Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, this morning, in one of the newspapers that covers Capitol Hill, there was a story with some complaints by the minority and the leader of the minority that the majority is filing what are called cloture motions. We are, in fact, filing cloture motions, and the reason we are doing it is because the minority doesn't want to move to debate the issues. To give you an example, in recent days, we have had to file a cloture motion to have a vote on the Intelligence Authorization Bill. It turned out the minority, in nearly a unanimous vote, succeeded in blocking our ability to even debate the bill. That was the motion to proceed on the debate, not the debate itself. The question is: Shall we proceed to debate reauthorization of intelligence? The minority said we won't give you the permission to approve the motion to proceed. We are going to have to have you file cloture on that. We will then have a cloture vote and 40-plus will decide to march in against it. So you cannot proceed on the intelligence reauthorization. On the issue of negotiating lower prescription drug prices, the minority says we won't allow you to go to the bill to negotiate lower drug prices under Medicare. You have to vote on a motion to proceed. They come over and, by and large, oppose the motion to proceed so we cannot go to negotiating lower drug prices for Medicare. About an hour or two ago, we had to have a vote on going to the issue of court security--security in our court system. They required us to file cloture and have a vote on the motion to proceed to going to security for America's court system. It is unbelievable. Let me go back for a moment on this issue of intelligence. They required us to file cloture on the motion to proceed. If there is anything critically needed by this Congress and this country-- especially this country--it is to get this issue of intelligence right. Why is that important? We live in a very dangerous world. We face a lot of threats and challenges. We have been through the last half decade or more in a circumstance where the intelligence function in our Government has dramatically failed. The consequences of that have been life or death. Here are some examples: We went to war with Iraq. We had many top secret briefings prior to the war given by our intelligence officials and top members of the administration. They told us, for example, that the country of Iraq threatened this country because it had mobile chemical weapons labs. They gave us substantial information about mobile chemical weapons labs in Iraq. It turns out now, much later, we discover that in fact those so-called laboratories didn't exist. The information our intelligence community gave Congress came from one source, a man who was named ``Curve Ball,'' who was largely considered to be a drunk and a fabricator. A single source--someone considered to have been a drunk and a fabricator--convinced our intelligence community and this administration to tell us and the American people that Iraq threatened this country because they had mobile chemical weapons labs. We now understand that wasn't true, but it was part of the foundation upon which a decision was made to go to war. Aluminum tubes for the reconstruction of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq--we were told there was a nuclear weapons program, the reconstruction of which will threaten our country and threaten the world. It turns out the administration and the intelligence community told us a half truth. Some in the administration felt the aluminum tubes specifically ordered by Iraq were for the purpose of reconstructing a nuclear capability. Others in the administration felt equally strongly that there was no such thing involved, that it was for rocketry; it didn't have anything to do with the reconstruction of a nuclear weapons program. The intelligence community did not tell Congress about that portion of the debate. Yellowcake from Niger. The President told the Congress in briefings and intelligence sources upstairs that Iraq was attempting to procure yellowcake from Niger for the purpose of reconstituting its nuclear capability. It turns out that was based on falsified documents, fraudulent documents. Based on a lot of information, including yellowcake from Niger, and allegations about Iraq trying to secure it, aluminum tubes purchased it was alleged for the purpose of reconstructing a nuclear capability, or mobile chemical weapons labs, reports of which came from apparently one source, a single source, a drunk and fabricator who used to drive a taxicab in Baghdad. That was the basis, at least in part, on which to build a foundation that told this country a threat exists against the United States and we must take military action against the country of Iraq. We know what has happened in the interim. This war with Iraq has cost an unbelievable amount of money and lives. It has cost this country dearly around the world. Now we are in a situation where, according to the latest National Intelligence Estimate that there is a civil war in Iraq. That is a combined judgment of all of the intelligence sources in our country and the top intelligence officers and folks in the administration. It is not, as the President seems to suggest, the fight against al- Qaida in Iraq. Our National Intelligence Estimate tells us what it is. It is sectarian violence. There is some presence of al-Qaida in Anbar Province in Iraq, but principally what is happening in Iraq is not about al-Qaida and terrorists; it is about sectarian violence, committing acts of terror--Sunni against Shia and Shia against Sunni-- and the most unbelievable acts of terror you can imagine. In fact, the head of our intelligence has since said this, that the greatest terrorist threat to our country is with al-Qaida and its leadership, which is in a secure hideaway in Pakistan. These are the people who boasted about murdering innocent Americans on 9/11/2001. No, they have not been brought to justice. They are, according to the head of our intelligence services, in a secure hideaway in Pakistan. What, then, should be our greatest goal? What should be our priority? Continuing in a civil war in Iraq, having our troops in the middle of a civil war in Iraq? Or deciding we are going to go after the terrorists who represent the greatest threat to our country, al-Qaida? That is not from me. The description of that comes from the head of our intelligence services in this country. I have described the mistakes that were made. In fact, there was no oversight, of course, in the last few years in the Congress, none at all--no hearings, no oversight to talk about this. So I held oversight hearings as chairman of the Democratic Policy Committee. One day, I had four people come before the committee who previously had worked for the CIA, and others. One of whom was COL Larry Wilkerson, who served 17 years as a top assistant to Colin Powell, including when he was Secretary of State. He was there when the presentation was made at the United Nations. He said later that was the perpetration of a hoax on the American people. I cannot pretend to know what went wrong or how. I know in the aftermath that this Congress, with the majority that existed last year, held no oversight hearings and didn't seem to care, wanted to keep it behind the curtain. I know this, however: Going forward, this country's future and this country's security depends on good intelligence. It depends on our getting it right, and it depends on our knowing what is happening. Reauthorizing the intelligence functions of our Government is critical. It undermines our soldiers, in my judgment, for us not to take action to provide the very finest intelligence that can be available to us through reauthorizing our intelligence functions. It should have been done before, but it wasn't. It is brought to the floor now, but it will not be allowed to be debated because the minority says they don't want to reauthorize the intelligence functions under these conditions. I don't understand that. I think that shortchanges the American people. But it is not just intelligence. Earlier today, the minority said we will not allow you to move forward on a domestic issue, and that is having the American people feel as though their Government is giving them the best deal possible by negotiating decent prices with the pharmaceutical industry for drugs that are purchased under Medicare. We hoped to have a debate about that. In 2000, the drug companies, the pharmaceutical companies, ran an advertising campaign in this country in support of creating a Medicare drug benefit. This is what they said: They touted a study that said private drug insurance will lower prices 30 to 39 percent. That is what they said. We understand about prices. Mr. President, let me, if I might, show you two bottles that formerly contained medicine. This is Lipitor. The American people understand about drug pricing and the unfairness to the American people. This is a drug produced in Ireland. A lot of people take it to lower their cholesterol. These bottles are, as you can see, identical. They held tablets of Lipitor, made in the same plant, FDA approved--exactly the same medicine. The difference is this one was actually sent to Canada to be sold. This one was sent to the United States. Well, this one was twice as expensive to the U.S. consumer. The same pill made by the same company, made in the same manufacturing plant, sold in two different places--one in Canada and one in the United States--and Americans were told you pay double. And it is not just Canada. Almost any country I could name will be paying lower prices for the same drugs, because the American consumer is charged the highest prices. We have legislation to try to respond to that. There is plenty of opposition in this Chamber. The first step in dealing with this is for the Government, as the institution that created the prescription drug benefit under Medicare, to be using its capability to buy in large quantities to reduce the price by negotiating with the pharmaceutical industry. But when the prescription drug plan for Medicare was put into place in this Chamber, then the Republicans in the majority said: We are going to prohibit the Federal Government from negotiating lower prices with the pharmaceutical industry. That is almost unbelievable, when you think about it. Can you think of anybody in your hometown doing that--saying we are going to do business with somebody, but we are going to be prohibited from negotiating the best price? Well, nonetheless, that was the law, and so now we are trying to change it to say, no, we believe the Federal Government ought to be allowed to negotiate better prices for quantity discounts. Yet, now the minority party will not even allow us to continue because they force a cloture vote on a motion to proceed--not the bill itself, but on a motion to proceed to the bill--and they block it. Well, the pharmaceutical industry had said if we pass prescription drug benefits in the Medicare Program, it would lower prices 30 to 39 percent. Has it done that? Well, no. I will give you examples: From November 2005 to April 2006--that is a half year--the prices charged for the 20 drugs most frequently prescribed to senior citizens increased by 3.7 percent, or about four times the rate of inflation. In the first quarter of 2006, drug prices shot up 3.9 percent, the highest first quarter increase in drug pricing in 6 years. Now, some of my colleagues will argue that private plans are doing a terrific job of negotiating with drug companies. Well, we recently did a study on this subject. We did a study of 53 stand-alone Part D plans that are available in my State. We looked at the prices these plans paid for the 25 drugs most frequently prescribed to senior citizens. If those senior citizens bought the drugs at average Part D prices, it was $829. If you walked into the pharmacy downtown, it was $845. At Costco, it was $814. Where is the 30 to 39-percent discount here because the Federal Government has now become a giant purchaser? We used to get discounts under Medicaid--still do, in fact, under Medicaid, but those low-income senior citizens who migrated from Medicaid to Medicare mean we now pay more because we don't negotiate for lower prices with the prescription drug industry under Medicare. And that is the problem. If all Secretary Leavitt would do as Secretary of HHS is to buy part D prescription drugs from Main Street pharmacies, Medicare will save money. I don't understand why those who are self-labeled as conservative would not be on the side of having the Federal Government make the best deal it can to save money when it is making bulk purchases of prescription drugs. I understand part of what is happening. Part of what is happening is the pharmaceutical industry has a great deal of clout, and there is support for them in this Chamber. I don't come to the floor denigrating the industry. I don't like their pricing policies. I have told them that. The pharmaceutical