Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am going to recognize my colleague from Pennsylvania in a moment, but let me describe very briefly what this amendment is. Over this past weekend, a pilot project was initiated by the Department of Transportation dealing with long-haul Mexican trucks coming into this country. My contention is, and I think it is buttressed by the inspector general's report that was issued on this subject, that they are nowhere near having the information that would give them the opportunity to initiate long-haul Mexican trucks coming into this country. We have, since the advent of the North American Free Trade Agreement, allowed Mexican trucks to come in within a 25-mile radius of the Mexican border.

Mr. DORGAN. I will be glad to yield.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Pennsylvania. The statements he made represent the crux of the matter, the issue of: Are there equivalent standards and is there equivalent enforcement with respect to trucking in Mexico, and would that then allow us to feel assured that long-haul Mexican trucks entering this country all across the United States would give us the same notion of safety we have with respect to the kinds of restrictions, the kinds of regulations we have in the United States? Mr. President, I am going to get some charts I will make a presentation with in a couple of moments. It will take me a minute to get the charts I want to show my colleagues. Let me, for the moment, 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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.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, my colleague from Pennsylvania said it well, I believe. Look, Mexico is a neighbor of ours to the South. We don't come to the floor, none of us would come to the floor of the Senate, under any condition, whether it is a trade debate or a debate about Mexican trucking, in a way that is pejorative with respect to our neighbor. But it is important to understand that we are two different countries and, in many ways, have very different approaches to some of these issues. With respect to trucking, we have not previously allowed long-haul Mexican trucking into this country. We have allowed a 25-mile periphery, or 25-mile diameter from the border, but we have not allowed long-haul trucking in this country from Mexico. The reason: There has not been a demonstration that there are equivalent standards and equivalent enforcement with respect to Mexican trucks and U.S. trucks. Now, we have built, over a long period of time, very significant and stiff requirements for long-haul trucks in this country. We require certain things of drivers. There are hours of service they can't go beyond, there are logbook requirements that are significant, there is equipment inspection that is very significant, there is reporting of accidents, and a whole series of things we have done in this country to try to understand and make certain the trucking is safe. Are there accidents from time to time? Sure. But it is not because we don't have in place significant regulatory capability, and it is not because we don't enforce it. We have regulations and we have enforcement. Now, I want to show my colleagues what happened last Thursday night. Last Thursday night, at 7:30 in the evening, the Department of Transportation received what is called the Office of Inspector General's Report. They have always wanted down at DOT to do a pilot program for long-haul Mexican trucks, but they have been prevented from doing that because I and others put a provision in law that says you can't proceed with this pilot project until you get the inspector general's report and see what the situation is. Well, they got it Thursday night. It is 42 pages. I have a copy of it, or we are getting a copy of it--42 pages. At 7:30 at night they received the inspector general's report, and at 8:30 at night they triggered the pilot project. I tell you what, I took Evelyn Woods' speed reading course in college. I remember taking that, and all of a sudden I was galloping along. I started at about 300 words a minute and pretty soon I was reading at about 1,200 words per minute. It was remarkable. But that is nothing compared to what they do at the Department of Transportation, apparently. This is speed reading par excellence. In 1 hour, they digested the inspector general's conclusions in the inspector general's report. Or maybe there is another answer. Maybe they had already decided what they were going to do, and it didn't matter very much. Let me tell you what the inspector general's report says. It says: While Department of Transportation officials inspecting Mexican truck companies took steps to verify the on-site data, we noted that certain information was not available to them. What kind of information wasn't available? Well, little things, apparently. They say: Specifically, information pertaining to vehicle inspections, accident reports, and driver violations. Excuse me, I am sorry, that represents the entire guts of what you need to know if you are going to assure the safety of the American driver as we begin to see long-haul Mexican trucks coming into this country--vehicle inspections, accident reports, and driver violations. Now, this morning I showed a news report of a tragic accident, an almost unbelievable accident that happened in Mexico. It is heartbreaking to understand the consequences of this. Two trucks collided. This is in today's paper. Two trucks collided. Thirty-seven died and 150 were injured. There was a blast, because one of the trucks was carrying explosives. This was in a mining area. One truck loaded with explosives crashed into another. It caused a crater of 65 feet, with 150 people injured and 37 people killed. Now, I don't know the specifics of this. I am only saying that at a time when we are speaking of safety issues, this was in the paper this morning. My guess is when you move explosives around in this country, particularly on our roads, we have very specific standards--vehicles in front with warning signs, vehicles behind. My guess is--and I don't know what those standards are--that we have very specific standards about the conditions under which you would do that. I don't know whether those standards exist in Mexico. I suspect we will learn about that. But I think the questions of the maintenance of the vehicles, these heavy, 18-wheel vehicles that come moving down our highways, are very important questions. They are not resolved. Let me go to page 2 of the inspector general's report. You don't have to go further than page 2. It says the following, that the Federal Motor Vehicle Group down at DOT ``agreed to develop a plan to check every truck every time.'' So they are going to check every truck every time in this pilot program, and they have certified 100 trucking companies to be able to come in, but the inspector general says, ``as of July, 2007,'' a month and a half ago, ``no coordinated site-specific plans to carry out such checks were in place'' and they stated they would have the plans then outlined by August 22, but we have not received any outlines or completed plans. ``In our opinion,'' they say, ``not having site specific plans developed and in place prior to initiating this project will increase the risk that project participants will be able to avoid the required checks.'' All of us have heard these things from the Federal agencies: Trust us; we are going to do it; we promise; we pledge. Somehow it does not get done. We have an inspector general's report that came out on Thursday evening at 7:30, and on Thursday evening at 8:30 the Department of Transportation wanted to trigger this report. I have found some things in this report that would give the Department some comfort. They are there. But you cannot avoid page 2. That provides no comfort at all. They say they are going to inspect every truck every time. They are not and cannot. You cannot avoid this: that the only information they have is information that comes from the trucking companies that wish to give it to them. Otherwise no information was available. No database was made available to them, and no information on these three critical issues: vehicle inspections, accident reports, and driver violations. That is the ball game. So the U.S. House of Representatives has already passed by voice vote a provision that says ``no money in this appropriations bill shall or can be used to continue this pilot project.'' With my colleague from Pennsylvania, Senator Specter, and others, I propose we do exactly the same thing. This amendment is identical to that which the House has passed. It makes sense to me. Will there be, at some point, because we have a trade agreement called NAFTA with Mexico, homogenization of rules and standards and so forth with respect to trucking? Maybe. Will at that point there be long-term trucking in this hemisphere from Canada to the United States to Mexico? Maybe. But there will not be, in my judgment, until we are satisfied as a country that the standards and enforcement of those standards, which is the most important issue--the enforcement of those standards with respect to Mexican long-haul trucking are at least equivalent to that which we have in this country. When an American citizen pulls up at a four-way stop sign or drives down a road, a two-lane or a four-lane road, it doesn't matter, and comes next to an 18-wheel truck, I believe most of them want to be assured that the inspections on that vehicle, the requirements on that driver, are the equivalent--if they are not from this country--are the equivalent to the standards we have already imposed. When that is the case, I think the consumers, the drivers, the American people will not have additional risk. Until that is the case they most certainly will have additional risk. Again, one can argue, I suppose--one can debate at great length this issue and talk about what has been done--the improvements, the progress. But one cannot ignore the fact that what we know about Mexican trucking with respect to vehicle inspections, with respect to drivers' records and accident reports, we are getting only from voluntary compliance from those companies that wish to provide it. That is the case. My amendment is very simple. I have more to say, but I think there are others who wish to speak. I will defer to them and then speak following that. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, my colleague is not accurate. They, in fact, did say they were going to inspect every time. Let me read the inspector general's report. After our visit to Federal--it is the FMCSA, one of these other acronyms in Government again. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. It is in DOT. So the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration agreed to develop a plan to check every truck every time. So that is exactly what they said. But the inspector general says: They are not going to do that. He says, as of July, there is no coordinated site-specific plan to carry out such checks. Then they said: Well, we will have it done by August 22. They said: We have not received any outlines or completed plans. In our opinion, not having site-specific plans in place prior to initiating the project will increase the risk project participants will be able to avoid the required checks. I would say to my colleague, I do not always dismiss this issue of inspections because I think sufficient inspections can be very helpful. But having been on the floor of the Senate now speaking about the issue of tainted products coming into this country, understanding whether it is trinkets or toys or shrimp or catfish or tires, car tires, or any number of pet foods, having spoken about them at some length and understanding that we inspect 1 percent of them. We inspect 1 percent, 99 percent of the vegetables and the trinkets and toys come in here without any inspection. Now we are told, if we would allow the Department of Transportation to proceed with this project, which they announced late at night with 1 hour of review of the inspector general's report, if we would only allow them to proceed, boy, they guarantee they will inspect. I am sorry. I think the evidence, with respect to the Federal Government, would suggest a different conclusion and a different result. I hope at some point we do not have these issues. You know, I mean I can give you lots of examples of what has promised to have been homogenized between the United States, Canada, and Mexico because of the trade agreement. But promises are cheap. I mean, there are lots of promises, and very few are kept with respect to these trade agreements. The trade agreements are similar to Swiss cheese, riddled with holes. This, in my judgment, is a circumstance where, if we decide to proceed to say: Under these conditions, we will allow immediately the Department of Transportation to move to this pilot project, I think we will make a mistake. We will make a mistake on behalf of those who are traveling on America's roads, who at some point, coming up to a four- way stop or a stoplight or meeting on a four-way highway, some vehicle that was not subject to the same rigor and the same inspections that exist in this country because they did not have the same enforcement, I think someone will be injured. That risk ought not be borne by the American consumer or the American driver. We ought to decide what is fair. You know, we have spent a century lifting this country's standards and demanding in this country. Upton Sinclair wrote that book and described at the start of the century, start of the last century, in Chicago, IL, at the big packing houses, how when they were slaughtering cattle and trying to control the rat population in the slaughterhouses, they put poison on bread loaves and things. They would kill the rats, and they would shove the dead rats and the bread loaves and the meat down the same chute, and out the other side of the chute would come some sausage and some steak and some meat, and off to the consumer. Well a tremendous public outcry resulted from that, and we developed regulations. So we have standards and regulations in a number of areas. This is but one area in which we have standards and regulations. They can be standards and regulations that are the difference between life or death. Because, when you are on America's roads and highways, safety is very important. My own view is, I think the Department of Transportation is making a mistake. I think all the promises and all the assurances will fall far short of what the American consumer and the American driver should expect to minimize risk and to maximize safety on America's roads. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, again, this is an amendment that deals with the issue of a pilot project on long-haul trucking into this country. The House of Representatives has already passed a piece of legislation that would prohibit that pilot project, and this amendment would do the same for the Senate. I will describe in some detail the reasons for the amendment, but I am pleased a cosponsor, Senator Specter, wishes to make a statement. I know he has a time constraint, so I will relinquish the floor so Senator Specter can make a statement.

Mr. DORGAN. First of all, I thank the Senator from Oklahoma. I think it is the case that the Department of Transportation--and I think this is true under most administrations--that whatever they want to do they will give you words of assurance that whatever they want to do they will do it right and make sure all the t's are crossed and the i's are dotted, but it is the case that the inspector general describes for us what the Department of Transportation says it will do, it is not doing. We do not have to debate that. It is a circumstance--let me go back to this chart, if I might, to describe what the inspector general says. It seems to me the key issue, as my colleague from Oklahoma suggests, if we have long-haul Mexican trucks on the roads in this country, the question is, when you are driving beside one or coming to a four-way stop and meeting one, does that 18-wheel truck have the same vehicle inspection, the same level of safety? Does the driver have the same hours of service, the same requirements that our drivers do? Do we have the same accident record and reports on that driver? The answer is no. So that in itself obliterates the question of are we ready to integrate that Mexican long-haul trucking experience into this country. It is true the Canadians are here. We have similar, nearly equivalent standards and enforcement with respect to Canada. Of course, an added issue with respect to Mexico is the language issue, and there is an English requirement. But the Department of Transportation folks, who really do this sort of thing, kind of roll their eyes, saying: That is fairly hard to enforce. But I do want to make this point. What the inspector general's report says, on two pieces--No. 1, on page 2, again, he said ``DOT said they will check every truck every time.'' That is part of the assurance. [B]ut in July 2007, no coordinated site-specific plans to carry out such checks were in place. FMCSA stated that it would have plans outlined by August 22, 2007, but [the inspector general said] we have not received any outlines or completed plans. In our opinion, not having site-specific plans developed and in place prior to initiating the demonstration project will increase the risk that project participants will be able to avoid the required checks. That is the dilemma. Also, in addition to that, the inspector general says: The DOT officials inspecting Mexican truck companies took steps to verify the on-site data. We noted that certain information was not available to them. Specifically, information pertaining to vehicle inspections, accident reports, and driver violations-- That is the ball game. If you do not have those, you don't have a base of information on which to make a judgment that this is going to be safe for the American people. My point is we have developed certain standards in this country. I know in some cases we have developed those standards after great debate. They represent regulations, and no one likes regulations. But in many cases these regulations are necessary in order to assure us of the kind of safety we would expect on the roads. We license drivers, we inspect trucks, and require certain things of trucks. We have certain standards which you are required to meet when you haul certain kinds of products. We do all those things. Is it perfect? No, not at all. But are they standards we understand, and are they standards we try to enforce in every case in every State? They are. Sometimes we make mistakes, sometimes the enforcement fails a bit, but that is a very different set of circumstances than trying to integrate that system with a country that while it has standards, does not have the same kind of enforcement. You do not have to take it from me, there are volumes of testimony in the Congress from previous hearings about the circumstances of the lack of enforcement of these standards in Mexico. Now, when these issues are resolved, you will not have amendments such as this on the floor of the Senate. But I do not see them resolved any time soon. I think the inspector general's report itself says they are not resolved. When you say, as they have said in the report released last Thursday night, the only information available was in the company records when the records were volunteered to them, otherwise there is no base of information. There is no base of data with which to judge these central questions: Are the trucks safe? Is the inspection standard rigorous? Does it meet anything near our standard? Do we have drivers who are going to enter this country with the same rigorous requirement with respect to hours of service, recordkeeping, logbooks, accident reports, all of those issues? The answer to that is no. It is clearly no. The answer to that is embedded in the inspector general's report. I, for the life of me, do not understand why, before the ink was dry Thursday night, 1 hour later the Department of Transportation decided we have to now have assimilated, apparently through some kind of speed reading of this IG's report, we now have to implemented this program which the House of Representatives, by voice vote, said: No funds should be allowed to be used for the program for the reasons I have described. I believe the Senate should take similar action. Finally, let me say this, I tried to say it earlier: Mexico is a neighbor of ours. Always we should treat neighbors with respect. We have a lot of things we do with Mexico. There are many areas in which we cooperate and agree. We have a trade agreement. I happen to agree with my colleague from Oklahoma. I did not vote for the trade agreement either. I think the trade agreement has been a horrible mistake. I am talking about NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. We turned a very small surplus with Mexico into a very large trade deficit with Mexico. We turned a moderate trade deficit with Canada into a very large trade deficit. So by any standard I think this has been a failure. But aside from the fact it is a failure, it does have a requirement to homogenize the standards and the ability to allow long-haul trucking into this country; but it does not do so in a way that allows us or requires us to obliterate our determination for what is safe for American drivers. That is why I am on the floor of the Senate hoping we will do what the House of Representatives has already done by voice vote and pass this amendment. It will come back. There will be another day. There will be a time, my guess is, when there will not be objection to this because the standards are homogeneous, the standards Americans have are the same and the enforcement is reasonable. We believe the enforcement to be significant enough to provide significant safety without additional risks to American drivers. That is not the case today.

