Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Yes, cellulosic ethanol projects are consistent with the intent of title XVII of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and would clearly be within the scope of technologies that would be eligible for a loan guarantee from the Department of Energy.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, are we in morning business at this time? Amendment No. 3695, as Modified

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, how much time remains before the vote?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me understand, we are debating my amendment, and I have 2 minutes left on my amendment?

Mr. DORGAN. I understand. About energy?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me take the time that remains on our side, at least. We have a 9:15 vote, and the vote is a vote on determining whether we are going to continue to do business the way we have always done business on these issues or whether we are going to vote for some change here and some reform. This amendment is very simple. It provides some payment limitations with respect to the farm bill. It says those people who have never farmed and are never going to farm, living on land that has not produced a crop for 20 years, should not be getting farm program payments. But they are today, and they will under the bill that is here on the floor of the Senate. I support the bill on the floor of the Senate, but I want to improve it by amending it with these payment limitations. My colleague, Senator Grassley, joins me. My colleague, Senator Nelson from Nebraska, joins me, and others. This issue is some payment limitations. We are supposed to provide a farm program that helps family farmers during tough periods. This farm program has become a set of golden arches for some of the biggest corporate farms in this country. Millions of dollars are being sucked out of this farm program in large payments for large corporate agrifactories. That is No. 1. No. 2, as I have indicated, we have farm program payments going to people who have never farmed and never will farm. Mr. President, in the last 5 years, $1.3 billion went from this country's Treasury in farm program payments to people who are not farming. Think of that: $1.3 billion. Do you think there might have been a better use for that? Do you think maybe if we recovered that $1.3 billion we could provide a better safety net for family farmers when they run into a tough patch or a tough spell? In my judgment, the answer is yes, we could do much better.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me ask my colleague from New Mexico if he is intending to use the remaining time.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I virtually said what I intended to say. If my colleague from New Mexico wishes to speak about the Energy bill, there has been a lot of work on an energy bill which is very important. There has not been much debate or discussion about it. I do not object to continuing that discussion. But I do want to say this 9:15 vote is very important. It is about change and reform. It is about doing the right thing for family farmers. I hope the Dorgan-Grassley-Nelson amendment will be supported and that we will finally say to the American people: Yes, we are about change. We are about reform. We are about doing things right. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. How much time remains on the two sides?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, my intention would be to use some time and then perhaps yield to my colleague from Georgia, and then I would prefer that we be able to close since it is our amendment, and then we would be done with the time. If that would be satisfactory to my colleague from Georgia, the ranking member, I would proceed on that basis.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me begin, as a couple of my colleagues have--more specifically, my colleague from Arkansas--I have great respect for Senator Lincoln, Senator Pryor, Senator Chambliss, and others here who may disagree with Senator Grassley and myself. I very much respect their position and do not in any way denigrate a position or a philosophy or a policy choice they have made. I do think, however, this is a real choice and an important choice, and I come at it from a different perspective. I believe very strongly if we do not do the right thing, one day we won't be talking about a farm program because there won't be a farm program. The fact is most people in this country don't farm. Only a small percentage of people live out in the country, out on the farm, under a yard light, trying to raise a family, trying to raise a crop against all the odds. They put a seed in and in the spring they hope it grows and they hope it doesn't rain too much, they hope it rains enough; they hope it doesn't hail; they hope crop disease doesn't come; and they hope that at the end of the summer, perhaps during the harvest season, they get in and harvest that land and they have a crop that comes out of the ground. Then they hope if they were lucky enough to get through all of that and get a crop and drive it to the country elevator, that they might get a decent price for it. They live on hope. The only way people living on a farm in the country can exist is living on hope. They are eternal optimists, believing that if they put a crop in in the spring, that putting that seed into that soil is going to somehow sprout into something bigger, and that at the end of the growing season, they have an opportunity to make a decent living. That is what it is about--because farmers live on hope--but because, in most cases, when international wild price swings occur and the bottom falls out of the grain market, if we don't have a safety net across those price valleys, so those family farmers get economic leverage, the opportunity to make it from one side to the other, they get wiped out. The same is true when a natural disaster comes along. There are some big enterprises that have the economic strength to get through it. Perhaps when price declines, when disasters hit, they can get through it, but the family farmer doesn't. They get washed away, completely washed away. Then you have the auction sale. You have the yard sale, the auction sale, and that family farmer is gone. It goes on all across this country. This country decided to do something very important. It decided to say it matters that when you fly across this country tonight, that you are able to look down and see people populating the prairies, populating the rural areas with yard lights and family farms. Look down sometime and see where they all live. Fewer and fewer of them live out in the country. There are fewer and fewer neighbors. But we are trying and struggling mightily to say to family farmers, when you are out there trying to run a family farm and raise a family and raise a crop, if you run into trouble, if you run into a tough patch, we want to help you. That is what this safety net is about. Now this safety net has grown into a set of golden