industry produces some lifesaving medicine, some of it with research paid for by the American taxpayers through the National Institutes of Health and other venues, and some of it through their own research investment. They produce lifesaving medicines, and good for them. But lifesaving prescription drugs offer no miracles to those who can't afford to buy them, and pricing is an issue for all Americans. With respect to the issue of senior citizens who are getting their prescription drugs now under the Medicare Program, pricing is an issue for the taxpayers because we are paying a much higher price than we should if we were to buy prescription drugs as we do in the veterans system, in the VA system. They are allowed to negotiate for lower prices in the VA system, and the result is dramatic. We pay much lower prices for those prescription drugs because the Federal Government, as a very large producer, has the clout to negotiate lower prices. The Government is prevented specifically by law from doing the same thing with respect to the Medicare Part D Program, and it makes no sense at all. I started by saying the minority party is now complaining in the newspapers this morning about the number of cloture motions that are filed in this Chamber. That is inconvenient, apparently, or they don't like it. I understand. But the fact is, the very party that complains about the cloture motions is objecting even to moving to a motion to proceed. The motion is not shall we debate this issue, the motion is shall we proceed to the issue for a debate, and they are requiring that we file a cloture motion because they will not debate the motion to proceed, let alone the issue itself. It was interesting that after the cloture motion failed on the motion to proceed because the minority blocked it, we had some people come to the floor to speak about the issue this morning to defend the pharmaceutical industry and say: No, the Federal Government shouldn't negotiate. It seems to me if they wanted to speak about the issue, why wouldn't they support the motion to proceed so we could actually get on the debate and they could debate on the issue rather than debate outside of what they have prevented? I don't understand that. Maybe I shouldn't say that. I guess I do understand it. The complaint about our being required to file cloture motions comes from those who don't want to apparently go to intelligence reauthorization. They don't want to debate that bill, so they blocked it. They don't want to debate a provision that will allow us to negotiate lower prescription drug prices, so they blocked that bill. They forced us to have a vote on the motion to proceed on providing court security, for God's sake, in the shadow of the unspeakable tragedy and the heartbreak all of us feel with what has happened at Virginia Tech. The issue of court security ought not be controversial. Why on Earth should we be forced to file a cloture motion? Why should there be required a vote on the motion to proceed to something such as this issue? It doesn't make any sense. The fact is, I have always said I think both political parties contribute something to this country. I believe that. We ought to get the best of what each can contribute to this country rather than what we often do, the worst of each. The best of what both parties can contribute to this country would give this country something to feel proud about. We ought to bring these issues to the floor of the Senate. Yes, reauthorize intelligence, yes, allow us to debate the issue of why shouldn't we negotiate lower priced prescription drugs on behalf of the taxpayers and on behalf of the American citizens. I held a hearing this morning on international trade. Yes, let's have that debate on the floor of the Senate. Why are we drowning in an $832 billion trade deficit? Why are American jobs being shipped off to China? Let's have these debates on the floor of the Senate. Let's bring the bills out and have these debates rather than have exercises to try to block anybody from getting anything done. That is what has been happening. Block people from getting anything done and then go complain to the press that nothing is getting done--that is a very self- fulfilling prophecy but not very genuine, in my judgment. I hope in the coming days and weeks--we have 6 weeks or so before there is a period of a few days off during the Memorial Day break--my hope is that during this period of time, we can move forward on some of these issues on the floor of the Senate, have aggressive debates, and try to get the best ideas that could come from both Republicans and Democrats and put them in legislation that will advance this country's interests. This country deserves that debate on fiscal policy, on trade policy, on foreign policy, on a whole range of issues. This country deserves that from this Congress. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, 2,403 American servicemembers lost their lives during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The men and women who survived that day of infamy led the United States, and our Allies, to victory in the Pacific during World War II. Today I would like to specifically honor four of those survivors, the members of the North Dakota Pearl Harbor Survivor's Association. This group of four active members helps keep the memory of those who served so bravely alive: John Martin of Bismarck, ND; Clem Lonski of Jamestown, ND; Harold Bruchwein of Wahpeton, ND; and Agnes Shurr of Grand Forks, ND. On behalf of the U.S. Senate, my fellow North Dakotans, and all Americans, I would like to commend and thank these four individuals not only for their bravery and valor in leading the fight over fascism 60 years ago, but also for their commitment and dedication to keep alive the memory of those who gave their lives in defense of freedom on December 7, 1941.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, today I am joined by Senator Brownback and ten of our colleagues in introducing the Conservation Reserve Program Tax Fairness Act of 2007. This legislation clarifies once and for all that Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) payments received by active or retired farmers, or other landowners for that matter will be treated for Federal tax purposes as rental payments that are not subject to self-employment taxes. Let me take a moment to describe this problem. For many years now, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has been taking the erroneous position that CRP payments received by farmers are self-employment income derived from a trade or business and therefore are subject to Self-Employment Contributions Act (SECA) taxes. Regrettably, the IRS and the Treasury Department proposed a new ruling late last year that not only requires active farmers to pay SECA taxes on CRP payments but expands similar tax treatment to CRP payments received by retired farmers and other landowners. This latest ruling proposed by the IRS would impose a significant financial hardship on family farmers and others who have voluntarily agreed to take environmentally-sensitive lands out of farm production and place them in the Conservation Reserve Program in return for an annual rental payment from the Commodity Credit Corporation of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Today, North Dakota has some 3.4 million acres with about $112 million in rental payments in the CRP program. Left intact, the IRS's ruling would mean that farmers in North Dakota may owe an additional $16 million in Federal taxes this coming year. A typical North Dakota farmer with 160 acres of CRP would owe nearly $750 in new self- employment taxes because of the agency's ill-advised position. If the IRS decides to pursue back taxes on returns filed by farmers in past years, the amount of taxes owed by individual farmers for CRP payments could amount to thousands of dollars. That would be devastating to many farmers and others who depend on CRP rental payments to make ends meet. As a result, the proposed change in our bill applies to CRP payments made in open tax years before, on, or after the date of its enactment. We believe the IRS's position on the tax treatment of CRP payments is dead wrong. In our judgment, forcing CRP recipients to pay self- employment taxes on CRP payments is not what Congress intended, nor is it supportable in law. The U.S. Tax Court, the Federal court with the most expertise on tax issues, shares our view that the IRS position is improper. In fact, the U.S. Tax Court ruled in the late 1990's that CRP payments are properly treated by farmers as rental payments and, thus, not subject to self-employment taxes. Unfortunately, the IRS challenged the Tax Court decision and the Tax Court was later reversed by a Federal appellate court. In February, IRS Commissioner Mark Everson sent a letter to me and a number of our colleagues who are concerned about this issue. In his letter, Commissioner Everson made clear that the IRS would not change its position that CRP payments are subject to self-employment tax as income derived from a trade or business--absent new statutory language passed by the Congress and enacted into law. With the legislation we are introducing today, Congress will send a clear message to the IRS that its misguided effort to subject CRP payments to self-employment taxes is inappropriate and will not be allowed to stand. Our bill also makes sure that Federal trust funds that would have received SECA revenues but for the enactment of our bill are held harmless through the use of revenue transfers from the Treasury general fund. Senator Brownback and I ask our colleagues to support this much- needed tax relief for family farmers and other CRP recipients by cosponsoring the Conservation Reserve Program Tax Fairness Act. And we hope you will work with us to get this legislation enacted into law without delay.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, today I am joined by Senator Brownback and ten of our colleagues in introducing the Conservation Reserve Program Tax Fairness Act of 2007. This legislation clarifies once and for all that Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) payments received by active or retired farmers, or other landowners for that matter will be treated for Federal tax purposes as rental payments that are not subject to self-employment taxes. Let me take a moment to describe this problem. For many years now, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has been taking the erroneous position that CRP payments received by farmers are self-employment income derived from a trade or business and therefore are subject to Self-Employment Contributions Act (SECA) taxes. Regrettably, the IRS and the Treasury Department proposed a new ruling late last year that not only requires active farmers to pay SECA taxes on CRP payments but expands similar tax treatment to CRP payments received by retired farmers and other landowners. This latest ruling proposed by the IRS would impose a significant financial hardship on family farmers and others who have voluntarily agreed to take environmentally-sensitive lands out of farm production and place them in the Conservation Reserve Program in return for an annual rental payment from the Commodity Credit Corporation of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Today, North Dakota has some 3.4 million acres with about $112 million in rental payments in the CRP program. Left intact, the IRS's ruling would mean that farmers in North Dakota may owe an additional $16 million in Federal taxes this coming year. A typical North Dakota farmer with 160 acres of CRP would owe nearly $750 in new self- employment taxes because of the agency's ill-advised position. If the IRS decides to pursue back taxes on returns filed by farmers in past years, the amount of taxes owed by individual farmers for CRP payments could amount to thousands of dollars. That would be devastating to many farmers and others who depend on CRP rental payments to make ends meet. As a result, the proposed change in our bill applies to CRP payments made in open tax years before, on, or after the date of its enactment. We believe the IRS's position on the tax treatment of CRP payments is dead wrong. In our judgment, forcing CRP recipients to pay self- employment taxes on CRP payments is not what Congress intended, nor is it supportable in law. The U.S. Tax Court, the Federal court with the most expertise on tax issues, shares our view that the IRS position is improper. In fact, the U.S. Tax Court ruled in the late 1990's that CRP payments are properly treated by farmers as rental payments and, thus, not subject to self-employment taxes. Unfortunately, the IRS challenged the Tax Court decision and the Tax Court was later reversed by a Federal appellate court. In February, IRS Commissioner Mark Everson sent a letter to me and a number of our colleagues who are concerned about this issue. In his letter, Commissioner Everson made clear that the IRS would not change its position that CRP payments are subject to self-employment tax as income derived from a trade or business--absent new statutory language passed by the Congress and enacted into law. With the legislation we are introducing today, Congress will send a clear message to the IRS that its misguided effort to subject CRP payments to self-employment taxes is inappropriate and will not be allowed to stand. Our bill also makes sure that Federal trust funds that would have received SECA revenues but for the enactment of our bill are held harmless through the use of revenue transfers from the Treasury general fund. Senator Brownback and I ask our colleagues to support this much- needed tax relief for family farmers and other CRP recipients by cosponsoring the Conservation Reserve Program Tax Fairness Act. And we hope you will work with us to get this legislation enacted into law without delay.