Mr. DORGAN. I would be happy to yield.

Mr. DORGAN. Well, it is interesting to me in trade discussions. For example, Mexico has pretty decent environmental standards. Someone said: Well, you have big environmental standards in Mexico. Yes, the problem is they are not enforced at all. So it doesn't matter to me what the standards required are, that is why I have emphasized enforcement. What are the standards and are the standards enforced? In most cases the answer is, with respect to Mexico, they are not enforced to the same degree we enforce the standards in this country. I do not believe you can make the case that there is similarity between the Canadian enforcement of good standards with respect to truck safety and the Mexican lack--I don't think you can make the same case it exists in identical fashion with Canada or Mexico. I think the evidence is quite clear the standards, with respect to Mexico, are lower, especially with respect to its enforcement. The reason I say that is this: If you had standards in Mexico that were enforced, and therefore you had knowledge of the issue of vehicle inspections, you had knowledge of accident reports and driver violations, there would be a database in Mexico by which you could access the data and make an evaluation of the data. Our inspector general has already determined no such database exists.

Mr. DORGAN. I would be happy to respond.

Mr. DORGAN. Well, it is interesting. We have some experience in that as well. Let me use the experience of meat; meat from Canada and meat from Mexico. We allow, because they have equivalent standards and equivalent inspections, we believe, for meat to leave a Canadian plant and to come into this country uninspected at our border. We allow that because we believe there are standards and enforcement that are equivalent to the standards of this country. I have spoken on the floor, and my colleague, I think, was not here at the time, but I held up a, I think a 2-pound piece of T-bone steak one day and said: Can anybody tell me where this came from? Because meat is not labeled, it should be, but it is not. I said: Can you tell me if it came from the processing plant, the slaughter plant in Hermosillo, Mexico. Because if it did, I wish to read to you the one time an inspector went there. It was a plant that was allowed to slaughter cattle and produce meat shipped into our country. One inspector showed up one time. I read the report of the inspector on the floor of the Senate. Sufficient to say, no one would want to purchase meat from that plant. It was promptly closed down, the ownership changed, the plant is now sending meat back into this country. I do not believe it has been inspected again. My point is the requirement to inspect, with respect to slaughterhouses in Mexico, is one example. My colleague says: Well, if we would send people down to inspect in Mexico, would that give you comfort? Well, we are told by the Department of Transportation what will give us comfort is this, that they will check every truck every time. The problem is, we are told this by the inspector general: They are not going to inspect every truck every time. Yes, they tell you that. That is what they claim. But here is the reality. They have no plans, no outlines to inspect every truck every time. They have no site-specific plans developed and in place prior to initiating this project. The risk is, the project participants will be able to avoid the required checks. So you know, once again, there is a great variation between what the Federal agency says and what it is willing to do. So my colleague and others might be comforted by the fact that say: We will go there, we will do those rigorously. I am not so comforted because we have had plenty of experience with that.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the Senator from Ohio has spoken often about trade issues, and I have as well. We have talked a lot about the issue of workers, the impact of free-trade agreements on workers in this country, and the downward pressure on their income and the outsourcing of American jobs. We have talked a lot about its impact on the environment; being able to produce, for example, in China and pump effluents into the air and chemicals into the water and encouraging corporations to move to produce where they can hire people for 20 cents an hour, 30 cents an hour, and pump their pollutants into the air and the water unimpeded. We have not talked previously much about this issue of protecting consumers. I would just say to my colleague that I spoke last week about a young boy, a 4-year-old boy, who swallowed a little heart- shaped charm--a little heart-shaped charm--and died. Why? Because that heart-shaped charm was made of 99 percent lead coming from China. Well, we know the impact of lead on human health. Ben Franklin described that. It is not something that is new. Yet we have these products now coming into this country with lead because it is cheap. It is bright. So we have all of this lead coming in. My colleague describes the circumstance now as a ``race to the bottom'' with respect to consumer standards. We have always known that is what is going on with these free-trade agreements with respect to labor standards and environmental standards. But is it also the case--I would ask the Senator from Ohio is it also the case that this is a race to the bottom with respect to consumer standards, by passing these free-trade agreements and doing nothing to insist that the conditions abroad are the conditions that we require at home with respect to what is used in the production is safe for consumers, and so on?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, if the Senator would yield further for a question, it was, I believe, about a century ago when Upton Sinclair wrote the famous book that launched an effort in this country that decided to protect consumers. He was describing conditions in the slaughterhouses. Once people read what he described, they insisted-- they demanded--protection for consumers. He talked about the rats in the slaughterhouses and how they would take pieces of bread, loaves of bread, slices of bread, and lace them with poison and lay them around so that the rats would eat the poison and die, the bread would poison the rats. It was all shoved down the same hole, and out the other hole came meat to be sold to the American consumer. There was a demand on behalf of the consumer to stand up for the protection of the American consumer. So over a century, we lifted standards in this country to protect Americans, to protect consumers. Oh, I know some consider it regulation which is, in their minds, something we should never do, but we regulate to protect people. It is the case with the global economy. I would ask my colleague from Ohio, it is the case, is it not, with the global economy that if you don't have rules that keep pace with the galloping global economy, you see downward pressure on American wages? Because it is unfair to workers--to ask a worker from Ohio or North Dakota to compete with someone who will work in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia, or China to work for 20 cents an hour; it is unfair to those of us who care about the environment--and there is only one fishbowl. We all live in the same fishbowl, and we breathe the China haze in the United States--and it is also unfair to consumers who believe that for over a century we raised standards to protect them and now we discover we have been engaged in a race to the bottom to obliterate those standards by those who are able to produce abroad. Is this not the case?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am going to offer an amendment to the underlying bill. My understanding is there is an amendment pending. I can withhold the amendment. I have not yet filed it. Let me at least describe for this moment the amendment, and then I will file it and offer it with the consent of the chairman and the ranking member. In this morning's newspaper there is a story of a great tragedy in Mexico. It says: 37 die in Mexico truck blast accident. Monterrey, Mexico. Thirty-seven people killed when a truck loaded with explosives crashed into another truck in northern Mexico, Mexican media reported on Monday. About 150 people were injured by the blast, which left a crater of up to 65 feet in diameter in the road. Most of the dead were bystanders, including three newspaper journalists who had rushed to the scene of the crash and the truck exploded, the paper said. That area is a mining State where explosives are used in the coal industry. Why is that something I raise today? Well, we also had something that happened last week that was pretty unbelievable. The inspector general issued a report, and the report is titled: ``Issues Pertaining to the Proposed NAFTA Cross-Border Trucking Demonstration Project.'' What this means is they have issued a report on whether we ought to allow long- haul Mexican trucks to come into this country and begin trucking in our country. Well, we then have an accident in Mexico of two trucks. Tragically, 37 people are killed, 150 are injured, with a crater in the highway of 65 feet. And then we have the Bush administration that last week rushed--yes, I say rushed--to approve the pilot project of some 100 trucking firms to do long-haul trucking in our country. The inspector general's report, which I have, is 40-some pages