arches for some. Some of the biggest corporate agrifactories in the country suck millions of dollars out of this program. Some of them are farming the farm program--millions and millions of dollars. Is that what we believe this safety net should be about? Is it, really? Does anyone here believe that those who have never farmed and are never going to farm should receive a farm program payment? Is there anybody who believes that? Because that is what is going to happen. It is what is happening now. According to some pretty good research that has been done on who receives and would receive the payments under the current system, there are what they call ``down south cowboy starter kits.'' I described that before. It is somebody who subdivides some land that used to produce a crop and still gets a direct payment on a crop that is not produced anymore. So they subdivide it and build a house on part of it and run a horse on another and hay it once a year, and lo and behold, someone who has never farmed and never will, living on ground that has not produced a crop for 20 years, is going to go to the mailbox some day and open up an envelope from the Federal Government and it is going to say: Congratulations. You get a farm program payment. That is exactly what happens today, and it is what is going to happen with this bill. I support the farm bill that came out of this committee, but I want to improve it because there is a glaring hole. The hole is that under this bill, non-farmers could get farm program payments, and the hole that is there is an unlimited opportunity to get loan deficiency payments on the LDP or the marketing loan portion. My colleague will say: Well, we have a $200,000 cap on farm program payments. But that is not true; they don't have a $200,000 cap. They have a $200,000 cap on the direct payment and the countercyclical payment, but the third piece, the marketing loan and the loan deficiency payment, is unlimited--no cap at all. The biggest farm in the country, on every single bushel of commodity they produce, will get a price protection in the form of a safety net from the American taxpayer. I don't think that adds up. I described a few moments ago a wonderful--apparently a wonderful woman in San Francisco, a patron of the arts. I had a picture I decided not to use because I don't think it is fair to her, but she was in the San Francisco Chronicle; they did run a picture of her. Her name is Constance Bowles. She was the largest recipient of farm program funds in San Francisco. She received $1.2 million, her husband received $1.1 million. Another fellow still runs the 6,000 acres. He is receiving money. He says: Well, I don't know why I am getting this money, but if they are--if cotton and rice folks in Texas are going to get it, then I think I ought to get it as well. I don't know. Do people think this is what we ought to be doing? Do you think this represents a safety net? It doesn't look like it to me. It looks like a glaring loophole. The committee made some improvements. I said that when I started. The three-entity rule is gone. That was something that was abusive, and that is gone. I think that is progress. But I am telling my colleagues more needs to be done, because if we pass this bill as is, people who have never farmed and never will, will still receive farm program payments. For land that hasn't produced a crop for 20 years, they will still be able to get farm program payments. In my judgment, that is not reform. I believe when we read stories--and we will--when we read stories that operations--the big corporate agrifactory gets $35 million in 5 years, I think a lot of the American people reasonably will ask the question: What does this have to do with the safety net to help family farmers through tough times? Again, if we are for change and reform in a constructive way that says let's do the right thing, then we will pass the amendment I have offered with Senator Grassley, Senator Ben Nelson from Nebraska, and others, because we think it is the right thing to do. Someone said during this debate: This will injure the safety net. No, no. Exactly the opposite. This is the one thing we can do that will preserve and strengthen the safety net. If we don't do this, we won't have a safety net at some point in the years ahead. It will all be gone because the American people will say: If you can't do it right, we are not going to let you do it at all. That is why I believe this is important. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I rise with my colleague from Iowa, Senator Grassley, and others who will be here to discuss the Dorgan- Grassley-Ben Nelson, et al, amendment we put together to this bill. Let me make a couple points. First of all, I don't think there is anybody in this Chamber who can claim they have a stronger record for farm programs than I do, having been in Congress a good long while. Family farms are very important to me. I believe it is an important element of this country's economy and culture to have the yard lights dotting the landscape of America, people living on the land trying to raise a family, raise a crop, and produce some livestock. That is very important. I have spent a lot of time supporting family farming in this country. The legislation brought to us by the Agriculture Committee is a good bill. I applaud my colleagues, Senator Harkin and Senator Chambliss, and my colleague, Senator Conrad, for his work, and so many others. This is a good piece of legislation. It improves slightly the safety net so when there is trouble and tough times, family farmers understand there is a safety net. It provides a disaster title for the first time in a long time, so when there is a natural weather disaster or natural disaster hitting family farmers, they can rely on this disaster title. There are a lot of provisions that are good in this bill, including some improvement with respect to the issue of payment limits. They eliminated the three-entity rule. That is a step forward. I appreciate that. I like what has been done, and I want to improve it because there are a couple things that can be done that should improve it, in my judgment. These deal with the issue of payment limits. Let me start with this proposition: Does anybody in this Chamber believe and want to stand up and say: Do you know what we ought to do with the farm program? Let's give farm program benefits to people who don't farm. Does anybody want to stand up and say, yes, that is our policy, that makes a lot of sense? Let's provide farm program checks to people who don't farm. It is happening today. It will happen under this bill unless we make this correction. My colleague from Iowa and my colleague from Georgia missed all the applause I was giving them. They have done a great job. I have applauded this bill coming out of the committee. I said I want to improve it because this committee didn't finish the work on payment limitations. Two things: No. 1, we ought to limit farm program payments to those who are farming. We ought not be sending farm program checks in the mail to people