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I would like to announce that the Committee on Indian Affairs will meet on Thursday, April 26, 2007, at 10 a.m. in Room 485 of the Russell Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing on S. 462, Shoshone-Paiute Tribes of Duck Valley Water Rights Settlement Act. Those wishing additional information may contact the Indian Affairs Committee at 224-2251.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, later this week there will be a group of us in the Senate holding a meeting on trade issues and talking about what our response will be to the request by President Bush to extend what they call trade promotion authority. Trade promotion authority is a slogan that was used to replace fast track because fast track apparently became some sort of a pejorative term, at least in the minds of some. So they came up with the term ``trade promotion authority.'' It is like labeling things healthy forests or clear skies, trade promotion authority. What it means is fast track. The Congress, by Constitution, has the right to be engaged in foreign commerce. That is where it is described, in the Constitution. It is not described as part of executive branch responsibilities. It is described as part of the responsibilities of Congress to be involved in the issue of trade and foreign commerce. What has happened over some years is the Congress has given the President authority to negotiate trade agreements in secret behind closed doors, bring the trade agreements to this Congress, and we agree we will put on a straitjacket and not be allowed to offer any amendments, and it will be considered as a trade agreement that we have negotiated with some other country under expedited procedures. The Congress itself has decided to put itself in a straitjacket with something called fast track or trade promotion authority. I did not support that. I didn't support it for President Clinton. I don't support it for President Bush. President Bush has had fast track trade promotion authority now for some while. It is about to expire on June 30. He is asking that it be extended. As for me, I will not support extending it. I hope to be involved with a group of Senators who similarly will describe the danger to this country's economic future that would be entailed by supporting the extension of fast track or trade promotion authority. Let me describe what the danger is. Some wish to ignore all the evidence that exists with respect to trade. The fact is, in the past year our trade deficit in 1 year was $830 billion. What does that number mean? It probably doesn't mean much to most people. It means every single day we purchase from foreign countries $2 billion more than we are able to sell to foreign countries. Every single day we put $2 billion worth of IOUs in the hands of another country. A substantial portion of those IOUs is now possessed by China, Japan, and others. About $1 billion is owed from the citizens of this country to China and Japan. In addition to the imbalance of $2 billion a day importing more than we export or consume--saying it another way, about 6 percent more than we produce--we are seeing American jobs being shipped overseas. We have actually some cheerleaders for that proposition. We have some people in this country who say isn't that great. Isn't that a wonderful situation where we can actually move American jobs abroad. None of those people will ever lose their jobs. They will write books and make laws, but they will never lose their jobs. It is the folks who shower after work who lose their jobs; the people who go to the plant, the people on the assembly line; the people who find their job is going elsewhere because there is someone else in the world, a billion to a billion and a half people willing to work for 20 or 30 cents an hour. They will work with no health care benefits and no retirement benefits and in some cases for 20 cents an hour. If they decide they are being cheated out of wages and try to organize workers, they will be sent to prison. That is the new economy? That is the new circumstance of the global economy? That is free trade? That is good for our country? I don't think so. I have spoken at length about this issue. I am for trade and plenty of it. Sign me up. I support trade. I like trade. I insist that it be fair to this country. I am flat out tired, through fast track, of having trade agreements being negotiated in secret overseas someplace behind closed doors by U.S. negotiators who forget who they are working for. They bring them to this Chamber under expedited authority called fast track and there is the prohibition of any amendment being offered to change what is obviously wrong with the agreement. Then it runs through here like a hot knife through butter. We have had NAFTA and CAFTA and U.S.-Canada. We have had all these trade agreements, at the end of which we have the largest trade deficit in the history of humankind. It is not even close. Every time we pass a new trade agreement, we have a larger deficit. The people who come up with these concoctions called free trade say: Isn't this wonderful? No, it is not. Would they say it was wonderful if they were losing their jobs? They wouldn't. But they are not the ones losing their jobs. Alan Blinder, a mainstream economist, former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, said this about the outsourcing of American jobs: There are 40 million American jobs subject to outsourcing. Not all of them will leave this country, but even those that remain will have downward pressure on their income because there is someone else somewhere else in the world willing to work for pennies. So is that the new global economy? Is that the flat world? Mr. Friedman wrote the book ``The World is Flat.'' I know better than that; so does he. The world is not flat. In the chapter where he looks at Bangalore, India and says, isn't this wonderful, all these jobs in India, no, it is not wonderful. Is this the kind of new economy we signed up for? Have we forgotten the lessons, have we forgotten what it took to get to this kind of standard of living? James Fyler was shot 54 times. It was said once he died of lead poisoning. I guess when you are shot 54 times--he was actually killed in Ludlow, CO, nearly 90 years ago. He was killed because he thought people who went into the coal mines to mine for coal had a right to a fair wage and a right to work in a safe workplace. Move forward a century from James Fyler, from people who gave their lives to lift the standards in this country, to expand the middle class, to provide for good jobs, demand a fair wage, demand decent benefits, and then ask yourself if, after a century, when we expanded the middle class in this country--with good jobs that pay well--have we now decided there is a new strategy, a bankrupt strategy, which is so- called free trade, which is unfair to the American worker, because it is a race to the bottom, saying to companies: If you can find somebody who will work for 20 cents an hour, have them make the Huffy bicycles, have them make the Radio Flyer little red wagons, have them make the Fig Newtons, have them make the Hanes underwear, and have them make the Levi's. They are all gone because they went in search of cheap labor. All those American jobs are gone. Now, I ask you, is that a road to a better future for American workers? We, actually, in this Chamber, mind you--not me but a majority--have supported one of the most pernicious provisions I have ever seen, a provision that says: Do you know what, if you want to close your manufacturing plant and fire your workers and move the jobs to China, we intend to give you a big fat tax break for doing it. That is unbelievable. I have tried four times to change that in the Senate and have come up short in the vote four straight times. But I guarantee you this: One day, there will be enough clear thinking in this Congress to decide we ought to stop subsidizing the export of American jobs. So I started by saying we have an $830 billion trade deficit. That relates to the export of jobs and the purchase every day of $2 billion more than we are able to ship abroad. We are going to have to repay that someday. You can make a case on the budget deficit that is money which we owe to ourselves. You cannot make that case with the trade deficit. That will be repaid someday with a lower standard of living in this country. That is why we ought to, as a country, begin worrying about and thinking about this new strategy. I am for a fair trade strategy. I am for trade, and plenty of it, but it must be fair to this country. I am sick and tired of seeing trade agreements that pull the rug out from under our workers and pull the rug out from under our standards. I want to lift people up, not press people down. I do not believe in a future in which 40 million to 50 million additional workers are subject to outsourcing. But if they are not outsourced, they, nonetheless, can come home and say: Honey, I didn't lose my job today, but they are going to pay me less. One final point. I spoke here about a week ago about Circuit City. I do not know much about that company. I do know this: They announced they were going to fire 3,400 people. Because they were bad workers? Not a bit. No. They said: We are going to fire them because we want to rehire other workers to whom we can pay less money. They were making, I think, slightly above $11 an hour. They wanted to fire 3,400 workers so they could hire cheaper workers, less expensive workers. I do not know. If you go into a store and ask somebody where the camera counter is, are you going to find a worker who knows? Maybe you have a worker you could pay less money to, but do these companies forget that their company is their workers, the company is represented by their workforce, that is their brand? We are headed in the wrong direction. There is no social program in this country as important as a good job that pays well. Yet the whole notion here of the companies that want to produce in China and ship here and run their income through the Cayman Islands to avoid paying taxes to this country--the whole notion is, this is a new day, it is a new economy. Don't you understand it? Free trade. That is not fair trade, where I come from. My colleague, Senator Brown, has worked on this issue for a long while in the U.S. House, and now in the U.S. Senate. I really appreciate seeing new voices come to the Senate demanding we move toward fair trade relationships. We can compete, but the competition has to be fair. That has not been the case with any of these trade agreements. Mr. President, I am happy to yield the floor so my colleague, Senator Brown, can be recognized.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, will the Senator from Ohio yield for a question?