long. I had previously cosponsored an amendment with some of my colleagues saying that they had to wait to allow long-haul truckers from Mexico to do long-haul trucking in our country until they could have an inspector general's report which analyzed the advisability of this pilot program. So they could not proceed with the pilot program despite the fact that they were itching to do it. But they were impeded from proceeding until they got the inspector general's report. The inspector general's report came in at 7:30 last Thursday evening. At 8:30 the same evening--presumably having read 40-some pages--the attorneys and the administrator at the Department of Transportation announced that the pilot program would begin. So in 1 hour, the Department of Transportation evaluated this inspector general's report--or maybe not. Let me describe some of what this report is about. First, the inspector general's finding--the inspector general's finding, Department of Transportation only looking at records that the Mexican trucking companies make ``available.'' Here is what it says: While the Department of Transportation officials inspecting Mexican trucking companies took steps to certify onsite data, we noted that certain information was not available to them. Specifically, information pertaining to vehicle inspections, accident reports, and driver violations maintained by Mexican authorities was not available to the Department of Transportation. I will say that again. This is very stunning, almost unbelievable. The Department of Transportation says it has now evaluated all of this--the pertinent information--and has decided now to trigger the pilot project by which Mexican long-haul trucks will be moved into this country, but they weren't able to verify the onsite data. What weren't they able to verify? Well, vehicle inspections, accident reports, and driver violations. Why am I concerned about this whole issue? Because I know--and I think most people know--that you don't have the same circumstance in Mexico with respect to truck safety, with respect to requirements, regulations, and inspections; you don't have the same enforcement with respect to driver standards, hours of service, and all of those related issues. The practices are not equivalent. So if we move a trucking fleet into this country from Mexico that doesn't have equivalent safety requirements and standards, and drivers who have not been required to meet the same standards and have enforcement to the same standards, then there is no question but that we put at risk drivers on America's streets, roads, and highways. That is a fact. Yet this administration is so anxious to move that they took only 1 hour to evaluate the IG report. They tell us: We have all this under control. Don't worry, be happy; it doesn't matter what truck you are driving next to ours or what truck you are going to meet at a four-way stop sign; it is all under control--except they weren't able to get information about vehicle inspections. That means they weren't able to get that information on Mexican trucks. They weren't able to get information about accident reports. They weren't able to get information about driver violations. What were they able to get? Is this one of those ``trust us'' things? I think we have had enough of these ``trust us'' claims. How about verifying just a bit some of the basic information we need to know and understand before we decide to allow Mexican long-haul trucks beyond that 25-mile perimeter they have been allowed to drive since NAFTA. Well, as I indicated, it took this administration all of 1 hour to approve this pilot project. Let me provide the next chart that shows the key issue. The inspector general's report doesn't resolve these issues. You would think the Department of Transportation, having some sort of epiphany at 8:30 in the evening, must have felt everything was resolved. If they read the IG report, here is what it says: Inconsistent data used to monitor Mexican commercial driving convictions in the U.S. Lack of coordination with the Department of Transportation offices to ensure that drug and alcohol testing issues are addressed. Lack of Federal motor vehicle policy to check and record vehicle identification numbers during an inspection. Inadequate Mexican bus inspection coverage during busy periods. I went to page 2 of the IG report. Page 2 on the report is a response to what the administration said. They said, if we can allow these long- haul Mexican trucks in, we are going to inspect every one of them under the pilot project. If we get one coming North, we are inspecting it. We are going to put an inspector on the vehicle. We are going to inspect the vehicle. Here is what the IG report says: They agreed to develop a plan to check every truck every time. But as of July 2007--that is a little less than a month ago--no coordinated site-specific plans to carry out such checks were in place. Federal Motor Vehicle Carrier said it would have plans outlined by August 22, but the IG says we have not received any outlines or completed plans. In our opinion, not having site-specific plans developed and in place prior to initiating the demonstration project will increase the risk that project participants will be able to avoid the required checks. I will not read that all again. It means this: Despite the promises that they are going to inspect every truck every time, they don't have plans in place to do that. Those are pie-in-the-sky promises. We have had a bellyful of them. Time after time, they say here is what we are going to do and we commit, trust us. On this subject, the fact is we should not trust anybody. We should say show us the plan that is going to guarantee the next time you show up at a four-way stop, or you are driving down a highway in this country, and you are confronted by a truck that came across our border from Mexico, that that truck has met an equivalent safety standard as an American truck, and that that driver and his or her record of service and the conditions of service and the hours of service are equivalent to what you would expect with an American driver. If that is not the case, then there ought not to be a pilot project at this point. I only referred to page 2 of the report. As I indicated, they took a little less than 1 hour last Thursday evening to decide to approve the pilot project after they were prevented from doing so until this report came out. It is clear to me that they either didn't read the report or didn't understand the report, because this report doesn't suggest at all that what has been put into place represents any kind of safety or security for American drivers when confronting a Mexican long-haul truck coming across the border. Do I allege that every truck that will come across is unsafe, that every American should shudder at the risk of pulling up to an intersection with them? That is not my point. We have two different standards with respect to the enforcement of safety requirements, with respect to trucks and drivers in Mexico versus the trucks and drivers in the United States. To decide at this moment that we are going to merge these systems without providing the assurance to the American people they are going to do what they say they are going to do--inspect every truck every time--that is a decision by the Department of Transportation to provide extraordinary risks they should not provide for American drivers. Let me again put up a chart that shows three issues on which you would have to know, it seems to me, at least the body of information if you were serious about saying we are going to implement the NAFTA, which itself--by the way, in my conversation a few moments ago with the Senator from Ohio, we could have described our trade failures, and the hood ornament of that failure is certainly NAFTA, an agreement we reached with Mexico and Canada. At the time, we had a very small trade surplus with Mexico. We have turned that into a very large trade deficit with Mexico now. We had a modest trade deficit with Canada, and we have now turned that into a very large one. By all accounts and standards, NAFTA has been a huge failure for this country. It ought to be, in my judgment, renegotiated, but those who chant ``free trade'' and believe that any trade agreement is better than no trade agreement continue to say NAFTA was a success, despite all of the evidence. It is very hard to describe success as very large and growing trade deficits. NAFTA, apparently, indicated that we should integrate our trucking and, therefore, Mexican trucks should be allowed into this country for long- haul capability. But in order to do that, we would harmonize the safety standards in Mexico and the United States with respect to equipment and drivers. So the Department of Transportation, anxious as it is to allow long- haul Mexican trucking into this country right now and, again, with a pilot program right now, they have tried to assure us there is no risk, no problem, be happy. The problem is the very IG report they rely on to trigger the pilot project, in my judgment, tells them they should not do it at all; there is substantial risk. You would need to have a body of information about what is happening with respect to Mexican trucking in order to make this judgment. What kind of information did they get? They didn't get accident reports because there wasn't any central repository of information for