who never farmed and will never farm. Yet that is happening and will continue to happen. No. 2, there ought to be some reasonable limit on payments. My colleagues, Senator Grassley and Senator Nelson from Nebraska and others, have joined me in saying that limit ought to be $250,000 per farm. That is a reasonable limit, a very reasonable limit. Let me describe how it works. We still have some holes we need to patch. The Houston Chronicle described it--cowboy starter kids they called it. We have a situation in which if land had certain base acres for a crop, you didn't have to raise that crop or produce that crop. You didn't have to plant the crop at all in order to get a check. Down in Texas, they have what are called cowboy starter kits. You can have 20 acres of land or maybe 10 acres of land that were used to produce rice 20 years ago and divide it up--have a house on an acre, run a horse on the other 8 or over 10, hay it once a year, and you get a farm program payment, despite the fact you have never farmed and never will farm and that land hasn't produced a rice crop for 20 years. Is that reasonable? I don't think it is reasonable. It will give rise to the kind of stories we have heard repeatedly, stories that describe who is getting the benefits of the farm program payments we thought were supposed to be going to help family farmers through tough times. Then we have someone with a cowboy starter kit on 10 or 20 acres who gets a payment who has never farmed and never will farm on land that isn't producing a crop. The proposal Senator Grassley and I offer today says let's not do that. Let's say, if you get a payment, you have to be farming, No. 1. And No. 2, there ought to be a limit. I normally wouldn't use a name such as this, but I am doing it because this was in the San Francisco Chronicle. This was a story in the San Francisco Chronicle, and it shows payments. This is California. We could do this for a lot of areas. This shows payments to 20 individuals and farm businesses, among the top 20 finishers from 2003 to 2005. Constance Bowles from, San Francisco, $1.21 million; George Bowles, same family, $1.190 million. That is $2.3 million to these folks. As I indicated, this is a San Francisco Chronicle story and is an example of what is happening to undermine this farm program. Let me read from the San Francisco Chronicle: A prominent San Francisco patron of the arts, Constance Bowles--heiress of an early California cattle baron, widow of a former director of UC Berkeley's Bancroft library--was the largest recipient of federal cotton subsidies in the state of California between 2003 and 2005, collecting more than $1.2 million, according to the latest available data. Bowles, 88, of San Francisco, collected the $1.2 million in mostly cotton payments through her family's 6,000-acre farm, the Bowles Farming Co., in Los Banos [California]. She could not be reached for comment. Another family member, George ``Corky'' Bowles, who died in 2005, collected $1.19 million over the same period. George Bowles once ran the farm but lived on . . . Telegraph Hill. A collector of rare books and 18th century English porcelain, he served as a director of the San Francisco Opera and trustee of the Fine Arts Museum. The farm is now run by Phillip Bowles, who also lives in San Francisco. He told KGO television that he's no fan of subsidies, but if the big cotton growers in Texas get them, so should he. Many of these businesses are getting 20 to 30, sometimes 40 percent of their gross revenues directly from the government, Phillip Bowles told KGO. I don't have a good explanation for that. Somebody else might, but it beats me. Well, if we want this sort of thing to continue, then let's not pass this amendment. This is a very simple amendment Senator Grassley and I offer, which says, A, you ought to be a farmer if you are going to get a farm program payment. That is, you ought to have some active involvement in the farm. Our definition doesn't require you to live out there, but it requires you to have some active involvement. That is No. 1. That is so reasonable that I guess I would like somebody to stand up and say, you know what, we don't think the farm program is just for farmers. We give educational loans here in this country. We appropriate money for them. We won't let you get an education loan if you are not going to go to college. There are subsidized home loans. You don't get a home loan unless you are going to buy a home. We are going to give assistance in the form of farm program paychecks, or checks to people who don't farm? That doesn't make any sense at all. Now, some will say, well, we have corrected all that. No, they haven't. They haven't. Let me explain why. They intended to, or they wanted to correct it. There was going to be an amendment passed that would correct it, but it was not offered and not voted on. But one of my colleagues said, we have a $200,000 limitation on payments and Senators Grassley and Dorgan are saying $250,000. Well, that is a little too clever. The payment limitation means you still get the loan deficiency payment under the commodity loans--you still get unlimited payments for all of the production, for the largest farm in America, you get a price support in the form of an LDP under every single bushel of product you produce. It doesn't matter how big you are. You can farm in four States, if you want to, but you are going to get a support price under everything you produce. Does that make any sense to anybody? You have a payment limitation without a limit? That is not a payment limitation. That is unlimited payments in the LDP for the biggest farms in America, for every single thing they produce. Senator Grassley and I offer a very simple proposition, and that proposition is a $250,000 payment limit and that you have to be involved in farming in order to get it. Now I showed this San Francisco article. This is California, but I could show this for many States. But when one operation gets over $35 million in 5 years, I say that is farming the farm program. When 75 percent of all payments go to 10 percent of the farmers receiving commodity subsidies, you know what is happening. Much of that is going to the biggest farmers, the biggest corporate farms in the country, big agrifactories, and it is producing the revenue by which they buy out the land and bid against family properties for their property right next door. It is happening all over the country. If one believes that is what we should do, then God bless you, you should not vote for this amendment of ours. But I believe this country has benefitted by the network of family producers out in the country. Some say, well, that is hopelessly old fashioned. You don't understand that in our part of the country we have people who have millions and millions of dollars of revenue and they are important to the economy as well. If you want to farm two or three counties, you ought to be able to do that. I just don't think the Federal Government has the responsibility to be your banker. I believe, and when I came here I believed