Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Tomorrow, we have a hearing in the Senate Energy Committee that deals with the issue of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, called SPR, and the Administration's oil fill policies. In the 1970s, we have created a Strategic Petroleum Reserve to put oil underground to save it in case of a national security concern. It would be for an emergency so we would have some that is saved and would be available to take out of the underground caverns and use it in these circumstances. This is the basis of our strategic petroleum reserve. It is now almost 97 percent filled. Over its 30-year lifetime, the barrels that have been put into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve have averaged about a $27 a barrel. Yet, right now, when oil is trading at $100 a barrel and gasoline prices are going through the roof, we are putting 50,000 to 60,000 barrels a day underground into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve that is already almost 97 percent full. How are we doing that? Our Government carries that out through royalty-in-kind transfers. This oil is primarily coming from the Gulf of Mexico through the drilling and the production that occurs there. We are receiving this oil in kind in lieu of royalties paid to the government for its production. So rather than put that oil into the supply system, get the money for it, and reduce the Federal deficit, we are effectively sticking that money underground in a hole. At a time when oil is $100 a barrel and gas is $3 to $3.50 a gallon, we are taking 50,000 to 60,000 barrels a day and sticking it underground. Is somebody missing a few tubes here? I don't understand it. The wiring must be wrong for people who think that is the right thing to do. This is exactly the wrong time to be sticking oil underground when oil is $100 a barrel. Yet I have tried very hard to get this changed, and I have been unable to do so. We have a hearing tomorrow where we have representatives coming from the Department of Energy as well as other witnesses. I will have an opportunity, if I am not here on the floor--and I hope I am not--to question them. I have recently introduced legislation--S. 2598, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve Fill Suspension and Consumer Protection Act of 2008. I will try very hard to move this bill on anything that moves, especially a supplemental appropriations bill, to make sure we stop this as soon as possible. I chair the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee that funds the Department of Energy. When I write my bill this spring, I will be able to put a provision that stops filling the SPR in my bill. But that bill likely won't be effective until towards the end of the year. By that time, they will have continued to put all of this oil underground to its full capacity and also boost the gas prices for the American driver. I don't understand what they could be thinking. As a part of this fill policy, they are putting underground a disproportionate amount of sweet light crude. That is a subset of the oil produced in the U.S. We had testimony before a joint Energy and Government Affairs/Homeland Committee hearing last year by an expert, Dr. Phillip Verleger, who said that even the small amount of sweet light crude they are putting underground is having a disproportionate impact on the markets and may be increasing the price of gasoline by 10 percent. If there are some wires crossed someplace, I urge the Department of Energy to track those wires down and get them squared away. Let's start thinking straight. Do not be sticking oil underground when oil is $100 a barrel. That takes oil out of our supply. It means supply is diminished, even if it is a seemingly small amount as DOE contends. It means the price goes up. This is a classic supply-demand question. All of us have studied economics. I taught economics in college ever so briefly. I was able to overcome that experience, nonetheless. But we all understand the supply-demand relationship. If you take oil out of what otherwise would be 50,000 or 60,000 additional barrels in the supply, you put upward pressure on gasoline prices. That is especially true if you take the subset of sweet light crude coming from the Gulf of Mexico and stick it underground at exactly the time it ought be to be in the supply pipeline. Tomorrow, we will have the opportunity to have a public discussion with the Department of Energy and representatives with other opinions. If they don't do what is, in my judgment, obvious, I intend to move my legislation forward. I have introduced this bill with about six cosponsors. I certainly hope many others will join me to put the brakes on what the Department of Energy is now doing. It is completely counterintuitive to anything one would expect that should be done at a time when oil is bouncing around at $100 a barrel and you have to get a loan to gas up your car these days. My hope is we can get the Department of Energy to think straight about this issue of putting oil underground in the SPR. It felt good to say that because I have been thinking about it all weekend. There is so much we need to do that just represents a deep reservoir of common sense. This is one of those steps. My hope is we will make some progress on it.

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 4080

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I make a point of order that the DeMint amendment No. 4080 is not germane postcloture.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I have no objection to the amendment. I know of no cases in which Indian health funds have been used for firearms programs. So I have no objection to the amendment and intend to vote for it.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 4073 Withdrawn

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, on behalf of the sponsor, I ask unanimous consent that amendment No. 4073 be withdrawn.