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the Senator from Ohio has described automobiles as one part of his discussion. I wonder if the Senator from Ohio knows, for example, with respect to South Korea, we imported about 700,000 automobiles from South Korea in the last year. We were able to export about 4,000 American cars to South Korea. Now, why the imbalance? Mr. President, 99 percent of the cars driven on the streets of South Korea are made in South Korea. That is the way they want it. Once in a great while, we have a little burst. The Dodge Dakota pickup--all of a sudden, it looked like they were going to sell some Dodge Dakota pickups in South Korea. Just like that, the Government shut that down. Oh, they do it very subtlely, but they know what they are doing--just like that. China is a good example. We did a trade agreement with China. China is now creating an automobile export market. They want to be a big automobile exporter and intend to export to this country. Here is what we said to China, a country with which we have a giant trade deficit: When you ship your Chinese cars to the United States, we will impose a 2.5-percent tariff on your cars. And we agree that for any U.S. automobiles we would sell in China, you may impose a 25- percent tariff. So to a country with which we have a giant trade deficit--we now have a $230 billion trade deficit with China--we have said: It is OK for you to impose a tariff that is 10 times higher than we would impose on your cars. That is unbelievably ignorant, in my judgment, ignorant of our own economic interests. If I may make one additional point. In Ohio, they used to make Huffy bicycles. I have spoken about that at some length on this floor. They paid people $11 an hour to make Huffy bicycles. Huffy bicycles are 20 percent of the American bicycle market. You can buy them at Wal-Mart, Kmart, Sears. The people at the plant in Ohio loved their jobs. They made the Huffy bicycles for over a century. They all got fired. They all lost their jobs. You can still buy a Huffy bicycle. They are all made in China. But on the last day of work, after they were fired, these Huffy bicycle workers, as they drove out of the parking lot of the plant, all left a pair of empty shoes where their car used to sit in the parking lot. It was their way of saying to this company: You can ship our jobs overseas, but, by God, you are not going to fill our shoes. It was a poignant way for workers to say: This job mattered to me. We worked here for a century making bicycles as American workers. And now it is gone. It is unbelievable, when you hear these stories and see what the consequences are of American companies that have decided: Do you know what, the new economy says, let's produce where we can pay people 30 cents an hour. Incidentally, that is how much workers get who are now producing Huffy bicycles. They are paid 30 cents an hour. They work 7 days a week, 12 to 14 hours a day. That is what the Ohio workers were told. You cannot compete against that, so you lose. In my judgment, our country, this Senate--Senator Brown and I and others--has to begin standing up for the economic interests of our country and our workers. If we do not, we will surely see a shrinking of the middle class and a dramatic impact on the economy and future growth of this country. That is why this is such an important issue. Again, let me just say how impressed I am with not only Senator Brown but especially Senator Brown and some others who have joined us in the Senate, who will be very strong voices on behalf of a sane, thoughtful, sensible protrade policy that is pro-fair trade and stands up for this country's economic interests. I thank the Senator from Ohio for yielding to me.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I would like to ask the Senator to yield for one more point. The Governor of Pennsylvania, Governor Rendell, tried very hard to keep a company in Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania House Furniture. They make fine furniture with Pennsylvania wood, a very special kind of Pennsylvania wood. They make top-of-the-line furniture and did for a long time--I think for over a century as well. They were purchased by La-Z-Boy, and La-Z-Boy decided that Pennsylvania House Furniture would be outsourced to China. At that point, Governor Rendell and folks in Pennsylvania got involved to try to save Pennsylvania House Furniture, but they couldn't do it. The jobs all went to China. Incidentally, they now ship the wood from Pennsylvania to China, put the furniture together, and then ship it back to be sold as Pennsylvania House Furniture. There is somebody in this country who has a piece of furniture that they don't understand the value of. The last day at work at this plant where they had made furniture, these craftsmen, who made top-end, top- of-the-line furniture, these craftsmen, the last day of work, on the last piece of furniture that came off the assembly line in Pennsylvania, turned it over and they all signed it. Someone has a piece of furniture with the signatures of all the craftsmen at that plant who, on their last day at work, decided they wanted to sign as a note of pride in the work they had just completed. Then the jobs were gone, all gone to China, because the Pennsylvania workers could not compete with those who would work for 25 cents, 30 cents, 35 cents an hour. But they shouldn't have to. That is the point of our discussion about fair trade.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, today I am pleased to be joined by Senator Craig to introduce legislation called the Fuel Efficiency Act of 2007. This legislation is an important component of broader legislation that my colleague and I recently introduced on March 14, 2007. That legislation is a balanced plan with the overall goal to improve the energy security of the U.S. through a 50 percent reduction in the oil intensity of the economy by 2030. This is important to me because the United States remains dangerously dependent on foreign sources of oil. Today we import over 60 percent of our oil from Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Venezuela, and other unstable nations of the world. This is very troubling to me. Our larger proposal is grounded in four cornerstone principles. The first principle is achievable, stepped increases in fuel efficiency of the transportation fleet. The second principle promotes increased availability of alternative fuel sources and infrastructure. The third principle calls for expanded production and enhanced exploration of domestic and other secure oil and natural gas resources. Finally, the fourth principle improves the management of alliances to better secure global energy supplies. In the United States, we use about 67 percent of our oil to power our vehicles. This is the area where we are least secure and increasingly dependent. For these reasons and more, we introduced S. 875 as a bi- partisan, balanced approach to securing our future energy through reducing our dependence on foreign oil. I am also a member of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee which has jurisdiction over the fuel economy standards of our Nation's vehicle fleet. I look forward to working with Chairman Inouye, Ranking Member Stevens, and other members of the committee who are interested in enacting strong, fair, and forwarding-looking fuel economy standards. It should be noted that this is the first time that both Senator Craig and I have publicly stated our support for increased fuel economy standards beyond the incremental steps that the current administration has made to date. Our Nation's fuel economy standards have not significantly changed since the mid-1980s. We now have lower passenger vehicle fuel efficiency standards than Japan, the European Union, Australia, Canada, and yes, even China. The bill we have introduced today reforms and strengthens fuel efficiency standards by establishing an annual 4 percent increase in the fuel economy of the entire new vehicle fleet, including automobiles, medium trucks, and heavy trucks from 2012-2030. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will have discretion to invoke ``off-ramps'' if it is determined that the increase is not technologically achievable, creates material safety concerns, or is not cost effective. Senator Craig and I came together to develop a new pathway forward because we believe that bolder energy security measures must be taken now to address our long-term security, economic growth and environmental protection. There is no silver bullet to solving our energy dependence. Digging and drilling is a strategy I call yesterday forever. Conservation alone is not the answer. Renewable fuels hold promise, but we need to do much more here. We believe the combination of steps sets the right pathway to U.S. energy security, and we look forward to moving increased fuel economy standards through the Senate Commerce Committee.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, today I am pleased to be joined by Senator Craig to introduce legislation called the Fuel Efficiency Act of 2007. This legislation is an important component of broader legislation that my colleague and I recently introduced on March 14, 2007. That legislation is a balanced plan with the overall goal to improve the energy security of the U.S. through a 50 percent reduction in the oil intensity of the economy by 2030. This is important to me because the United States remains dangerously dependent on foreign sources of oil. Today we import over 60 percent of our oil from Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Venezuela, and other unstable nations of the world. This is very troubling to me. Our larger proposal is grounded in four cornerstone principles. The first principle is achievable, stepped increases in fuel efficiency of the transportation fleet. The second principle promotes increased availability of alternative fuel sources and infrastructure. The third principle calls for expanded production and enhanced exploration of domestic and other secure oil and natural gas resources. Finally, the fourth principle improves the management of alliances to better secure global energy supplies. In the United States, we use about 67 percent of our oil to power our vehicles. This is the area where we are least secure and increasingly dependent. For these reasons and more, we introduced S. 875 as a bi- partisan, balanced approach to securing our future energy through reducing our dependence on foreign oil. I am also a member of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee which has jurisdiction over the fuel economy standards of our Nation's vehicle fleet. I look forward to working with Chairman Inouye, Ranking Member Stevens, and other members of the committee who are interested in enacting strong, fair, and forwarding-looking fuel economy standards. It should be noted that this is the first time that both Senator Craig and I have publicly stated our support for increased fuel economy standards beyond the incremental steps that the current administration has made to date. Our Nation's fuel economy standards have not significantly changed since the mid-1980s. We now have lower passenger vehicle fuel efficiency standards than Japan, the European Union, Australia, Canada, and yes, even China. The bill we have introduced today reforms and strengthens fuel efficiency standards by establishing an annual 4 percent increase in the fuel economy of the entire new vehicle fleet, including automobiles, medium trucks, and heavy trucks from 2012-2030. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will have discretion to invoke ``off-ramps'' if it is determined that the increase is not technologically achievable, creates material safety concerns, or is not cost effective. Senator Craig and I came together to develop a new pathway forward because we believe that bolder energy security measures must be taken now to address our long-term security, economic growth and environmental protection. There is no silver bullet to solving our energy dependence. Digging and drilling is a strategy I call yesterday forever. Conservation alone is not the answer. Renewable fuels hold promise, but we need to do much more here. We believe the combination of steps sets the right pathway to U.S. energy security, and we look forward to moving increased fuel economy standards through the Senate Commerce Committee.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, there is a poignant story about the days following the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. As his body lie in state here in the U.S. Capitol, long lines of people formed in order to file past the body of the dead President. A journalist interviewed a worker who was standing there, with his hat in his hand held in front of him, with tears in his eyes. The journalist asked this working man, who had been standing in line for some long while: Did you know Franklin Delano Roosevelt? The working man looked back at him and said: No, I didn't. But he knew me. The question is, Who knows American workers today? I ask that question because I read in the paper that Circuit City, a pretty well- known corporation in this country, has decided it wants to lay off 3,400 workers. Here is what Circuit City said about those workers: It had nothing to do with their skills or whether they were a good worker or not. That is according to a Circuit City spokesperson. Now, this sort of thing follows on the heels of the offshore outsourcing of many other American jobs, American companies shutting down. There is no more Fruit of the Loom underwear made in America, no more Levi's made in America, no more Huffy bicycles made here, no more Fig Newton cookies made here. There are no more Radio Flyer little red wagons made in America. It is all gone. It is all outsourced. Those workers all got fired. Pennsylvania House Furniture. I could go through the long list. We understand that even as companies outsource jobs to China in search of 30-cents-an-hour labor, other companies that keep their jobs here have decided to put downward pressure on wages to be competitive, so we see the announcement of Circuit City. Three thousand four hundred workers need to be laid off because they are paid an average of $10 to $11 an hour; they are firing workers making 50 cents above the average. They plan to replace them with new workers