it and I still believe it, that a farm program ought to be a safety net that says to family farms, when you run into trouble, you have a safety net--a bridge over troubled times. We want to do that because farming is different. But providing a safety net for families is very different than providing a set of golden arches for the biggest corporate agrifactories in this country. I don't need four reasons or three reasons or even two reasons, just give me one good reason we ought to collect taxes from hard-working Americans and say we are going to transfer that money to some corporate agrifactory that gets $30 million in 5 years. Give me one good reason to do that. I don't think it exists. Let me end where I began. I am a strong supporter of family farming, a strong supporter of agriculture. I like what this committee has done. I appreciate very much the work of Senator Harkin and Senator Chambliss. I want to improve this bill. Let me conclude with something a rancher and a farmer just west of Bismarck, ND wrote once. He is a guy who is a terrific writer and he asked the question--and I have asked it before on the floor of the Senate, and it describes why I support family farming and why this amendment is necessary--What is it worth? What is it worth for a kid to know how to weld a seam? What is it worth for a kid to know how to teach a calf to suck milk from a bucket? What is it worth for a kid to know how to grease a combine? What is it worth for a kid to know how to butcher a hog? What is it worth for a kid to know how to plow a field? What is it worth for a kid to know how build a lean-to? What is it worth for a kid to know how to pour cement? You know something, farm kids know all of those things, and the only university in America where they teach it is on the family farm. Fortunately, in World War II, we sent millions of them from American farms all across the world. They could fix anything. What is it worth to have all that knowledge? You learn that on family farms across this country. That is why family farming is so important. I say, today let's stand up for a good safety net for family farmers. Let's not ruin the farm program. And we will, as sure as I am standing here, ruin the farm program and ruin the opportunity to enact a good farm program in the future, unless we do what we know is necessary. We have a farm program that is designed to be a safety net and to help family farmers through tough times, but we cannot do that by pretending this circumstance doesn't exist, whereby in the current farm program we give farm program benefits to people who have never farmed and never will, and we provide farm program benefits to the tune of millions of dollars to the biggest corporate agrifactories in this country. That is not what I came to Congress to do. I hope we can stand up today on behalf of family farmers and say you matter, and we are going to manifest that in the vote on this amendment. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. How much time remains?

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, to suggest that perhaps we believe that farmers were getting too much money, nothing could be further from the truth. A whole lot of farmers are not getting enough help when they need it. The reason is because we don't have enough money in the farm program to provide a decent safety net. We have money leaking out the back door in the form of millions of dollars of payments to big corporate agrifactories. I have some examples. We have all heard these and read about them. Constance Bowles, a prominent San Francisco art collector, from 2003 to 2005 received $1.2 million. Her husband received an equivalent amount during that period. Mark Burkett, a bonafide farmer, received payments for corn, wheat, cotton, peanuts, and sorghum from 2003 to 2005 totaling $1.8 million. Tommy Dildine collected $1.04 million. By the way, his wife Betty received exactly the same amount down to the penny. That is just over $2 million for that couple. I could go on. Is this a safety net helping family farmers? I don't think so. There is nothing, as I indicated previously, in this legislation that stops some of the practices I described earlier. My colleague said this issue of cowboy starter kits--I am tired hearing about cowboy starter kits. The USDA can shut that down. Yes, they can, but they won't. Why wouldn't we shut down a loophole that says somebody who has never farmed and never will farm and living on land that hasn't produced a crop for 20 years ought to open the mailbox and get a check from the Federal Government, a farm program payment? Why wouldn't we close that loophole? Why? Because this bill doesn't go far enough and won't close it and those who are opposing us on the floor of the Senate today don't want it closed. There are a lot of reasons to support family farming. Some say it is hopelessly old-fashioned, that farming has gone a different direction; it is mechanized, it is big, these are big operators farming from California to Maine. I believe it is not hopelessly old-fashioned to think we can keep families on the farm putting in a crop and contributing more than a crop, but contributing to building communities. They are the economic blood vessels that flow into our rural communities in our country. There is a songwriter, a farmer, a rancher from North Dakota named Chuck Suchy. He sings a song about ``Saturday Night at the Bohemian Hall,'' where all the neighbors, all the farmers in the region gather and talk about the weather, they talk about their crops, and they talk about their families. It is an unusual culture and one that is important to this country. Some say that is yesterday, it is certainly not tomorrow. I, for one, hope we can construct a farm bill that is about tomorrow and that says to family farmers living on the land: We care about you. You are out there alone trying to make it against the odds. So we have a safety net. But some of my colleagues believe that safety net should be a set of golden arches, providing millions to the biggest agrifactories in this country. That is not what the farm program was designed to do. When we do a program here, it doesn't mean it has to be perverted. We don't need snow removal in Hawaii, we don't need beachfront restoration in North Dakota, and we don't need to pervert a farm program by allowing millions of dollars--and, by the way, since the year 2000, $1.3 billion has been spent by this Federal Government in crop subsidies to people who are not farming--$1.3 billion. What might that have done in the form of health care for children who don't have health care or strengthening education so that when kids walk through a classroom door, we can believe they are walking into one of the best classrooms in the world? What might that have done in a whole range of areas where we could have improved life? What might that have done had that money gone in to strengthening the farm program itself or providing a disaster provision 2, 3 years ago for a farm program that doesn't have it? Madam President, how much remains on my time?