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, let me very briefly say that I understand the point Senator Smith is making. There is not enough money for the facilities in these programs. There is a $3 billion backlog for facilities. I am not able to support his amendment, however, and the difficulty is to create an area-wide distribution fund right this moment, at a time when we have a priority list and some tribes have been waiting on that priority list for a long period of time for the construction that was to begin in their area. I think that would be the wrong approach. But I do think we ought to, in a more comprehensive way, on the Indian Affairs Committee, with the help of Senator Smith and Senator Murkowski and my colleagues, we ought to try to work through this to figure out how we do a better job of getting the funding for the construction that is necessary. I have been to so many facilities that are terrible facilities in terrible disrepair, and they are desperately in need of reform and change and new construction, and we have to get about the business of doing it. But I regret I can't support this amendment. He is raising the right question, just providing the wrong solution, in my judgment.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, we were expecting to clear two unanimous consent requests, but I am told that, at the moment, the minority side has yet to clear them. If we are not able to clear them at the moment, perhaps we will be able to clear them first thing in the morning before we go to the votes that will be scheduled tomorrow. I think we are at a point where we have about two or three votes remaining and then final passage tomorrow. And that should occur probably close to midday, which will be a pretty happy occasion for a lot of folks who have waited a long time for this legislation to pass the Senate. I know a couple of my colleagues are waiting to do a colloquy, so if we are not yet cleared, I think we will try to clear both these unanimous consent requests tomorrow morning. Our colleagues, I believe, are not on this subject, so at this point I will defer and we will come back to this tomorrow morning. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. I ask unanimous consent that the vote sequence with respect to S. 1200 tomorrow be as follows: Vitter amendment No. 3896, Smith amendment No. 3897, DeMint amendment No. 4015, DeMint amendment 4066, and final passage of S. 1200; further, that the cloture motion with respect to S. 1200 be withdrawn, with no debate time in order except for 2 minutes prior to each vote; that after the first vote, vote time be limited to 10 minutes each; all other provisions of the previous order remaining in effect.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I further ask unanimous consent that on Tuesday, February 26, upon disposition of S. 1200, there be a period of morning business until 12:30 p.m., with Senators permitted to speak therein, with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with Senator Feingold controlling 20 minutes of the majority time, if available; that at 2:30 p.m., there be 20 minutes of debate prior to a vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to S. 2633, with the time divided and controlled between the leaders, with the majority leader controlling the final 10 minutes prior to the vote; that upon the use of that time, the Senate then vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to S. 2633, with other provisions of the previous order remaining in effect. My understanding is that this has been cleared on both sides.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee an Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate in order to conduct a hearing on Thursday, February, 14, 2008, at 9:30 a.m., in room SD366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. At this hearing, the Committee will hear testimony regarding the President's fiscal year 2009 budget request for the USDA Forest Service.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, February 14, 2008 at 10:30 a.m. in room 406 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in order to conduct a hearing entitled, ``Legislative Hearing on the Marine Vessel Emissions Reduction Act of 2007, S. 1499.''