who will work for substantially less, and they say they are going to save $110 million through these firings and replacements. But Circuit City executives actually seem to be doing a little better than the workers. The employees are losing their jobs, but the CEO gets $10 million a year. The chairman gets $10 million, the CEO gets $10 million, the executive VP gets $6 million. This is from a company that lost money. I don't know. Maybe in some towns that seems to work. In my hometown, it wouldn't work very long. It seems to me we are becoming a society of disposable workers, run by those who don't think workers make much of a difference in this country. Circuit City said they will start hiring replacements immediately. Anybody can apply for the jobs except for the Circuit City workers who were fired. They have to wait 10 weeks, and then they can reapply for the job at a lower salary. So let's put some names to these 3,400 workers. I pulled some out of the newspaper. Bobby Young worked 20 years for Circuit City. He got a letter from his boss saying he was fired. It was addressed ``To Whom It May Concern.'' It is unbelievable. He said he is 47 years old. ``What they did as a company to me, it's not the American way,'' he says. To Whom It May Concern: You are fired. It tells you a little something about the concern about the workers, doesn't it? Alan Hartley, Charlotte, NC. He thought he and other top employees were being called into a special meeting because he thought they were going to be recognized for outstanding performance, but it wasn't quite that way. They decided they were going to be recognized to be laid off because they should be replaced with lower paid workers. Now he says they are going to hire people who aren't properly trained for the jobs to help take care of the customers. I haven't told my kids yet. They don't know I just got fired for doing a good job. Steven Rash made $11.59 an hour; worked for the company 7 years. He was working another full-time job as well--two jobs to pay off his student debt. It is not just Circuit City. There are other companies. I will not go through the whole list of companies. David Leonhart of the New York Times said that companies are wringing out what they see as inefficiencies. The inefficiency of paying $11.50 an hour; God forbid we should overpay people by $11.50 an hour, plus give them a little health insurance and retirement as part of their compensation. Well, when pensions and health insurance and $11.50-an-hour salary is viewed as an inefficiency, there is something wrong in this country. He also says this is a corporate safety net that is being taken away. There is no corporate safety net. It is a basic American standard of living that workers have bargained for. Let me ask the question whether this applies to everybody. No, it doesn't. It just applies to workers, the people who take a shower after work. It just applies to those people. Top executives--in 2006 there were 35 chief executives who were fired for poor performance and, combined, they got $799 million payment as they went out the door. Pfizer's chairman, he got $200 million when he bailed out of that company, despite the fact the company had lost more than $130 billion in value. Home Depot chairman, he got fired on the very first day of 2007. He got $210 million as he went out the door. United Health Group, he somehow ended up with $1.1 billion in stock options as he went out the door. I don't quite understand all these things. Jack Welch, a celebrated CEO, wrote the book ``Winning,'' and after he retired from General Electric, he got a package he was sufficiently embarrassed about, once it was disclosed, that he decided to give some of it back. His package included an $80,000-a-month Central Park apartment during his retirement, lifetime use of the company jet, membership at an array of country clubs, maid service at multiple homes, limousines and prime tickets and several homes. I don't understand how we have come to the point where the average CEO in this country, the average CEO of Standard & Poor's 500 companies, made $14.7 million. CEOs on average are paid 411 times more than the average workers in this company. Think of that. In 1965, CEOs on average were paid 25 times more than the average worker. Now it is 411 times more. Yesterday I opened the paper and read that Sprint CEO got a compensation package of $21.3 million, the former Nextel chairman got $36.2 million. Sallie Mae, by the way, in the business of providing student loans, their chief executive officer got a package of $16.6 million and a bonus of $2.5 million as a part of that. Ford Motor lost $12.6 billion last year. It went out and recruited a new chairman--oh, by the way, for the chairman, when the company lost $12.6 billion, that chairman got $10.5 million last year. They just went to hire a new guy and he got a $28 million package which includes an $18 million bonus. The average CEO who was fired last year got $9 million in severance. Abraham Lincoln once said there is no America without labor and to fleece the one is to rob the other. There is a man named Bob Negley. Bob Negley is quite a remarkable businessman, a very unusual businessman. He ran a company called Rollerblade. Most of us know about Rollerblade. I like to rollerblade, personally--inline skates. I think it is a great sport. I haven't even broken a bone. Maybe I shouldn't say that, but I like to rollerblade. Bob Negley ran Rollerblade and then he sold it. After he sold it, he did something that is very unusual in this country. He moved to Florida, midyear, sold his position in Rollerblade, that controlling position, and moved to Florida. Then Christmastime came around and all the workers who worked for Bob Negley who made Rollerblades began to get Christmas cards from Bob Negley and his wife. In the Christmas card as they opened it up was a check from this man who had previously owned the company 6 months before. With the check was a note and it said this: I sold this company and I made a lot of money, but I understand what made this company successful. It was all of you. You worked out there in the plants and in the factories, you worked in engineering, you worked in marketing, you are the ones who made this company successful and, as a result, I made a lot of money. I want to share some of it with you. He included in the Christmas card a check computed on the number of years of service which some employees found to be over $20,000, and, by the way, he said, I have prepaid your Federal income taxes on this money. Accept this as a token of my appreciation because you were the company, you made this company successful. Contrast that, if you will, with these days all the discussions in the newspaper about Circuit City who has to get rid of 3,400 workers. Why? Because we want to hire less-experienced workers, and we want to bring them on for less money; $11 an hour is too much. Or, perhaps, Wal-Mart, which sends an internal memorandum around. A top executive writes a memo in Wal-Mart and says the cost of an associate--that is an employee, by the way, but you know this notion of ``associate.'' In my hometown there was a one-eyed, 3-legged dog with fleas they named ``Lucky,'' so names don't mean very much. So he says, the cost of an associate with 7 years of tenure is 55 percent more than the cost of an associate with 1 year of tenure, and yet there is no difference in his or her productivity. Message? Don't let people stay around very long. Let's have a lot of turnover here. Let's have people around who don't know anything so we can pay them nothing. This is going on in this country, and the question is, Who is going to stand up for American workers? Who decides for a change that the expansion of the middle class in this country, where workers were paid well, was something that represented the success of the American economic engine? Who is going to decide that? These companies that decide that workers are like wrenches: use them up and throw them away, it doesn't matter, or will they decide, once again, as Franklin Delano Roosevelt did, or as did that worker standing with his hat in his hands said: I know American workers. That President knew American workers. Will we decide finally that American workers have value in this economic system? Sure, we can outsource everything. We can ship all these jobs to China and pay people 30 cents an hour to make bicycles to be sold in America. We can decide that we are going to get rid of all these workers and replace them with $8- or $6-an-hour people. Is that what is going to build a better country? Is that what is going to expand the middle class? There is no social program in this Chamber that we debate and talk about that is as important to the American people as a good job that pays well with good benefits. It is time, long past the time we start to remember that. Yes, I used some company names here and I have described some severance packages. Perhaps I shouldn't single those companies out, but the fact is they put themselves on the front section of the business section of these newspapers with their own news: We want to get rid of 3,400 employees; that's what Circuit City says. I am saying that is a value system which ignores the fact that workers are your company. I told a company that was in to see me not so long ago: Your brand is a brand all of us recognize. Your brand is not just something painted someplace; it is the people who work for your company. If you don't understand that, at some point that brand will be worth virtually nothing. This country needs to begin to understand, once again, and honor, once again, work and working men and women who struggle every day. They get up, they work, they work hard, they give you an honest day's work, and they come home and try and raise a family and do all the things that make life in this country worthwhile. All too often these days we see this notion that somehow, by some companies, workers don't have value, don't have worth. That is a very serious mistake. Both in public policy and I hope in the private sector, we need to turn this around and understand this country's success depends on expanding the middle class, on providing opportunities for the people in this country--opportunities, yes, for a good job that pays well, to take care of families and provide the things you want for a good life in this country's future. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I make a point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to be joined by Senators Hagel, Johnson, Brownback and nine of our colleagues today in re- introducing the New Homestead Act of 2007. This legislation will help address a serious threat to the economic future of rural America--the loss of its residents and Main Street businesses. I have previously described to my Senate colleagues the severe economic and social hardships that population out-migration has had on America's Heartland when businesses are shuttered up, schools and churches are consolidated or closed altogether. Hundreds of thousands of people have left small towns in rural areas throughout the Great Plains. If you are a business owner, mayor, school board member, minister or resident of one of these rural communities, you know firsthand about this problem. People who are from these areas know that you simply can't grow or run a business in an environment where the overall economy is shrinking, current and potential customers are leaving, and public and private investment is falling. Too many communities in North Dakota and other rural States lack the critical mass of people and resources it takes to keep a community alive and growing. Rural counties in North Dakota and heartland States have experienced massive net out-migration in recent decades and this trend is continuing today. Forty-seven of North Dakota's fifty-three counties suffered net population losses between 2000 and 2005. My home county, Hettinger, saw its population dwindle from 4,257 in 1980 to just 2,715 in 2000. Its population is projected to drop to just 1,877 by 2020. However, this out-migration problem isn't limited to North Dakota. Nearly all of America's Heartland is facing significant population losses. Over the past fifty years or so, nearly two-thirds of rural counties in the Great Plains lost at least one third of their population. One of the major problems caused by chronic out-migration is the dwindling workforce of young people. A recent analysis and report prepared by Dr. Richard Rathge at the North Dakota State Data Center highlighted this concern. His report revealed that the steady out- migration of young adults over the last half century or so has significantly reduced the proportion of individuals age 20 to 34 in our rural counties. The report predicts that between 2000 and 2020, the prime working age population in North Dakota, those aged 35 to 54, will decline from 183,435 to 146,717, a loss of nearly 37,000 people. If this trend continues as predicted, there will be more elderly North Dakotans age 65 and older