the reports. They didn't get vehicle inspections. They didn't have that information. They didn't get driver violations--with one exception; that exception was the Mexican companies that decided voluntarily to provide the information. They have that--whatever that is. It is not very much, but they have that. That doesn't represent any information that is validated by anybody. It is unbelievable to me that they would rush off and--I know this about transportation, but it seems to me if anybody should be arrested for speeding here, it is those who have decided they are going to rush and speed to approve this pilot project less than 1 hour after the IG report comes out, at a time when the IG says clearly they have not been able to get the information you would need. Again, on page 2 of the IG report, I will say it again because it is central to what I am saying on the floor of the Senate, the Department of Transportation says they will inspect every truck every time with respect to this pilot project. Let me say, again, here are the facts. They agreed to develop a plan to check every truck every time. But as of July 2007, a month ago, no coordinated site-specific plan to carry out such checks was in place. They stated they would have plans outlined by August 22 at that point. That is about 2 weeks ago. But the IG says that ``we have not received any outlines or completed plans.'' ``In our opinion,'' they say, ``not having site-specific plans developed and in place prior to initiating the demonstration project will increase the risk that project participants will be able to avoid the required checks.'' What the IG is saying is if you don't have a plan in place to inspect every truck every time, you increase the risk that these participants will be able to avoid the required checks. I think this sets us up for failure, but, more importantly, it imposes substantial additional risks, I believe, for American drivers. First and foremost, with respect to our trade agreements, they ought to be able to protect this country's economic interests and our interests with respect to safety. I don't believe the actions by the Department of Transportation have done that. I don't believe the inspector general's report suggests that standard has been met. For that reason, I will offer an amendment that is identical to the amendment previously passed by the House that will prohibit the use of funds to continue this pilot project. Thursday, at 8:30 in the evening, 1 hour after the inspector general's report was published, the administration announced they were embarking on the pilot project. I don't know exactly where they are at this moment on it, but wherever that happens to be, the House of Representatives has already said no, and I believe the Senate, in support of my amendment, will do exactly the same thing. There is an amendment pending on the floor of the Senate. I will shortly file my amendment, and I will call it up at an appropriate time. But I wish to make a comment on another matter very briefly, if I may. Iraq General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker are now testifying before the House of Representatives. Most of us know from this morning's news reports and from the expectations last week what the report will be today. The report will be as existed now for a good many years, longer than the Second World War has lasted. That is how long we have been engaged in the war in Iraq. The report will be: Things are getting better; there is marginal improvement; things are uneven; we can't leave; we have to stay. That is going to be the report. We understand. I wish to raise the question again, however, that I think is being missed with the Petraeus report and the Crocker report, and missed by Congress as well. Last week, we were told that we received a message from Osama bin Laden. Osama bin Laden, in a ``safe and secure'' hideaway--and I use the words ``safe and secure'' in quotes because that is what our intelligence officials have indicated to us--in a safe and secure hideaway, we are receiving messages from the leadership of al-Qaida. The last National Intelligence Estimate, just months ago, indicated that the greatest threat to our country and our homeland is the leadership of al-Qaida and that they are ensconced in a safe or secure hideaway. My question is this: Despite all of the reports we will now hear on the subject of Iraq, does it meet any kind of test of faith or good strategy that we should be going door to door in Baghdad in the middle of a civil war at a time when those planning additional attacks against our country are in safe and secure havens in northern Pakistan, at a time when the National Intelligence Estimate says that the greatest threat to our homeland--this is not me making this up--the greatest terrorist threat to this country and our homeland is from the leadership of al-Qaida, and they are planning new attacks, does it make sense there is a spot on Earth that ought to be safe and secure for them? Isn't it the case there ought not be 1 square inch on this planet 6 years after 9/11 that the leadership of al-Qaida can plan and plot attacks against our country? I guess that is the case because we are in the middle, once again, of civil war in Iraq and have been for a long while, and we will, if we agree there shall not be a change in course, remain in Iraq for some long while. My own view is we are going to leave Iraq. The question is not whether; the question is how and when. It makes little sense to me not to have as a priority, not to have as the priority in our country to eliminate the greatest terrorist threat to our country, and that, according to the National Intelligence Estimate, is the leadership of al-Qaida. Some will make the point that there is al-Qaida in Iraq, and that is true. That is not the central war on terror, however, and Iraq is not the central war on terror. Iraq is more sectarian violence. The National Intelligence Estimate tells us that as well. All of us hope for the same thing. We want this country to find its way; we would wish that the leadership of Iraq will be able to provide strong leadership, resolve the questions, and then at some point find a way to provide for its own security. Saddam Hussein has been executed; he is dead. The people of Iraq have a new constitution; they voted for it. The people of Iraq have a new government; they voted for that government. The next question for the people of Iraq is whether they have the capability and the will to provide for their own security because this country cannot do that for many more years, and we do that at the expense of not eliminating the most significant threat to our country, according to the National Intelligence Estimate, and that threat is the leadership of al-Qaida that sits now in a safe haven, a safe and secure place. I say again, as I conclude, that even as we have testimony today before the House and tomorrow before the Senate, our goal ought to be to fight the terrorists first, and those terrorists, according to the National Intelligence Estimate, plan additional attacks against our homeland even now from safe and secure places. There ought not be 1 square inch on this planet that should be safe and secure for the leadership of the terrorist organizations plotting attacks against our country. That ought to be our priority. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me take 2 minutes. My colleague is a distinguished member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, but I want to observe this point because it is important. We will certainly have an Iraq discussion late this week or next week. It will be, I hope, a discussion that represents the best of what both sides have to offer rather than the worst of each. When we get the best of both, the country has benefited. I hope and expect that will be the case. But I do wish to make this point: The training camps have already been reconstituted. Last week, I was on the floor of the Senate describing in three different pieces of evidence that Osama bin Laden, Ayman al- Zawahiri, and others have already reconstituted training camps, which represents a problem. Last week in Denmark, they picked up terrorists. Guess where they were trained. Partly in Afghanistan but mostly in Pakistan. And the expectation is they were trained in those training camps which have been reconstituted because the leadership of al-Qaida does, in fact, have a safe haven. I have great respect for my colleague, and I do not want to pursue a lengthy debate, but I want to say that the leadership of al-Qaida has largely been given safe haven. We took our eye off the ball. There was a period of time when it didn't matter where they were. They have reconstituted their training bases, and we are starting to see the bitter fruits of that effort, and we will see more. It is why I say I believe it is very important, as a matter of national strategy, to fight the terrorists first. I will speak later about the question of what was in Iraq when we went there. At this point, I think all of us as a country believe that if that is the greatest terrorist threat to our country, the leadership of al-Qaida, the elimination of that leadership and the elimination of any safe and secure haven must be the most important goal for this country. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Am I recognized for 20 minutes under morning business?