Mr. DORGAN. Again, I know some think it is hopelessly old-fashioned to talk about family farms. I don't. I know some farms have been very successful and they have grown, and I don't mean at all they should be penalized. That is not my intention. We only have a certain amount of money, and we ought to provide the best safety net and farm program we can up to a certain amount of production because that is the money we have. But we ought not dissipate our energy, strength, and money on people who are not farming and they go to their mailbox and open a check, and they get a farm program payment even if they don't farm. That does not make sense to me. Let me tell a story about a young man named Waylon. I was invited to the White House to the East Room some while ago when they brought in some youngsters who were heroes and the President presented these youngsters with medals. One of them was a North Dakotan. Twelve-year- old Waylon was on the farm with his brother and sister. His parents went to a neighbor farm for a moment to see the neighbors. It was winter, and in North Dakota in the winter, the stock pond was frozen. They were playing on the ice. This 12-year-old boy and his brother and sister were playing on the stock pond ice and his sister fell through the ice. It cracked and she fell through the ice and was drowning. Waylon, age 12, sent his brother to go 1 mile to fetch his parents. His 6-year-old brother went off to fetch the parents. Waylon, age 12, meanwhile lay on his belly with his winter clothes on and cowboy boots toward the edge of the hole on the ice where his sister was drowning. Some while later, about 20 minutes later, his parents came rushing into the yard, driving into the yard. What they saw was a 12-year-old boy in this area where the ice had broken who couldn't swim, who broke into that ice trying to find his sister who was drowning. What his parents saw was a young 12-year-old boy with his sister's head in the crook of his arm. He was treading water as fast as he could tread still 20 minutes later. He was given a medal for heroism at the White House along with some other boys. I asked young Waylon: How did you do that? He said I watched ``GI Joe'' and I learned safety tips. He said: I kicked as hard as I could. He kicked so hard that his cowboy boots came off. On that day, a 12-year-old boy who couldn't swim reached out his hand for his sister who was drowning. That same type of love, that kind of commitment, that outreach of a hand, not just from that 12-year-old boy, but from a country to farmers all across this country to say, let us help you when you are in trouble--that is the instinct of this country and why we created a safety net in the first place, to reach out our hands to say we want to help, you are not alone when prices collapse, when disease comes, when it hails, when it rains, when it rains too much, when it doesn't rain enough. This country has said we want to help because we believe family farmers are important to this country. We want people on Saturday night to come to the Bohemian Hall and swap stories about the weather, the crops, and their neighbors. We want that. The way you get that, it seems to me, is to preserve a safety net. We will not preserve a safety net for family farmers by deciding we ought to give millions and millions of dollars to the biggest agrifactories in this country that are farming the farm program. When we give $1.3 billion in farm program payments to people who are not farming--let me say that again--when we send checks to the mailboxes of people who are not farming to the tune of $1.3 billion and call it a safety net in a farm program, I am saying it is a perversion of what we ought to do as a government to help family farmers in the future. This ought not be a difficult choice. The committee made some improvements in this bill; yes, they did. But without this amendment, we will still have people who are not farming now and have never farmed in the past and will never farm in the future living on land that has not produced a crop for 20 years, and they are going to continue to get farm program payments. If you don't believe that is wrong, then vote against this amendment. Senator Grassley and I believe there is a much better way. We don't do it by suggesting anybody at all should ever be penalized. We just believe we should use the resources we have to provide the best safety net we can to those family farms out there struggling to try to make ends meet during tough times. That is why we have a farm program. It is why we designed a safety net. It has not worked as well as any of us would have liked. I would like to improve the safety net, but we can't improve the safety net if we are using this precious money to send it to Telegraph Hill in San Francisco to somebody who gets $2.4 million with her husband, a patron of the arts, who gets money from the farm program and whose brother now runs the farm and says: I don't know why we get this money, but if they get it down in Texas, we ought to get it here in San Francisco. I am telling you, the American people expect more from us. Let me finish by saying this again. I deeply respect my colleagues who disagree with me. I respect my colleagues who have spoken in support of their bill and against this amendment. But I say to them, if they are for constructive change, if they are for reform that the American people understand makes sense, then they have to support this amendment and believe let's at least do the right thing. This is a good bill that came out of the committee, but it needs to have this hole plugged. To have a bill come out of the committee and have loan deficiency payments or the marketing loan be totally unlimited for the biggest farm in America for everything they ever will produce, that is wrong. It is a hole big enough to drive a truck through. If we can fix that, I say we have done a good day's work and done something very important for family farmers in the future. One of my colleagues says, if we do this, he won't vote for the bill. I am going to vote for the bill one way or the other because this bill is an advancement in public policy. But Senator Grassley has said it well, my colleague Ben Nelson and others believe as I do that we should do this, we should have done this 6 years ago. And by the way, we had 66 Senators vote for this approach the last time we wrote a farm bill, and it got dropped in conference. My hope is we will at least have 60 votes tomorrow in support of change, constructive reform that the American people want. If you went to a cafe anyplace in this country, set this out and said: What do you think we should do? I tell you it will be 99 percent saying fix this, fix this, do this in support of the American taxpayers, and do this in support of family farmers.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, if it will be permissible, I ask unanimous consent to modify an amendment. I have cleared this with Senator Chambliss and Senator Harkin. I ask for the regular order on my amendment No. 3695 for the purpose of modifying it.