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, February 14, 2008, at 10 a.m., in room 215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, in order to hear testimony on ``International Aspects of a Climate Change Cap and Trade Program''.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. If the statement is 5 minutes, I would not object to that, but I do want, at the end of that 5 minutes, to begin the bill. Again, Senator Coburn has arrived, and we have a lot of work to do. But I know Senator Alexander has worked on budget issues for a long while, so I ask unanimous consent that Senator Alexander be recognized for 5 minutes, and after that I will make some comments, Senator Murkowski then will make some comments, and we will begin a discussion with Senator Coburn.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, we are going to turn now to the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, and I am going to be very brief, and I know my colleague will as well because we will have a chance later to speak at greater length. The Indian Health Care Improvement Act has been the subject of reauthorization for many years, and the Congress has not been able to do it. The fact is we have very serious problems with respect to Indian health care. The Indian Health Service is a very important Federal agency. We have some people who work in that area who do important work and are good and dedicated people, but the fact is the system isn't working very well. We have American Indians--the first Americans, by the way--who are supposed to get health care as a result of treaties and trust responsibilities who are not getting the health care they deserve. I will again, later today, describe the horrors of Indian health care that does not work. People are dying, people are routinely being denied the health care that every one of us would expect for ourselves and our family. We are trying to reauthorize the Indian Health Care Improvement Act after 8 years. Eight years ago, it was supposed to have been reauthorized. Eight years later, we are still on the floor of the Senate, struggling. So my hope is, perhaps we will now succeed. Senator Murkowski and the Indian Affairs Committee have worked on a piece of legislation that is not giant reform, it is not a huge step forward, but it is a step forward in the right direction. Some of my colleagues--I believe my colleague, Senator Coburn--will say we need much larger reform. I do not disagree with that. I am going to be supporting much broader reform in Indian health care. But if you cannot get a modest step in the right direction, how on Earth can you get big, bold reform? This is the first step in a two-step process to fix what is wrong. I think this Indian Health Care Improvement Act will give us substantial opportunity to improve the health care in the lives of American Indians. Let me make the point that is important. We owe this health care through treaties, through a trust responsibility. We have made commitments. We owe this health care to American Indians through promises the Federal Government has made. Regrettably, it has not been adequately delivered. So I am going to talk a little bit later. I know my colleague, Senator Coburn, is on the Senate floor, and he has amendments. I am going to give him an opportunity to speak. I am as well, but I will have an opportunity later this morning to describe in much greater detail why there is an urgency and why this system must be improved. We cannot wait any longer. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I certainly will do that. It is interesting, we are spending $16 billion a month, $4 billion a week to replenish the accounts for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and other issues. There are plenty of places for us to decide it is time to fix things here at home. But I wish to talk about a couple of issues. First of all, there are waiting lines. There is rationing. The Senator from Oklahoma is absolutely correct. Dr. Grim, by the way, came to the Committee in support always of the President's request, saying that was enough because he had a responsibility and a requirement to support the President's budget. But get him off the dais at the hearing and ask him the question, and he would admit there is rationing. About 40 percent of the health care that is needed by American Indians is not available. That is health care rationing. That would be scandalous if it were happening in other parts of the country. It ought to be front page headlines, but you will not hear and you will not read many stories about it, regrettably. But the fact is, we have a circumstance that brings tears to my eyes. I disagree with the Senator from Oklahoma that this is not a worthy bill. This is a step forward in the right direction. It is not the reform we need, but this is a two-step process. If you cannot get this kind of thing done for 10 years, how on Earth are you going to decide to do something much bolder? Now, we just faced a budget that came up last week that says not only do we not have enough money for Indian health care, let's cut it. The President says, let's cut what we do have, at a time when we have 40 percent rationing. So we are fighting a battle just to keep the money we have. We need much more if we are going to do what we promised we were going to do. But let me show the Senator a photograph, if I might. Let me show him a photograph of Ta'shon Rain Littlelight because he says the system does not work. I showed the photograph before because her family has given me permission. This beautiful young 5-year-old girl is dead. She is dead, in my judgment, because of a system that does not work. They took her again and again and again and again to the clinic. It was on the Crow Reservation in Montana, where I held a hearing and her grandmother stood up with this photograph. She told about little Ta'shon Rain Littlelight. You can see she loved to dance. Ta'shon Rain Littlelight got sick, and they took her to