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me talk for a moment about the issue of what is our national security. This morning, as I was getting ready for work, I saw another television advertisement put together by people who have accumulated some money and put ads on television. The advertisement is one that says: We have to stay in Iraq. We can't surrender in Iraq. We have to finish the job in Iraq. It says they attacked us on 9/11. The whole implication of the ad is, we are in Iraq because we are fighting the people who attacked us on 9/11. It is the same dishonesty we have heard for a long time. Let me describe again our national security interests and who attacked us on 9/11. We know who did because they bragged about it. They boasted about attacking America. It was Osama bin Laden, al- Zawahiri, and others, the leadership of al-Qaida. And where are they? Are they in Iraq? No, they are in Pakistan, we believe, somewhere between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Let me describe the connection of all of this and our national security interests. This morning in the newspaper we see that in Copenhagen, Denmark, the police have arrested some terrorists engaged in a terrorist plot with links to al-Qaida. They say these terrorists had traveled to Pakistan for training, and the case against them involves links to militants in Pakistan. Separately, last night a German Federal prosecutor had three suspects picked up and arrested late Tuesday. The suspects were members of a terrorist organization, presumably with connections to al-Qaida. There is evidence the men had trained in camps in Pakistan. So let's understand, whether this is a surprise to any of us. Here is what we learned in February of this year. Senior leaders of al-Qaida operating from Pakistan over the past year have set up a band of training camps in the tribal region near the Afghan border, according to American intelligence and counterterrorism officials. There was mounting evidence that Osama bin Laden, and his deputy, al-Zawahiri, had been steadily building an operations hub in the mountainous Pakistani tribal area of northern Waziristan. That is from the New York Times, quoting top intelligence sources. In June: Al-Qaida regroups in new sanctuary on Pakistan border. While the U.S. presses its war against an insurgency linked to al-Qaida in Iraq, Osama bin Laden's group is recruiting, regrouping, and rebuilding in a sanctuary along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to senior U.S. military and intelligence officials. The threat from the radical Islamic enclave in Waziristan is more dangerous than from Iraq, which President Bush and his aides call the ``central front'' of the war on terrorism, according to some current and former U.S. officials and experts. The National Intelligence Estimate from July of this year says: Al- Qaida is and will remain the most serious terrorist threat to our homeland. We assess the group has protected or regenerated key elements of its homeland attack capability, including a safe haven in Pakistan's federally administrated tribal areas. Is it a surprise that we pick up the newspaper this morning and see terrorists picked up in Germany, threatening to launch attacks against the largest U.S. base in Europe, and that we read that they trained in Pakistan, likely at an al-Qaida reconstituted training camp? Is that a surprise to us? We are engaged in a war in Iraq. The television commercial this morning, my colleague this morning, and others, continue to say that is the central fight of the war against terrorism. It is not. It is a civil war. There is widespread sectarian violence. Yes, there are some terrorists there. Yes, al-Qaida is there. But that is not the central part of what al-Qaida has been about. Al-Qaida did not have a presence in Iraq prior to 9/11. The television commercial this morning says they attacked us on 9/11. Implying that this is why we are in Iraq fighting that war ignores a whole body of truth, the body of truth I have just described. Those who attacked us and boasted of killing innocent Americans on 9/11 are now in a secure hideaway or a safe haven somewhere in Pakistan, not in Iraq. I ask this question of the President and the Congress: Why should there be any square inch on the face of this planet that is safe or secure for the leaders of the organization that boasted about attacking America? Why should there be any place on this Earth that is safe or secure for those who the intelligence estimate now tells us are plotting new attacks against our country? Why are they safe and secure? Because this country is engaging door to door in Baghdad in the middle of a civil war. That is a fact. We have people say: You can't surrender. If you try to redeploy, you are surrendering. I say this: What we ought to do is redeploy and understand that our policy is to fight the terrorists first. When we talk about redeploying, we are not talking about not being able to fight terrorists, even in Iraq, to the extent they exist there. We are talking about leaving enough troops for training of Iraqi forces, about fighting terrorists who exist in Iraq, and about force protection. But you redeploy the troops to fight the terrorists first. Why on Earth should we be debating in the Senate, and the President be in Australia today talking to his counterpart in that country about continuing the fight in Iraq, when Osama bin Laden, al-Zawahiri, and others are planning additional attacks against this country? While, at the same time, bin Laden and his henchmen are ``safe'' and ``secure'' in or near Pakistan? That is unbelievable. We need to change tactics. We need a change in course. When we pick up the paper this morning and read about terrorists being picked up in Germany, plotting attacks against the largest American military base in Europe, and they are trained in Pakistan, likely at an al-Qaida training camp, we are experiencing the fruits of bad policy and dishonest representation about where the fight exists. The central fight against terrorism, it seems to me, is to eliminate the leadership of al-Qaida, the very leadership who boasted about killing innocent Americans on 9/11 and the very leadership who our National Intelligence Estimate now tells us are planning additional attacks against our homeland. We need a change in course. If we stand here and debate this question about, well, if you redeploy, change course here or there, you are surrendering, that is not looking truth in the eye at all. The television commercial I saw this morning--put together, I am sure, by some big money interests that are suggesting somehow we are in Iraq because they attacked us on 9/11--is the perpetration of the same dishonesty we have seen for years. We have had soldiers in Iraq longer than we were fighting in the Second World War. I want Iraqis to be free. Saddam Hussein is gone. He is dead. He was executed. They now have a new Constitution and a new Government. Now the question is, Will the Iraqi people have the will to provide for their own security? We are going to leave Iraq. The question is not whether; it is when. We cannot keep 160,000 American troops in the middle of a civil war in Iraq for any lengthy period of time, especially while Osama bin Laden and al-Zawahiri are in the mountains training additional terrorists whom they then send to Germany and perhaps to our country. We have to change course. That is a fact. I am not giving you my opinion. I am telling you what the National Intelligence Estimate tells us about the greatest threat to our country. The greatest threat to our homeland, according to the National Intelligence Estimate, is the leadership of al-Qaida, and they are in a safe and secure haven, and they are planning additional attacks against our country. If one does not understand that by reading that which we should read, go back to just prior to 2001 and take a look at the headline on the PDF briefing given to the President in August 2001: ``Bin Laden determined to strike in the U.S.'' It is time we read and it is time we understand. Regrettably, that has not been the case recently. I hope it will as we turn to this debate in a serious way. The change in course has to be, in my judgment: Fight the terrorists first. That ought to be this country's policy. That was not why I came to the floor of the Senate today, but I was inspired to remember the television commercial I saw the first thing this morning and then inspired by my colleague's statement about Iraq, once again.