Mr. DORGAN. The modification is at the desk. I ask the amendment be so modified.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I assumed we were going to go off morning business and onto the calendar. I was going to speak for 20 minutes, so I will speak in line of appearance on the floor for 20 minutes at whatever appropriate time that is.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, what is happening in the Senate is going to give frustration a new meaning. I cannot begin to explain how unbelievably frustrating it is for people elected to come to this body, they say the greatest deliberative body, to be at parade rest day after day after day, unable to move because of two simple words uttered almost routinely every day by the minority: I object. I object to everything. I object. I object. Mark Twain once was asked if he would engage in a debate. And he said: Of course, as long as I can take the negative side. They said: We have not told you what the subject is. He said: That does not matter. The negative side will take no preparation. It takes no preparation to say ``I object,'' to take the negative side of everything. Yet that is what has happened. We have people posing as a set of human brake pads, determined to stop everything in the Senate. Maybe that would make not much difference if there were not things that were so urgent and in need of being done. I sat here for a while this afternoon and saw something quite stunning. My colleague stood up and said, on the appropriations bill that passed the Senate by a wide margin, over 80 votes on transportation-housing and so on, she wanted to bring the conference report up to the Senate. There was an objection by the Republican leader of the Senate: I object. Then, immediately afterwards, Senator Cornyn from Texas stood up and said: I do not understand what all of the problem is, the way the majority is running this place, why do we not get appropriations bills to the floor of the Senate? This was immediately after his side had already objected to bringing an appropriations bill to the floor of the Senate. It is as if they think no one is watching. These are illusionists who provide no illusion. Nobody is watching, they think. This is all done in broad daylight. They say: We object to bringing appropriations bills to the floor of the Senate. Then they stand up and seek recognition and ask: Why are you not bringing appropriations bills to the floor of the Senate? Do they believe people do not watch and listen and understand? It is absolutely beyond me. Now, let me describe this ``I object'' strategy. I object to appropriations bills, they say. Do you know this year we even had to file a cloture petition to shut off a filibuster on a motion to proceed to the appropriations bill that would fund homeland security needs. We are in this process of waging a war on terrorism to protect our country, and we cannot bring a bill to the floor earlier this year on homeland security appropriations to fund the programs without having a filibuster by the other side on a motion to proceed, not even on the bill, but a motion to proceed to the bill. That describes what the other side has done all year long. Now, in December, they come to the floor and they say: Well, where are the appropriations bills? Well, I will tell you where they are; you objected to all of them. You took all the action necessary to try to prohibit us from moving these appropriations bills. That is the case. Alternative minimum tax, they call it AMT. It is a fancy way of describing an alternative tax system that recalculates your tax. It is going to affect millions more Americans. We should fix that. Why have we not fixed that today? Because the other side has objected. The Republican leader has objected. That is why we have not fixed it. The farm bill. Why have we not finished the farm bill? Because the Republicans have objected. We wanted to come out here and finish it. We have made unanimous consent requests. We have an offer in front of them now with the amendments and so on, but they continue to object. I have said often, if farmers behaved the way this Congress--and especially the minority--behaves, they would not have a crop to plant because they would not get time. They would not have a crop to harvest if they got it planted because they would not have time. They would object. They would not milk the cows when the cows were fresh. I mean they would not have a crop or cows. You cannot put all these things off, nor should the Senate put them off. An energy bill. Well we tried to go to conference on an energy bill. There was an objection on the Republican side. So now we are hoping to try to be able to consider an energy bill that comes from the House. I hope we can round up the votes for it. But we never got to conference because of an objection on the Republican side. Now my colleague, as I listened this afternoon, said the proposal on the alternative minimum tax by the Democrats was more taxes on the American people, a substitution of taxes and to accommodate the growth of Government. Let me take both those proposals. This issue of the growth of Government is fascinating to me because this President has proposed more spending than any President in the history of this country, by far. We have in front of this body right now a proposal by this President for $196 billion, none of it paid for, to support the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, $196 billion, that is $16 billion a month, $4 billion a week, all of it added to the Federal debt, none of it paid for. We have someone over there stand up and say we are the big spenders, we are the ones who want to spend money, after the President has asked for $196 billion in additional spending that he wants. He said that $22 billion we wanted to invest in this country was too much money. We were $22 billion apart, with respect to the President's budget and our bipartisan approach on the appropriations committee. He said: No, that is too much money, that $22 billion to invest in our country's roads and bridges and health care and energy. That is too much money to invest in our country, but I want $196 billion, none of it paid for, all of it outside the budget, for my priorities, the President said. It is interesting to me that even as we are told by my colleague from Texas and others that this is growth in spending and that somehow the profligate spenders are on this side of the aisle, and I must say I have held now 12 hearings on the issue of waste, fraud, and abuse in the countries of Iraq and Afghanistan in the prosecution of these wars. Waste, fraud, and abuse by contractors, a massive amount of money shoveled out the door by this administration to contractors. Let me tell you what the result has been: A blind eye. No one seems to care. You want some nails? I know where there are 50,000 pounds of nails lying in the sand. You know where it is? In the country of Iraq, 50,000 pounds of nails lying in the sands of Iraq in a pile. You know why? Because the contractor ordered the wrong size. But it did not matter, throw them away, reorder. It is a cost-plus contract. The American taxpayers are picking up the tab. Do you want to see waste, fraud, and abuse? This is a hand towel provided to American soldiers. I ask unanimous consent to show the item on the floor of the Senate.