in the year 2020 than individuals who are in their prime working years. As the report concluded, this dwindling labor pool could have a devastating economic impact on rural communities that are already struggling from a loss of residents, businesses and investments needed to survive. We believe the bipartisan New Homestead Act will help reverse the depopulation of our rural communities by giving people who are willing to commit to live and work in high out-migration areas for 5 years tax and other financial rewards to help them to buy a home, pay for college, build a nest egg, and start a business. These incentives include repaying up to $10,000 of a college loan, offering a $5,000 tax credit for the purchase of a new home, protecting home values by allowing losses in home value to be deducted from Federal income taxes, and establishing Individual Homestead Accounts that will help people build savings and have access to credit. It also provides tax incentives to encourage businesses to move to or expand their operations in high out-migration rural counties, including tax credits for investments in rural buildings and to offset the cost of equipment purchases and operating expenses of small businesses with five or fewer employees. Very little, if any, private venture capital is invested in out-migration rural counties, so the New Homestead Act also establishes a new $3 billion venture capital fund with state and local governments as partners to ensure that entrepreneurs and companies in these areas get the capital they need to start and grow their businesses. The United States Senate has previously passed parts of the New Homestead Act, but those and other provisions in the bill have not yet been signed into law. But there is good reason to think we will make significant progress on the New Homestead Act in the 110th Congress. In March, the Senate passed S. Con. Res. 21, to establish a budget plan for fiscal year 2008. This resolution allows for Senate action on the kinds of policies provided in the New Homestead Act. Specifically, Section 306 of the budget authorizes the Budget Committee Chairman to revise the levels in the resolution by $15 billion for revenue-neutral legislation that would, among other things, provide rural development investment incentives for counties impacted by high rates of out- migration. The Senate's action on the budget signals that Federal policy makers in the U.S. Senate do understand that rural out-migration is a serious threat to the economic well-being of the Nation's Heartland. My colleagues and I will work closely with the leaders of the Budget Committee and the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee to secure passage of New Homestead Act provisions in the coming year. I urge my colleagues to support the New Homestead Act in the 110th Congress by cosponsoring it and helping us move this important bill forward in the legislative process.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to be joined by Senators Hagel, Johnson, Brownback and nine of our colleagues today in re- introducing the New Homestead Act of 2007. This legislation will help address a serious threat to the economic future of rural America--the loss of its residents and Main Street businesses. I have previously described to my Senate colleagues the severe economic and social hardships that population out-migration has had on America's Heartland when businesses are shuttered up, schools and churches are consolidated or closed altogether. Hundreds of thousands of people have left small towns in rural areas throughout the Great Plains. If you are a business owner, mayor, school board member, minister or resident of one of these rural communities, you know firsthand about this problem. People who are from these areas know that you simply can't grow or run a business in an environment where the overall economy is shrinking, current and potential customers are leaving, and public and private investment is falling. Too many communities in North Dakota and other rural States lack the critical mass of people and resources it takes to keep a community alive and growing. Rural counties in North Dakota and heartland States have experienced massive net out-migration in recent decades and this trend is continuing today. Forty-seven of North Dakota's fifty-three counties suffered net population losses between 2000 and 2005. My home county, Hettinger, saw its population dwindle from 4,257 in 1980 to just 2,715 in 2000. Its population is projected to drop to just 1,877 by 2020. However, this out-migration problem isn't limited to North Dakota. Nearly all of America's Heartland is facing significant population losses. Over the past fifty years or so, nearly two-thirds of rural counties in the Great Plains lost at least one third of their population. One of the major problems caused by chronic out-migration is the dwindling workforce of young people. A recent analysis and report prepared by Dr. Richard Rathge at the North Dakota State Data Center highlighted this concern. His report revealed that the steady out- migration of young adults over the last half century or so has significantly reduced the proportion of individuals age 20 to 34 in our rural counties. The report predicts that between 2000 and 2020, the prime working age population in North Dakota, those aged 35 to 54, will decline from 183,435 to 146,717, a loss of nearly 37,000 people. If this trend continues as predicted, there will be more elderly North Dakotans age 65 and older in the year 2020 than individuals who are in their prime working years. As the report concluded, this dwindling labor pool could have a devastating economic impact on rural communities that are already struggling from a loss of residents, businesses and investments needed to survive. We believe the bipartisan New Homestead Act will help reverse the depopulation of our rural communities by giving people who are willing to commit to live and work in high out-migration areas for 5 years tax and other financial rewards to help them to buy a home, pay for college, build a nest egg, and start a business. These incentives include repaying up to $10,000 of a college loan, offering a $5,000 tax credit for the purchase of a new home, protecting home values by allowing losses in home value to be deducted from Federal income taxes, and establishing Individual Homestead Accounts that will help people build savings and have access to credit. It also provides tax incentives to encourage businesses to move to or expand their operations in high out-migration rural counties, including tax credits for investments in rural buildings and to offset the cost of equipment purchases and operating expenses of small businesses with five or fewer employees. Very little, if any, private venture capital is invested in out-migration rural counties, so the New Homestead Act also establishes a new $3 billion venture capital fund with state and local governments as partners to ensure that entrepreneurs and companies in these areas get the capital they need to start and grow their businesses. The United States Senate has previously passed parts of the New Homestead Act, but those and other provisions in the bill have not yet been signed into law. But there is good reason to think we will make significant progress on the New Homestead Act in the 110th Congress. In March, the Senate passed S. Con. Res. 21, to establish a budget plan for fiscal year 2008. This resolution allows for Senate action on the kinds of policies provided in the New Homestead Act. Specifically, Section 306 of the budget authorizes the Budget Committee Chairman to revise the levels in the resolution by $15 billion for revenue-neutral legislation that would, among other things, provide rural development investment incentives for counties impacted by high rates of out- migration. The Senate's action on the budget signals that Federal policy makers in the U.S. Senate do understand that rural out-migration is a serious threat to the economic well-being of the Nation's Heartland. My colleagues and I will work closely with the leaders of the Budget Committee and the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee to secure passage of New Homestead Act provisions in the coming year. I urge my colleagues to support the New Homestead Act in the 110th Congress by cosponsoring it and helping us move this important bill forward in the legislative process.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me thank my colleague from Iowa for his leadership. I know he and many others in this Chamber have spent a great deal of time putting together a piece of legislation that is very important. I commend all of them. There are times on the floor of the Senate where we are engaged in certain kinds of debates that cause folks to exhibit some temper and some concern and anxiety and impatience. This is one of those issues, however, that people feel very differently about. We will have people come to the floor on this issue of stem cell research who feel very strongly on both sides. I respect all of those views. I respect everyone who comes to this floor with a position on this issue. But let me say, the position, as I see it, is a position that deals with life and death. This is very important. We deal with some issues on the floor of the Senate that are not so important, some that are very important. This ranks way up there in importance. This is about life or death. It is about science, and it is about inquiry. It is about the search for unlocking the mysteries of what causes some of the dreaded diseases here on Earth and how we find cures for these dreaded diseases. I chair a subcommittee that funds the science programs in our country, especially the science programs that have to do with, for example, energy and other related matters. I think science is fascinating. In my subcommittee, we had testimony a while ago about studying termites. We are studying the digestive system of termites because we are trying to understand why it is when a termite eats wood, the termite's digestive system produces hydrogen. How is it that a termite eats wood and produces hydrogen? Again, what an interesting scientific inquiry. Well, we are engaged in scientific research in a whole range of issues. Especially important are the areas of scientific inquiry in this area of health. What is it that causes these terrible diseases? What kinds of approaches might give us a chance to cure some of these dreaded diseases? Well, one of those issues is the issue of stem cell research. The language almost sounds like a foreign language in some of these discussions: somatic cell nuclear transfer, in vitro fertilization clinic, stem cell research. Those are not terms people use every day in their discussions, and yet the method of using those terms in this discussion is about life or death. It is about continuing scientific inquiry to try to unlock the mysteries of some of the most terrible diseases suffered by mankind. We passed a piece of legislation last July that moved in this direction, and the President decided to veto it. Legislation that we hoped would perhaps give us an opportunity for treatment for things such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, Parkinson's disease, ALS, Alzheimer's, birth defects, and spinal cord injuries. We do not know, we cannot come to the floor of the Senate, we are not scientists to describe: Here is exactly what will happen as a result of this scientific inquiry. But we do know there are at least indications of great hope through this scientific inquiry. So the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act, S. 5, which we now have on the floor of the Senate, would allow researchers to pursue all kinds of promising stem cell research, including embryonic stem cell research that is federally funded. This legislation is controversial. The legislation deals, however, only with embryos that were created for fertility purposes in in vitro fertilization clinics that would otherwise be thrown away. Now, in vitro is a relatively new term. It has been around for about 25 years. There are more than 1 million children walking this planet of ours who were born as a result of in vitro fertilization. We had testimony before one of my committees, the Commerce Committee, in which a witness said: None of them should have been born. None of these human beings are worthy. They should not have been born. He disagrees with in vitro fertilization. It is his right to do that. I do not support that. I think the wonder of life of having 1 million people, 1 million people who once were babies born to people, to couples who were not able to have children, is a wonderful gift. What a wonderful gift. In vitro has been around for a quarter of a century. Because of the nature of the treatment, the infertility treatment in this process, more embryos are created than will ever be used. Rather than throwing these embryos in the waste, as hospital waste, or just waste from an in vitro clinic, it is much more life affirming, I