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. If I might, in a separate part of the Record, I wish to talk about something that showed up in the newspapers this morning as well. I wish to tell you first--this was not in the papers this morning--about something that was a while back. I wish to tell you about a 4-year-old boy named Jarnell Brown. Jarnell Brown was from Minnesota. Jarnell is now dead. Jarnell is dead because he was visiting a friend's house, and he swallowed a small heart-shaped charm that came on a bracelet that came with a pair of Reebok tennis shoes. It turns out that little charm, that little jewelry charm contained 99 percent lead, and it killed Jarnell Brown. It was 99 percent lead. It came from China, which probably should not surprise us. It suggests, once again, in this global economy--in which we decide we are going to produce elsewhere and ship here, after we spent a century developing standards to protect workers, protect consumers, the kinds of things Americans basically expect to be protected for and from--we decide we are going to outsource all that so we will have all these products made elsewhere and shipped into our country. So we get tennis shoes, and we get a charm bracelet, and we get a heart attached to the end of the bracelet that is 99 percent lead, and the young boy accidentally swallows that little heart and dies from lead poisoning. Now, let me talk a bit about this morning's news. Mattel is announcing this morning a product recall. They are recalling 848,000 Chinese-made Barbie and Fisher-Price toys that have excessive amounts of lead. Toys are being pulled from store shelves, including Barbie kitchen and furniture items, Fisher-Price train toys, and Bongo Band drums. These are innocent enough looking products. But the surface paint on these products contains excessive levels of lead, prohibited under our Federal laws because of the serious threat they pose to human health, particularly the health of young children. I do not suggest that Mattel has any response this morning other than being heartsick and heartbroken over this situation. Mattel is a good company. But what has happened to Mattel has happened to many other companies. They outsource production and then ship the product into this country, and there is no determination of whether those products are produced under the same conditions we would require in this country. We only inspect 1 percent of the products that come into this country. So whether it is food or toys or jewelry or other things we require certain kinds of standards with respect to its production here, yet there are no such standards required with respect to production elsewhere. Oh, I know the people who outsource these contracts will say: Well, we require this and that of them. But there is no enforcement, and everyone knows that. Let me describe a few of the circumstances. I talk about the lead paint. As we know, lead paint is used because it is bright, durable, flexible, fast drying, and, above all, it is cheap. So the Chinese, we now know from products that are being pulled from the shelves, have used lead paint. They mass produce lead paint and coloring agents such as lead chromate that are generally cheaper than other pigments, so we are now seeing the effect of that on store shelves. This poor 4-year-old boy felt the effect in the most extreme way. He died. It is not just China, and it is not just toys. FDA inspectors recently intercepted shipments of black pepper with salmonella from India, intercepted crab meat from Mexico too filthy to eat, and produce from the Dominican Republic was stopped 813 times last year for containing traces of illegal pesticides--this is a country with whom we just signed a trade agreement. Now let me describe--even as we have galloped globally to outsource production but not to develop and maintain the protections for the American consumers on the products coming in--the Food and Drug Administration. Under the Bush administration, the FDA's safety mission I think has been substantially reduced. In fact, the FDA is planning to close 7 of its 13 drug safety labs, and it would close or consolidate a number of its 20 regional offices. The trend has been to inspect fewer, not more, imports into this country under the administration. The FDA tests, we are told, about 1 percent of imported food. Last year, the FDA took 50 percent fewer samples for testing from imported seafood than it did in the year previous. The issue is not just China, but China has been in the news more than any other country. Let me describe the circumstance of China because that has become the most notorious offshore platform. Toys, dolls, games, for all of these products China ranks as our No. 1 source of imports; fish, seafood, China is No. 1. Tires, China is No. 1; also for pet food, and toothpaste; and the list goes on. In fact, we have such a giant trade deficit with China--this chart shows what is happening with our trade relationship with China, which I think demonstrates an incompetence that is almost breathtaking for this country, an incompetence with respect to the negotiating of trade agreements and an incompetence with respect to enforcing trade agreements. But aside from that, I describe a circumstance here, and we are seeing it now every day in the newspapers, of the danger to U.S. consumers. Well, pet food--how many Americans had their pets die as a result of contaminated pet food coming into this country? It was discovered that animal food, pet food from China contained substances that are dangerous to pets. Sixty million packages of pet food under 150 brands were recalled after it was found that ingredients in pet food could be dangerous to pets. Seafood--the U.S. FDA banned the import of five types of farm-raised fish and shrimp from China after they were found to contain unsafe drugs, some of which cause cancer. Now, I am telling you what they have found and banned, and I am telling you they have only inspected 1 percent. Toothpaste, Chinese-made toothpaste sold in dollar stores--the FDA has warned consumers to throw out any toothpaste made in China. In fact, they not only found some of the toothpaste was contaminated with a dangerous ingredient, they found other toothpaste that was contaminated with the ingredient and did not list the ingredient on the toothpaste box. Toys and jewelry--I mentioned Mattel. There are others. Mattel has had three very substantial recalls of Chinese-made toys in the last 5 months. Again, my guess is the executives of that company are heartsick about what is happening. But it is a result of exporting manufacturing and not having the protections with respect to the conditions under which that product is manufactured--the protections for American consumers that we have always come to expect. I did not mention with respect to toys, the RC2 Corporation recalled 1.5 million of these little toys, Thomas & Friends from its Wooden Railway product line, made by Hansheng Wood Products Factory in China using lead paint. According to a spot check recently, it was announced 20 percent of Chinese-made jewelry contains potentially poisonous chemicals, including lead. Automobile tires--a tire importer called Foreign Tire Sales recalled 255,000 Chinese-made tires in August because they lacked a safety feature that prevents tread separation. I do not need to go through much more but only to say this: These are real serious issues. I started by talking about a young 4-year-old boy named Jarnell Brown. He died. There are real consequences to these issues. We spent a century developing standards in this country to protect workers, to protect consumers, and we built something very special and very important in this country. Now, under a galloping global economy, in which the rules have not kept pace, we are told: Well--do you know what?--we are going to outsource manufacturing because we can pay people 30 cents an hour in sweatshops somewhere around the world, and we can have it manufactured for less money. Well, if that cheap product is unsafe for your health, if that product--whether it is food or vegetables or toys or jewelry--if that product is harmful to your health, we need to rethink the standards by which we engage in this global economy. Yes, it is a global economy, and I do not suggest we are going to retreat from the global economy. I do suggest this: We should participate in the global economy on our terms. We should describe what kind of participation we will have with respect to this economy in a way that is fair to our workers, that earns a decent wage in this country, and in a way that protects our consumers for whom we have established certain consumer protections. I know someone will say that is regulation. Yes, it is regulation. I spoke on the floor of the Senate one day, when I held up a package of beef. I asked consent to do that. You have to have consent to hold up a package of beef on the floor of the Senate because it is an object to show. I said: I do not think anybody can tell me where this beef came from. I know they could not because it is not labeled. So then I read the description of what the investigator found, the inspector found when he went to a plant in Hermosillo, Mexico, and inspected a plant that was processing beef, slaughtering cattle, processing beef and shipping it to the United States. He found carcasses hanging under a hot roof, with flies and feces all over the carcasses. He described horrendous things that I read on the floor of the Senate and led me to ask: Does anybody want to buy beef from that circumstance? Well, guess what. It was the only time that plant had ever been inspected--the only time. As a result, the plant lost its license. It then was sold, then changed its name, and was relicensed. It is now selling beef to the United States and has never again been inspected. I use that only to say it is exactly the same coin--the flip side of the same coin, of lead paint coming in a heart-shaped toy from China that a young child swallows and, as a result, dies. I have introduced legislation dealing with the other side of this as well with respect to workers' rights, dealing with sweatshop labor and conditions under which people are working in sweatshops in other parts of the world; working in sweatshops and, in some cases, producing these kinds of products. Why? Because it is cheap. Cheap labor, cheap products. Use lead; it is cheap. The problem is it is harmful to your health and especially harmful to children. The legislation I have introduced dealing with the issue of sweatshops and being fair to American workers would ban the product of sweatshop labor coming into this country. That bill, which is S. 367, has 12 bipartisan cosponsors. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to add Senator Clinton today as a cosponsor to that piece of legislation.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, if we look at these issues in the context not of trying to destroy the advantages of a global economy but in the context of trying to make certain the protections we have developed for our country--protections that have allowed us to create a wonderful place in which to work and consume--if we can, with respect to our participation in the global economy, raise standards rather than lower ours--if we can do that, then we will have done something significant. But that is not what has been happening. What has been happening in this country is a race to the bottom, and a rush to embrace the refrain by some who want to produce where it is cheap and sell here and run their income through the Cayman Islands to avoid paying taxes, and they say, You know, we don't want any more regulations. I understand that. They want to avoid regulations. They want to avoid paying a decent wage. They want to go to offshore manufacturing platforms some place and produce little bracelets with little hearts that are made with 99 percent lead to ship into this country. That doesn't work. It won't work anymore. Somehow, as a country, we have to find a way to stop it. My colleague Senator Durbin has a piece of legislation on the safety of food imports, which I am working on with him. I have also described the sweatshop labor bill I have introduced, and it is a bipartisan bill, and my hope is we can move and begin to address these issues. I know there are others who are going to want to speak in morning business, and as soon as they come I will discontinue mine, but I do want to make a couple of other points about this country's economy. When one looks at the last century or so, we created a place that is pretty unusual on this Earth and we did that because we cared about American workers, and we created a manufacturing base that was the strongest in the world. You cannot long remain a world economic power without a first-rate manufacturing base, and we are now seeing that some don't care about a manufacturing base. Let's outsource to wherever we can find the cheapest labor. Let's outsource to not only where we can find the cheapest labor, but also where we can combine that with the lack of regulations. We can allow that to exist in circumstances where those who produce and pump chemicals into the air, chemicals into the water. Well, the problem with that is you are not only confronted with what is called ``the China price,'' the China price with respect to goods--you have to compete with the China price--you also now understand the term ``the China haze,'' because we are breathing pollutants that come from China. We all live in the same fishbowl. Things we long ago abandoned in this country because we understand it causes cancer, causes terrible danger to human health, we are now breathing again in this country because of a phenomenon called the China haze. I know I have described China at some length today. It is not only China we need to be concerned about with respect to what are fair rules and fair requirements with respect to our participation in the global economy. But I don't think we should any longer ignore the consequences about what we read in the paper this morning: the recall of hundreds of thousands of additional toys that are shipped into this country to be sold on store shelves and to be played with by American children when, in fact, they contain amounts of lead that are harmful or dangerous to our children. We can't ignore that. I congratulate the companies that are recalling those products, but we shouldn't have had a reason to recall them in the first place. They should have been produced under conditions that we would have known in this country to be safe, that represent the standards we long ago have required in this country. That has not been the case, and I think that because it is not the case, it raises a great many questions. I also, as I indicated earlier, believe at the very time we are seeing all of these products coming into this country that can cause serious problems for human health, at the very time we see that, to see this administration decide to retract on those issues and begin to actually inspect fewer rather than more products, at a time when we are inspecting only 1 percent of all of that which comes in, I think that is a serious step in exactly the wrong direction. Mr. President, I yield the floor and make a point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Commiitee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Friday, August 3, 2007, at 8 a.m. in executive session to receive information relating to the treatment of detainees.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. It is important to finish the bill tonight. It is a bipartisan bill with strong support. It is a matter of giving everybody an opportunity to offer their amendments, which we have done. At that point I think it will be a significant achievement for all Americans, what we have done for poor, sick children in this country. I thank my colleague from Montana for the leadership he and Senator Grassley and so many others have shown on this bill. This is a very important step for this Congress.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, early in the consideration of the children's health insurance bill we are now considering, I offered an amendment, No. 2534. The amendment was to reauthorize the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, a piece of legislation we have moved through the Indian Affairs Committee, an authorization for Indian health care matters that has been proposed 11 times before in the last 8 years but has not passed the Congress. We have a full-scale emergency and crisis with respect to Indian health care. I will not go on at great length except to say this: This Government has a responsibility for health care for Federal prisoners, and we also have a trust responsibility for health care for American Indians. We spend twice as much per person on health care for Federal prisoners as we do to meet our trust responsibility to provide health care for American Indians. I believe I can say without hesitation that there will be people who will die today and tomorrow in this country because we do not have adequate health care and have not kept our promise to the American Indians with respect to the trust responsibility for health care on Indian reservations. I have determined we are going to pass this legislation this year. With the cooperation of my colleague from Montana, Senator Baucus, who indicated yesterday the Finance Committee will mark up this bill on September 12--it is a very important commitment from someone who shares my passion on this and who is a very strong supporter of American Indians and Indian health care--and with a commitment from Senator Reid, who similarly is a very strong supporter of these issues, that he will bring that bill to the floor of the Senate in this session of the Congress--with those commitments, I believe we will now, finally, in the Senate, pass the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, at long last. With those commitments, I am confident we are on the road to getting done what we need to get done to meet our responsibility. Because of that, I will withdraw my amendment to reauthorize the Indian Health Care Improvement Act on this Children's Health Insurance Program bill, and I ask unanimous consent to withdraw amendment No. 2534.

Mr. DORGAN. I wonder if the Senator from Montana will yield for a question?

Mr. DORGAN. As I understand it, this legislation is paid for. The Finance Committee reported out a piece of legislation to provide health care coverage for about 3 million more children, and it is fully paid for; is that correct?