Mr. DORGAN. This was provided to American soldiers by the subsidiary of Halliburton Corporation. They ordered hand towels under their contract for the American soldiers. Well, guess what. The guy who ordered these was the order manager sitting in Kuwait. His name was Henry Bunting. He came and testified before my hearing. He said: I ordered these towels, but I ordered white towels, plain white towels. My supervisor said: You cannot do that. You need for our name, Kellogg, Brown and Root, the subsidiary of Halliburton, to be embroidered on the towel. He said: Well, that is going to triple the cost. He was told: It does not matter. It is a cost-plus contract. The American taxpayer pays for this. Katy bar the door. Spend whatever you like. The American taxpayer will pay for it. Two hundred and twenty million dollars to a contractor to rehabilitate health clinics in Iraq. The $220 million is gone. The contractor has it all, and there are 20 health clinics built. And a physician goes to the Health Minister and says: I want to see these 220 health clinics the American taxpayer paid for; the Health Minister of Iraq said: Well, those, you have to understand, are ``imaginary'' clinics. Seven thousand six hundred dollars a month to rent an SUV, $45 a case for a case of Coca-Cola, $85,000 trucks that have a flat tire and they are left beside the road to be torched in Iraq because they cannot fix a flat tire. American taxpayer is going to pay for all of that. It is a cost-plus contract. You have a truck with a plugged fuel pump, do not worry, leave it behind. Yeah, it will get torched, but the American taxpayer pays for that. So when I hear somebody talking about profligate spending, I say to them this: We have had four votes on the floor of the Senate to set up a Truman Committee of the type Harry Truman led dedicated to root out waste, fraud, and abuse. Four times we lost that vote. I am proud to tell you every Member of the Senate on this side of the Senate voted with me, but four times we have lost because there are some who talk a lot about spending but do not care how much is spent. This is the greatest waste, fraud, and abuse that has occurred in the history of this country with this profligate contracting. I have only described the tip of the iceberg. I could spend an hour out here telling you stories about the way the American taxpayer has been fleeced by the massive amount of money that is shoveled out the door and the $196 billion the President now wants; a substantial portion of it will also go to corporations and still no one is watching the store. Still no one is watching the store. In Iraq itself, $8.9 billion is missing. Think of that. I daresay no one is looking for it. Growth in government has a pretty hollow sound, it seems to me. The growth of spending, the waste, fraud, and abuse that is occurring under the nose of this administration, an administration that seems unconcerned, is the most significant waste, fraud, and abuse in the history of this country. We need to stop it. I will offer again the issue of a Truman commission to set up a special committee to investigate this and put an end to it. On the question of who pays taxes, my colleague says: This is fixing the alternative minimum tax, but you are charging some others additional taxes. Let me remind my colleague who is going to pay additional taxes. The person who ran a hedge fund last year and made $1.7 billion was the highest paid person in this country that we know. If you are adding that up, if someone asked: What is your monthly salary, that person would have to say, it is about $145 million a month. Some would ask: What do you earn in a day. About $4.5 million a day. That is a pretty big salary. Do you know something more interesting about that? The people earning at that level are paying an income tax rate in most cases of 15 percent. Think of that. There are no Americans going to work this morning working in ordinary jobs who are paying 15 percent income tax. I guarantee they are paying much more. One of the richest men in the world, Warren Buffett from Omaha, said in his offices they got permission from his employees to figure out what happened with respect to the percentage of taxes paid by the employees. It turns out in that office, the lowest tax rate paid in his office is paid by the second richest man in the world, Warren Buffett. He said that is an outrage. He said: I pay a lower percent of taxes from my income than my receptionist does. That is an outrage. Some want to correct that. I do. My colleague from Texas would say: You are going to hurt people engaged in capital accumulation. Well, it seems to me the issue is one of fairness. Why is it that one group of people who makes hundreds of millions gets to pay a 15-percent tax rate. But a whole lot of other people who work hard all day, take a shower at night because their labor is important, come home with a meager paycheck and haven't made much progress with their salary in recent years, they look at their tax bill and are paying 25, 30, 35 percent, plus their Social Security taxes. When my colleague talks about the growth of government, I say: Look in the mirror. When my colleague talks about taxes, I say: Look in the mirror and ask yourself whether you want a fair tax system. More important than that, I want to talk for a moment about priorities. When we are told that $196 billion ought to be made available, none of it paid for, for the President's priorities, and we don't have enough money for things at home, I ask a question about this young lady. Her name is Ta'shon Rain Littlelight. She is a beautiful young Indian girl from the Crow Reservation in Montana. Ta'shon was 5 years old. Ta'shon died. I held a hearing in Montana with Senator Tester on the Crow Reservation. This little girl's grandmother came to the hearing and held up this picture. She said Ta'shon died a very painful death, was in pain month after month. The kind of health care that should have been available to diagnose an illness which later became terminal was not available to this little girl. So she lived a painful last 3 months with a terminal illness and never got the health care she should have received. Not enough money for that, just not enough. Yes, this 5-year- old girl died. Not enough money for Indian health to deal with her. I have shown my colleagues a picture of a little girl named Avis Littlewind. She was 14. She is dead as well. She took her own life. She lay in bed 90 days in a fetal position, missing school, 90 days, and somehow it didn't raise alarms anywhere. She took her own life. No mental health treatment, no mental health treatment available on that reservation for that young lady. I have shown my colleagues a picture of a woman brought into an emergency room--a Native American woman, as well. She had an 8-by-10 piece of paper attached to her thigh by a piece of masking tape, being transported on a hospital gurney from the ambulance to the hospital with a piece of paper attached by masking tape to her thigh that said to the hospital: If you accept this patient, understand that the contract health care money is gone for the year. You