think, to use them to better understand how we might treat devastating diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer's, and more. I think Senator Jack Danforth, former Senator Jack Danforth, said it best. He is a colleague who served here with us in the Senate. He said this: It is not evident to many of us that cells in a petri dish are equivalent to identifiable people suffering from terrible diseases. I am and have always been pro-life. But the only explanation for legislators comparing cells in a petri dish to babies in the womb is the extension of religious doctrine into statutory law. That is from former Senator Jack Danforth. What a profound statement. Do you equate the cells in a petri dish with someone suffering the ravages of Parkinson's disease or ALS? I do not think so. But that suggests somehow that those who oppose this legislation make that equation. This legislation is not suggesting that anyone create an embryo for the purpose of research. It is saying those embryos that are about to be discarded, thrown away, thousands of them, because many more are produced than are to be used in in vitro clinics, rather than simply throwing them away, how about--with the consent of those from whom the embryos came--how about using them for a life-affirming purpose, for the needed research into unlocking the mysteries of these devastating diseases? There are about 400,000 embryos frozen in these clinics. It is estimated 8,000 to 11,000 are scheduled to be discarded. It is interesting to me that no one has come to the floor of the Senate--that I am aware of--saying: Shut down these in vitro clinics. Shut them down. And, by the way, if someone tries to throw away an embryo, as they do every day, if they try to throw one away, have someone arrest them because you are throwing away a human being. It is, of course, not a human being. It has the potential to become a human being if it is implanted in a woman's uterus and grown to term. But it will not be implanted in a uterus. In fact, it will be discarded in a wastebasket. The question my colleagues asks with S. 5 is: With consent, should that embryo, rather than simply be discarded, not be able to be used for this critically important research? There are not enough stem cell lines available. We know that. My colleagues have made that case. The President authorized some stem cell lines, but the authorized lines were never enough, and, in fact, they were contaminated, and it is just a plain fact that we are, at this point, interrupting the scientific inquiry. We are interrupting the opportunity to search for a cure for these diseases. The embryos we are discussing on the floor of the Senate are going to be destroyed. That is certain. These embryos are going to be destroyed. Could they, should they be used to search for the cure for these dread diseases? I believe the answer is yes. In my last campaign for the Senate, a curious commercial was run against me by my opponent. He ran a commercial which is a description of some who feel very strongly in opposition to this kind of legislation. Because I support stem cell research very strongly, my opponent ran a commercial of a man sitting around the fire, a kind of a campfire with about six or eight young children around him. The commercial, I suppose, was meant to be humorous but about a serious subject. A young child, with eyes very big reflected in the glow of the fire, around that fireplace, said to the camp leader: Tell us a story. Tell us a scary story. The man said: Well, there is a man named Byron--referring to me, I guess--a man named Byron. He has a plan. His plan is to implant into a mommy's uterus an egg that is fertilized, to become a fetus, so that they can harvest it during that pregnancy to use it for body parts later. Little children around that campfire had eyes the size of dinner plates, from that scary story. Of course, that was a complete perversion of anything that remotely related to the truth, had no relationship to any of these issues. No one is talking about implanting something in a uterus for the purpose of growing a fetus, for the purpose of harvesting body parts. That kind of unbelievable lie permeates all too often this discussion. That is not what this discussion is about. Those of us in this Chamber--and there are many of us who have sat in the front row of a funeral--in my case of a daughter--and asked ourselves: Was there anything, was there anything more we could have done? Is there anything that could have been done to prevent this disease? The answer, if we prevent this kind of research, the answer for everyone will be, yes, there is something we could have done. We could have continued the scientific inquiry and research, with carefully constructed guidelines, to see if we could unlock the mysteries of these diseases. Let me show a picture of a young girl named Camille. In fact, I just saw Camille last month. This young girl has been very near death. She suffers from juvenile diabetes, the particularly acute condition of juvenile diabetes. That is Camille in the middle. I saw her mother last week in North Dakota. Camille was in Washington, DC, about a month ago with her mother. I have known Camille for a long time, this young girl holding the clarinet in her middle school band. She has had a tough life and has lived on the edge, suffering a very significant disease, one that has cost too many, too many Americans, and especially too many young Americans, their lives. But there are so many opportunities for research and for potential treatment. Let me give you a couple of examples. I was on an airplane one day with one of the researchers at NIH. The researchers at NIH do unbelievable work. He told me of the use of stem cells among a group of mice that had induced heart attacks, severe, debilitating heart attacks. They used stem cells to inject back into the heart muscle of those mice, and in a matter of a couple of weeks, a substantial percentage of those mice showed no evidence of having had a heart attack. A substantial portion had complete recovery. Let me give you a couple of other examples. Researchers at Johns Hopkins report paralyzed rats have partially regained the use of previously immobile hind legs in studies in which scientists injected the rodents with stem cells from mice embryos. As to potential to treat ALS, University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists have turned stem cells into nerve cells carrying messages between the body to the brain, offering possibilities for repairing damage caused by ALS. Embryonic stem cell researchers at UCLA, AIDS Institute, were able to coax human embryonic stem cells into becoming mature immune T cells. I am not a scientist. All I can tell you is this: When we look, when we search, when we inquire, when we use America's best minds and research using good ethical guidelines, important guidelines, valuable guidelines, for scientific inquiry, we then find ways to unlock these mysteries. It is pretty unbelievable what we have done in a relatively short period of time. We have a polio vaccine. We have cured smallpox. If you go to the hospital these days and take a look at the wondrous machines and the wonderful treatments and all of the things that we are doing, all of that is a matter of experimentation and developing experience from that experimentation. The fact is, embryonic stem cell research has very broad and very strong bipartisan support. That bipartisan support is evident in the Senate. We have had Senators on both sides of the political aisle stand up in strong support of this legislation. Now, let me use a chart that my colleague, Senator Kennedy, just used because I believe it is so important. Dr. Zerhouni, the Director of the National Institutes of Health, says--this is President Bush's own NIH Director: From my standpoint, it is clear today that American science will be better served, and the Nation will be better served, if we let our scientists have access to more stem cell lines. That is from the President's own appointee to head the National Institutes of Health. I know in political life, there are a lot of labels, pro-life, pro- choice, pro-this, pro-that, anti-that. Let me observe, it is not, as some have suggested, a pro-life position to diminish or shut off critically needed research that will give people who have Parkinson's disease, diabetes, Lou Gehrig's disease, cardiovascular disease, cancer, any number of the things that kill so many Americans, it is not pro-life to diminish, restrict, or shut down research that gives people an opportunity for hope that there might be a cure for these diseases through this scientific inquiry and research. I recognize this is controversial. I respect someone who comes to the floor and says: Senator Dorgan, you are wrong about this. I respect that. This is not an easy issue. It is difficult for a lot of Members. I have not found it particularly difficult for me, because I believe those of us who have seen the ravages--and that should be most everybody in this Chamber--of these diseases to our loved ones, to friends, to so many Americans, this country would want us to do everything possible to give the tools to the best scientific minds and the best people in the medical field possible to unlock the mysteries of these diseases and find the cures. That is what this debate has been long about. This debate, however, is even narrower than many we have had on this subject. This is about a single issue--can we use embryos that are otherwise going to be discarded from in vitro fertilization clinics, that are otherwise simply going to become waste and destroyed, today, tomorrow, next week, next month, all year long, can we use, with the permission of the donors, those embryos for the scientific inquiry necessary for the extension of life and the curing of these dread diseases? Can we do that? The answer clearly ought to be yes, a loud, resounding yes coming from this Chamber. My colleague Senator Harkin has been at this a long time. I have spoken on this a good number of times on the floor of the Senate myself. But it is not only Senator Harkin; he is joined in a piece of legislation on a bipartisan basis by some very significant voices in the Senate, saying: Let's do this. Let's do this for this country. All of those who are suffering from these dread diseases deserve our help. They certainly don't deserve a Government that says: By the way, we understand your suffering, but we would prefer to choose to destroy and discard embryos from an in vitro fertilization clinic rather than extend the scientific research that might find a cure for what is killing you. That is not an acceptable answer from this Senate. I thank Senator Harkin for the time. I thank the many colleagues who have spoken in favor of this legislation and offer the fervent hope-- and I believe it exists--that we can pass this legislation with a very substantial margin within the next 24 hours. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I would like to announce that the Committee on Indian Affairs will meet on Thursday, April 12, 2007, at 9:30 a.m. in Room 485 of the Russell Senate Office Building to conduct a business meeting to consider pending legislation, to be followed immediately by an oversight hearing on Tribal Colleges and Universities. Those wishing additional information may contact the Indian Affairs Committee at 224-2251. committee on energy and natural resources

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I thank the leader for his support and continuing interest in geothermal and renewable energy. The committee's substitute amendment provides $22,762,000 for geothermal energy research at the Department of Energy in fiscal year 2007. This is the same level of funding as provided in fiscal year 2006. After the administration proposed terminating the geothermal research program in its fiscal year 2007 budget request, the Senate Appropriations Committee rejected that proposal last year in its report accompanying the fiscal year 2007 energy and water appropriations bill, S. Rept. 109-274. Section 3201 will ensure continuation of this vital program.

Mr. DORGAN. First of all, the department should continue critical efforts to support new technology and deployment, including funding of existing contracts and awards under previous solicitations, but the department should be rapidly implementing and supporting the geothermal provisions of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Based upon the studies and reports the Senator from Nevada has mentioned, it should also be a priority for the department to support resource development and exploration technology, including continued both existing and new Geothermal Resource Exploration and Development, GRED, efforts that are underway at the DOE.

Mr. DORGAN. I appreciate the Senator's views on the importance of this program and share the Senator's commitment to ensuring an effective DOE geothermal program that works to expand our Nation's use of this important, renewable energy resource.