the health clinic. They treated her for depression. Again and again, they treated her for depression. Even her grandparents said: Well, the way her fingers look, with the swelling of the fingertips, and so on, there must be something else wrong. Well, one day, of course, they had to fly her to Billings, MT, and then immediately fly her to Denver, CO, where they discovered she had terminal cancer and about 3 months to live. She asked if she could go see Cinderella's Castle, so Make-A-Wish gave her the opportunity, with her mother, to go to Orlando, FL, to see Cinderella's Castle. This little girl with terminal cancer, the night before she was to see Cinderella's Castle, in the motel room in Orlando, FL, told her mother, ``I am so sorry. I am going to try to be better, Mommy. I won't be sick anymore.'' And she died in her mother's arms that night. This little 5-year-old died because the system did not work. I have shown a picture of Avis Littlewind. She was 14 years of age, lying in a fetal position in a bed for 90 days and then finally took her own life because there was no mental health treatment available on that reservation--no mental health treatment available to try to help that little girl who felt hopeless and helpless. This is a photograph, by the way, of Avis Littlewind on the Spirit Lake Nation Reservation. Avis was 14, and she took her life. Her sister took her life. Avis took her life. This is a photograph of Ardel Hale Baker. Ardel Hale Baker was having a heart attack, diagnosed as having a heart attack on an Indian reservation. They wanted to send her to a hospital an hour and a half away. She did not want to go in the ambulance because she knew if it did not get paid somehow, she would have to pay it, and she did not have any money. They put her in an ambulance anyway and took her to the hospital. As Ardel Hale Baker was being taken off the gurney in the emergency room in the hospital, to be put on a hospital gurney, here is what was taped to her thigh--a piece of paper taped to the thigh of this Indian woman; and it was to the hospital from the Department of Health and Human Services--it was saying, by the way, ``If you admit this woman, understand there is no money in contract health care to pay for her,'' warning the hospital: ``Admit this woman and it is very likely you will not be paid.'' This woman is having a heart attack, and shows up with a piece of paper taped to her leg, saying: ``There is no money for you to be paid, if you admit this woman to your hospital,'' or the woman who goes to the Indian Health Service with a knee that is so painful she cannot walk. It is bone on bone; an unbelievable problem with her knee that you or I or our family would get fixed by having a new knee joint put in. She goes to the Indian Health Service, and the Indian Health Service doctor says: ``Wrap it in cabbage leaves for 4 days.'' That is Indian health care. That is unbelievable, just unbelievable to me. My colleague from Oklahoma says, well, he does not support this bill because it is not bold. I have been on the floor of the Senate. I have offered amendments to add $1 billion to Indian health care, and it gets defeated. I have seen the budget that came last week from this administration that says they want less money for Indian health care. Let me put up something Chief Joseph said years and years ago. We took all this Indian land, took all those millions and millions of acres--hundreds of millions of acres--from the Indians, but we said to them: Trust us. We will make you a promise. We will sign treaties. We will tell you that we will provide for your health care. We believe we have a trust responsibility. You can trust us. Well, regrettably, that responsibility has not been met. Those promises have not been kept. Here is Chief Joseph. He said: Good words don't last long unless they amount to something. Words don't pay for my dead people. . . .Good words cannot give me back my children. Good words will not give my people good health and stop them from dying. I care a lot about this issue. In my State, we have four Indian reservations. I have spent a lot of time with them. The fact is, we have people living in the shadows. We have people living in abject, desperate poverty. I sat with a young girl once at a table with her grandfather. This was a young girl who was put in a foster home at age 3. The woman who put her in a foster home was working 150 cases--150 cases. She did not have time to go check out the home, so she put a 3-year-old girl in a foster home. And on a Saturday night, in a drunken party brawl, a young 3-year-old girl got her arm broken, her nose broken, and her hair pulled out by the roots. That young girl will live forever with those scars. One hundred and fifty cases a social worker is dealing with? There is such unbelievable difficulty because the resources do not exist. We have people living in Third World conditions. We had a tribal leader, a chairman of a tribe, say: ``My two daughters live in used trailer houses that we moved from Michigan to the reservation in South Dakota. They don't have indoor plumbing. They have an outdoor rest room, outdoor toilet. One of them has a wood stove in the living room of the trailer house vented out through the window.'' I have seen all of these things. I have experienced all of this. My colleague has seen the same in Alaska. We have people living in Third World conditions in this country. There is a full-scale, bona fide crisis in health care, housing, and education. This bill deals with the question of health care. We have a special responsibility, unlike other responsibilities, because this country has promised. We have signed treaties. The Supreme Court says we have a trust responsibility. We have not kept our promise, and we have not met our responsibility. I am just flat tired of it. My colleague says: Let's be bold. Nobody wants to be bolder than I want to be, but we haven't been able to get a bill through here in 10 years, for God's sake. If you can't