accept this patient on your own dime and at your own risk, this patient with a heart attack. We don't have enough money for our domestic needs. The President says: No, I want $196 billion for my priorities. I have just described the massive waste, fraud, and abuse with respect to the priorities of contracting in Iraq. I care about Indian health care for a lot of reasons. I chair the Indian Affairs Committee. We have struggled desperately to try to get the money we need for Indian health. That money is not available. Why? Because investment at home is not the priority. The fact is, these issues are life or death for a little girl like Ta'shon Rain Littlelight. This Congress can do something about it. One hundred years from now, we will all be dead. But historians can understand who we were. They can look at what this country decided to do, what kind of decisions this Senate made by what we spent our money on. What did we think was important? Someone once asked the question, if you were charged with the task of writing an obituary for someone you had never met, and the only information you had was the check register from that person's checkbook, what could you write about that person? What you could write about that person is what you knew that person to value based on what they spent their money on. What did they invest in, contribute to? What was important to them? What was their value system? The same will be true when historians evaluate what was important to us, what our value system was. So we have this dispute these days with President Bush and those on the other side of the aisle who are loyally supportive of the President's priorities at this point. I am not suggesting that we shouldn't work together. In fact, all of us have reached out to say: Let's find a way to reach compromise. But on issue after issue after issue--the alternative minimum tax, the Energy bill, the farm bill, appropriations bills--we have had great difficulty getting anything other than a cold shoulder from the White House. Democracy works and this system of government works only with compromise. It is the only way it can work. The majority leader was here today once again seeking an opportunity to have unanimous consent requests agreed to or negotiated. The farm bill is an awfully good example. We have now sent to the other side a list of things that we hope perhaps they might agree to. And if they don't agree to that, to give us a list back. Let's find a way to have common lists of amendments to bring the farm bill to the floor and finish it. That is a reasonable thing to do. Yet we can't get that done, can't get the first baby step in the right direction. All we get is hot air, a lot of rhetoric, discussion such as I heard this afternoon that somehow the majority is a group of profligate spenders, and the majority wants to increase taxes. What a bunch of nonsense. It is completely at odds with the facts. It is as if they believe that there are not cameras here and this isn't being recorded. I was thinking, as I was sitting here, about a story I heard when I was a kid of Joseph Montgolfier from rural France. The story was in 1783. He was sitting in a big, overstuffed chair looking at his fireplace in his country home. And as he watched the fireplace he saw sparks and smoke go up the chimney. As he contemplated the smoke and the sparks, he thought: There is something taking the smoke and sparks up the chimney. That must be some sort of energy. And so several months later he was in a meadow in rural France with burlap bags he had dampened and straw he was burning and he fashioned the first balloon. And it was the first recorded evidence of powered flight. He discovered that hot air rises and used hot air to lift a balloon. I was thinking about hot air today because I listened to what is supposed to somehow pass for informed debate, and it is nothing but hot air. Why don't you pass the appropriations bills. OK. Let's try one. I object, he says. I don't understand that at all. Don't ask us to pass bills you are going to object to, if you are going to continue to stall and object. If you want us to pass legislation, appropriations, energy, AMT, if you want us to pass legislation, come to the floor this afternoon. Let's work together and work out a process by which we pass legislation that advances this country's interests. It is not as if we don't have significant challenges and significant interests. We do. No one in this Chamber can suggest somehow that with the price of oil bobbing at around $90 to $100 a barrel that we don't have serious challenges and a need to pass an energy bill. The House of Representatives is doing an energy bill. We did one in the Senate prior to this. We tried to go to conference, and there was objection. So we couldn't even get to conference. But we will, I think and I hope, have the Energy bill the House is going to pass and then send over to the Senate next week. There is an urgent need to have conservation, efficiency, and renewable energy, as well as continue to use fossil fuels without injuring the environment. We can do all of those things, and should, but we will need some cooperation. We are not asking for the Moon. We are just saying this country faces obvious challenges. No one party can do it alone. We have a 51-49 majority. All we need is some cooperation. All we need is for people who continue to come day after day after day with a two-word vocabulary, ``I object,'' to see if they can't add a few words and say ``I accept.'' Let's work together. Let's join together to get things done. That is all we are asking. We only have a few days left in this session, probably a maximum of 12 or 13 days. I would hope all of us who are paid to work here and do the public's business would want to make those days productive on behalf of the country. We live in a great place. We should give thanks every day for this opportunity. Let's find a way to address these issues, invest in this country's priorities, pass an energy bill that we can be proud of that makes us less dependent on foreign oil, pass an AMT bill that is going to help avoid increased taxes for a lot of Americans who do not deserve to have an increased tax bill. We can do all of those things if we work together. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for the Committee on Veterans' Affairs to be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, December 5, in order to conduct a hearing on the Nomination of James Peake to be Secretary of Veterans Affairs. The Committee will meet in room SDG-50 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, at 9:30 a.m. select committee on intelligence

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on December 5, 2007 at 3 p.m. to hold a closed conference on the fiscal year 2008 Intelligence Authorization.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Special Committee on Aging be authorized to meet today, Wednesday, December 5, 2007 from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Dirksen 106 for the purpose of conducting a hearing concerning the elderly who have been displaced by war, poverty, and persecution abroad.