Mr. DORGAN

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

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I have offered an amendment to the underlying bill, the supplemental appropriations bill. I wish to describe it for a moment, and then I wish to respond to some comments that were made earlier by my colleague from Oklahoma who is offering an amendment dealing with the agriculture disaster piece I included in this bill as well. First, an issue I am very familiar with and concerned about. It is an issue called country-of-origin labeling. For those who don't know what that means, it means in 2002, 5 full years ago, the Congress mandated we would have country-of-origin labeling for beef, lamb, pork, fish, fruits, vegetables. Essentially, what you eat shall be labeled. If people walking around this Chamber would take their shoes off, they would find their shoes are labeled. If they took off their T-shirts, they would find they are labeled. Almost everything is labeled these days--made in Taiwan, made in China, made in wherever--so you can get a sense of where things are made. Go to the grocery store and pick up a package of pasta, linguini, spaghetti, take a look on the side and you will see what is in it. You will see where it was made. Labeling. The only problem is we don't require labeling, for example, on a piece of steak. One day some while ago I brought to the floor of the Senate a piece of steak. I held it up and I said, I challenge anybody in the Congress to tell me where this piece of meat came from. Of course, no one tried and no one could. No one knows where that meat came from. As I asked about where this meat might have come from, I read from an inspector's report who went to a processing plant in Hermosillo, Mexico, the first time any inspector had ever been there to inspect the conditions of the processing of meat in that plant that was being shipped to American consumers. I read from the report. It said: Carcasses of meat were hanging in rooms that were not refrigerated, layered with feces and flies, and some from diseased animals ready to be put back into the same vat where they were going to grind it for beef and so on. I read the description of what the inspector found. They shut down that plant. They shut down that plant in Mexico. Then it was reopened because it had new ownership. They made a few changes, reopened the plant, and still ship meat from Mexico to the United States from that plant, and there has never been an inspector back to take a look. I asked the question: Can anybody tell me this piece of meat didn't come from that plant? Well, of course, nobody could. So you might ask why, if 5 years ago we mandated that there be country-of-origin labeling for meat in this country, why is there no labeling on meat? Well, the majority party in recent years apparently cared a lot about what the big packers thought and all the folks who were opposed to labeling these meat products. I was in a conference committee over in the middle of this Capitol in a small room. We were all packed into this little conference, an Appropriations Committee conference, and it was November of 2005. Country-of-origin labeling, remember, was supposed to have gone into effect on September 30, 2004. But then the majority party got involved and they extended it once. In November of 2005 I was part of a conference on the Agriculture appropriations bill and I was prepared to debate this issue on country- of-origin labeling. The chairman of that conference banged the gavel, recessed the conference, and we never met again. The next time we saw the results of what those folks had done in a smoky back room some place, they had further extended country-of-origin labeling to September of 2008. They keep extending it and extending it. The law says meat must be labeled by September 30, 2004. It is not now labeled. Why? Because it has been extended and extended again, always done in the dead of night, always done in an amendment that is brought up not in the House or the Senate, but stuck in a conference some place--an unbelievable practice. The result is we come now to this piece of legislation, an emergency supplemental appropriations bill, and I say: You know what. Let's decide that country-of-origin labeling for meat takes effect this September, several months ahead. Let's decide it does that. One of the culprits here has been the U.S. Department of Agriculture too, because they almost wore out their shoes by dragging their feet. They have no interest in doing anything this aggressive, even though the Congress said: You must do it. They drug their feet, got their heels stuck in the ground. That gave their friends here in Congress enough time to do these extensions. The result is in this country today there is no labeling of meat products. It is interesting. The other day I was listening to news reports, tragic news reports about pet food in this country--millions, tens of millions, I guess, of people who have fed pet food to their pets, apparently containing ingredients they had no notion of, filler wheat from China, apparently rat poisoning, and pets have died. A tragedy for those pet owners. But how would they have known? There is no label. They don't know what is in it. They don't know where it comes from. I assume even if it had a label, it wouldn't say rat poison. I don't know how rat poison would get into pet food. But in any event, as I was listening to the news and watching some owners of pets who had described the terrible, agonizing death of their pets from eating contaminated pet food, it reminded me again of this issue of labeling and of my description of the investigator who went to the one processing plant in Mexico, processing meat for this country. Why in these circumstances and in this day and age, do we not have labeling on meat that is sold to the American consumer? Up north in Canada--my heart goes out to those livestock producers in Canada. They are trying hard. They are trying to make a living like everybody else is, but the plain fact is they have had 10 cases of mad cow disease in Canada. Nine of them in Canada, one recently, and one Canadian cow discovered in the State of Washington. That is 10 cases of mad cow disease, including the most recent case a couple of months ago. Yet, even at that point, it seems as if the Secretary of Agriculture wants to do a mad cow cattle drive from Canada to the United States. He is all anxious about opening this market right now; got to do it right now. I am wondering why his inclination isn't first to protect our domestic industry. We have other countries that say, we want to trade with you. We want to buy some beef from you, but we are not interested in buying beef that is intermixed with other kinds of beef. We want beef that is certified as American beef. Why? It is the safest in the world. But if you open this border wide open to the Canadian cattle at this point, especially at this point, given what we have known about BSE in Canada, how can we tell other countries without country-of- origin labeling that we have segregated and we know exactly where this meat comes from? I think the USDA is making a business mistake. I say to the USDA Secretary this: If you are going to do this, at least be consistent and say you cannot do it without implementing country-of-origin labeling immediately; you must argue for both. Yet he has not been willing to do that. I don't want, by talking about this, to suggest in any way that people in this country should be concerned about their supply of meat. They should not. We have a lot of ranchers and folks in this country who do a lot of work to keep our beef, lamb, pork, and poultry supply safe. But the American consumer wishes to purchase that which comes from American ranchers. That is why country-of-origin labeling is important, to give the American consumer the choice and the opportunity. I am telling you something. It is long past time when this should have been done. Those who serve in this Congress who want to continue to prevent the consumer from knowing where this meat comes from do no favor to the American consumer, and they certainly do no favor to the producer who is producing the best quality of supply that exists in the world but are told it doesn't need to be labeled because the consumer doesn't need to know. Boy, I think that is dead wrong. So I have introduced a piece of legislation that will move country- of-origin labeling up to September of this year. It is long past time for this Congress to take action to undo what others have done in the appropriations process in the dead of night to extend this country-of- origin labeling. Let me also talk for a moment about amendments that will likely be offered to strike from the emergency legislation some assistance to family farmers who suffered weather-related disasters. Almost all of us were here when we debated what to do about Hurricane Katrina, which came roaring onto the shore in this country and devastated a significant part of this country. It flattened it, killed people, ravaged houses, destroyed a city, and then another city. It rendered the gulf coast in shambles. Included in that is the crop that the farmers planted, the crop they put in the fields, hoping it would grow--the destruction of all that crop that was put in for that year by those farmers. What do we do about that? What we decided to do was to provide emergency help, billions and billions of dollars of help, to those people who were injured by Hurricane Katrina. At least one part of that was to help family farmers who lost everything in the gulf. We said: You are not alone, you didn't cause this hurricane, you are the victims of it. Just like the other victims of this weather-related disaster, we want you to know we are with you and we want to help you. And we did. Family farmers in that region got disaster assistance and got it with my help. I insisted on supporting that, and I know my colleagues did as well. We had a responsibility to say to those farmers: You lost everything. You are the victims of this weather- related disaster. We want to help you get back on your feet and recover. We want you to be able to continue living and working on a family farm. So we did that. But that was not the only weather-related disaster. In the last 2\1/2\ years, we have had torrential flooding in my State, for example. At one point, we had 2 million acres of land that was planted and completely washed away, or not planted at all. If you are a farmer who owns land in that 2 million acres, you didn't have a crop, or didn't plant one, and you don't have any hope. Last year, we were the epicenter of a devastating drought. The pasture down near Zeeland, ND, when I drove there to go to a meeting with ranchers and farmers, looked exactly like a moonscape. Nothing was growing at all. Under the best of circumstances--I come from a semiarid area, where 17 inches of rain fall a year. Put that in the epicenter of a drought and you have real trouble. We had farmers who lost everything and not just us, but in other parts of the country the same was true. We name hurricanes but not droughts or floods. The drought didn't have a name. It wasn't ``Drought Kenneth'' or ``Drought Irma.'' Because these farmers lost everything to disasters that didn't have a name, are they any less deserving? Do we think any less of the interest in keeping them on the land and giving them help to continue farming? The answer ought to be, no, of course not. That is why I added a disaster piece for family farmers in this appropriations bill. My colleague, Senator Conrad, and I, and so many others, on a bipartisan basis--Senators Bond, Feinstein, Boxer, and others--have all worked together to try to reach out to family farmers and say: When trouble visits your farm and you have lost everything, you are not alone. This Congress wants to help. This is not a recent urge of ours. We have always done this. We have always done it. So I was proud to be a part of putting this in the appropriations bill. It is on the floor. It should not be controversial. I spoke to President Bush last night and said: Mr. President, do not call this pork; it is not pork. You don't legislate pork, you eat pork. We understand about meat and pork and so on. This is not pork, but some want to call it that. Say that to a farmer and the farmer's family living under that yard light 10, 15 miles from town who lost everything; say to him: By the way, when the Congress wants to help you, somebody believes it is pork. It is not pork; it is in this country's interest to help those family farmers. It is simply in our interest. That is why we have added this, and I know we will have amendments to strip it out or make changes. The fact is this is a worthy and a noble thing for the Congress to do. I hope that when the amendments are offered, we will be able to defeat them.

Mr. DORGAN. Yes.