pass a bill in a decade, how on Earth are you going to be bold? Let's at least take a step in the right direction. I am going to follow that with step 2 on the Indian Affairs Committee, and that is bold, dramatic reform, because this system is not nearly as good as it can be. He talks about: Why would you add new services? Well, services dealing with diabetes, with cancer screening, with mental health--let's add those services because they are needed, and then let's decide, when the appropriations bill comes around, to add the funding. My colleague knows this is an authorization bill, not a funding bill. We will have a chance to be bold. Let's see who is going to be bold. Let's add the funding to keep our promises, for a change. My colleague talked a lot about Dr. Grim. I like Dr. Grim. He retired--resigned, I should say--from the Indian Health Service. Dr. Grim came every year, supporting the President's budget. He knew it was not adequate. We know we are rationing health care. The fact is, we all know it. We need to stop it. Are we rationing health care with incarcerated prisoners in Federal prisons? No, we are not, because we have a responsibility for them. We arrest them, we convict them, we send them to prison, and then it is our responsibility to provide for their health care in Federal prisons, and we do it. We spend twice as much per person for them as we do for American Indians. Yet we have the same responsibility for American Indians because we made the promise, signed the treaties, and told them we would provide for these needs. What gives us the right to continue to break our promises? We have done it for decades and decades over almost 200 years. What gives us the right to continue to do that in the face of little children who are dying and in the face of elders who can't get health care? What gives us that right? I say to my colleague, if you want to be bold, we are going to have a chance to be bold together, because this country ought to stare truth in the face and look at what is happening on Indian reservations. The other night, I was on an Indian reservation, having a listening session with Indians. There were two sisters sitting in the front row. One sister stood up to speak, and the other sister sobbed uncontrollably--cried and sobbed. It was an unbelievable story about the sister who desperately needed health care and couldn't get it and couldn't find it. She finally had her heart surgery, and of course it was charged back to her, because there was no contract health care. It has completely ruined her credit rating because she doesn't have anything to pay for it, and the Indian Health Service did not serve her needs. She was also treated for depression. She had a heart valve problem that needed surgery, and she was treated for depression. When she finally found a way to get the surgery, it could not be paid for by Indian contract health because they were out of funds. ``Don't get sick after June.'' We had one reservation tell us, don't get sick after January, because they didn't have the money. This poor woman sat there in the chair sobbing as her sister recounted the details of her desperate attempt to deal with a health care problem that was very acute. So, yes, I am a little bit emotional about these issues. When we have people say, well, let's do much more, I say: Absolutely. Let's do much more than we are now doing. Let's do that in appropriations. That is an awfully good start. This is an authorization bill which does a lot more than the current Indian Health Care Improvement Act. It does a lot more in areas we know are in urgent need. We have teen suicide clusters on Indian reservations. In the northern Great Plains, there is a 10 times greater rate of suicide among teenagers--not double, triple, or quadruple, but 10 times the rate of suicide. I went and sat and talked with kids on that reservation, the one where we had a cluster recently. It was just me with some high school kids, talking about what is going on, what is their life like. It is unbelievable. We need to address these things. That is what we try to do in this Indian Health Care Improvement Act. It is not perfect, but it is certainly a step in the right direction. I have other things to say, and my colleague may wish to weigh in, as well. My hope will be at the end of the day today that we will be able to get the amendments up and get them voted on. Some of the amendments my colleague described, I likely will support, because I think we can improve this piece of legislation. I think at the end of the day, all of us will hope we will have done something we are proud of, to say to those who don't now have adequate health care or whom we promised health care that we have made a step forward in trying to meet those needs. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, it is more than a little frustrating. We have been here for 3 hours this morning. We have amendments on this bill dealing with Indian health care. We have nongermane amendments that have been offered: Medicare, LIHEAP, earmarks for Berkeley, abortion. This is a very serious issue. We have people dying in this country with respect to this health care question about American Indians. I spoke earlier this morning that the U.S. Government has a responsibility for health care for Indians. If you ask the question: Why? Because we signed up for it. We signed the treaties. We said: We promise, and we have a trust responsibility for it. So we spend twice as much money to provide health care to Federal prisoners as we do for American Indians. We are not meeting the needs. We have people dying. So it takes 10 years to get a bill to the floor of the Senate--10 years to get a bill to the floor--to try to improve health care for Indians, and we get here, and we have unending appetites for amendments that have nothing to do with Indian health. Look, I support low-income energy assistance. I support that. I support a lot of these issues. Many of them have nothing to do with Indian health. We