fact that Senator Bennett and I have been sitting here patiently for well over the past 2 days. Again, with the cooperation of our colleagues and with the hard work of our staff and our colleagues, I think we can finish this bill this evening. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask that the time during which we are in the quorum call be equally divided between both sides.

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

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

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, my understanding is, under the unanimous consent agreement, the next vote is on amendment No. 1895. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, under the previous unanimous consent agreement, amendment No. 1884 is next to be voted on. I ask for the yeas and nays.

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

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, if I might have the attention of the Senate, I wish to make a unanimous consent request. I ask unanimous consent that we proceed with one part of my unanimous consent request and that is Senator Hutchison's amendment she wishes to offer, which I believe will now be a voice vote. So I ask unanimous consent that she now be recognized to offer her amendment, No. 1864, as modified.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I support the amendment. I would defer to Senator Bennett, but I believe it is agreed to by myself and Senator Bennett.