are just trying to get a bill passed here. Let me describe something I heard about a month ago to describe the urgency. I was at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota. It straddles the North Dakota-South Dakota border. The husband of Harriet Archambault came to a meeting I had--a listening session on Indian health care--and he described his wife Harriet and her battle to try to deal with this health care dilemma. They lived nearly 20 miles from a clinic in South Dakota. It was an Indian health care clinic. She would get up in the morning and drive 18 miles to the clinic because that clinic can take only 10 people in the morning and 10 people in the afternoon. So five times, she got up in the morning to drive to that clinic. All five times she got there, there were 10 people ahead of her. Her medicine ran out on October 25, 2007, her husband said. Five times for the next month, she got up and drove to that clinic. She could not stay there, because she was also a day care provider for her grandchildren. So this woman went, tried to sign up, but there were 10 people ahead of her--that is all they would take--and she had to go home. Five times she did that in a month. A month later, she died. Her medicine ran out October 25. She died November 25. She had called her sister about 3 weeks before, and she said: ``What do I have to do here to get the medicine I need? Die?'' Well, she did die because she could not get service in this Indian health system. The fact is, people are dying. All we are asking is that we maybe have somebody come over and offer an amendment on Indian health care and start a debate on these amendments. If we have people who have these amendments, come over and offer them. We have some that are filed. Let's have some votes and try to get through this piece of legislation. This is the third day we are on the floor of the Senate with this bill. I said earlier, it has taken 10 years to get here. Every single year we have worked on this. Senator McCain, who was chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee, worked on it with me--Senator Murkowski. We work on it and never get it to the floor. We finally get it to the floor of the Senate, and this is like a root canal, except a root canal hurts less, because at least you are accomplishing something. Here we come to the floor of the Senate, and we cannot get amendments up. We cannot get amendments voted on. So my hope would be we can find a way to move through this legislation.

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I am happy to yield for a question.

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I yield for that purpose. I believe I understand what the Senator from Vermont is doing.

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

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, let me say, I don't think anybody in the Congress, the Senate, or the House wishes our intelligence community to be blind or deaf. Obviously, we have a process in this country with the FISA Court that allows emergency actions. The opportunity to be able to engage in surveillance and the appropriate surveillance to make sure we are listening to terrorists and all of those things are available. There is a debate about how wide should the drift net be, that the administration might want to gather almost every communication everywhere in the world and data mine to find out who is saying what. That is an important conversation because it deals with the basic rights in our Constitution. I think there is no one in this Chamber or in the other who believes we want our intelligence community to be blind or deaf and to not have the opportunity to do the kind of surveillance necessary to protect our country. That is very important to state. Madam President, we are not in morning business, although we are doing some morning business. We are on the piece of legislation that we reported out of the Indian Affairs Committee, dealing with Indian health care improvement. I have always been enormously proud to serve in this body. I am privileged and proud to serve. I have occasionally told friends that the Senate is 100 bad habits--that includes myself, of course. We are not doing anything at the moment, I understand, because one Senator is downtown someplace, giving speeches, and the instruction is that nothing is to be done while that Senator is gone. Good for that Senator, but I don't think this place ought to come to a stop because somebody decides they are going to be gone for 2 or 3 hours, so they want others to object to everything on their behalf. That is, in my judgment, discourteous, and my hope is that the Senate could do a little business today on something that is urgent. That is not too much to ask for the Senate to perhaps consider legislation that is before it. We are now on the third day of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, a very urgent and serious matter. This is the third day. We have been here for over 3 hours today, and we have had amendments on all kinds of issues, except issues that deal with this legislation. Even just attempting to offer the managers' package, which has been negotiated over the last month or so, in which we successfully negotiated on about five or six very controversial issues--we negotiated an agreement between the sides, and even being able to offer that at this point is denied because someone who is not even on the Hill told their staff to tell others that the leadership cannot allow this. It is unbelievable to me. One might expect, perhaps, that today we can make progress on this legislation. Everybody puts on a blue suit and shined shoes and comes to work, and one might expect we can get something done for a change. We will have additional morning business, and we will see if those who have left the Hill and want the entire world to stop and wait for their whims will show up at some point and maybe we can consider some amendments. I hope that will be the case. I yield the floor.