Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, as the ranking member of the Interior appropriations subcommittee, I wish to join my colleague from Montana in extending our congratulations and our best wishes to John Trezise as he prepares to leave Federal service. Each spring, the Interior Subcommittee holds a budget hearing to review the Interior Department's budget request for the coming fiscal year. The Interior Secretary is always seated, front and center, at the main table in our hearing room ready to answer the myriad of questions coming from our subcommittee's members. And despite the sometimes obscure nature of the questions asked, the Secretary has always been able to offer a timely, if not credible, answer. That ability to respond is more often than not due to the fact that, seated immediately next to the Secretary, has been John Trezise and the fattest looseleaf binder any of us has ever seen. No matter what is asked, John has been able to reach into that book and almost instantly retrieve a figure or some other pithy explanation that nearly always seems to satisfy the inquiring Senator. It is a magical exercise that must be seen to be believed. Mr. President, too often the word ``bureaucrat'' is used as a pejorative. But in the case of John Trezise, those of us on the Interior Subcommittee have come to learn that he exemplifies the best in civil service. And so I join Senator Burns in saying to Mr. Trezise that he can be justly proud of his service to the American people and that we wish him and his family all the best in the coming years.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I understand we are, by a previous order, to vote at 5 o'clock. There appears to be 4 minutes remaining. I ask unanimous consent to speak during that time if no one else is present.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I only wanted to follow Senator Conrad and point out that this amendment is truly bipartisan. Those who have watched this debate will recognize we have had Republicans and Democrats come to the floor of the Senate to say this is an important amendment. They support it, and they hope the Senate will pass it. I want to point out again that this is the third time we have brought this to the floor of the Senate. On two other occasions, it passed the Senate and had gone to conference. On both of those occasions, it was blocked in conference with the U.S. House. It was blocked by the House conferees. I believe on both occasions I asked for a vote of the Senate conferees, and the Senate conferees insisted on their position. So it is not a weak will here with respect to disaster assistance for farmers that exists. It is a very strong will, and the Senate has expressed itself previously on two occasions. On the third occasion in the Appropriations Committee, we had a unanimous vote--by unanimous consent in the Appropriations Committee-- to add the disaster legislation earlier this year. That bill has not previously come to the floor but not because we have not tried. We have pushed and pushed to get that bill to the floor of the Senate. Only now, in what is the last week of the session, have we managed to get the bill on the floor and, by consent, offer an amendment. So I think it is important to understand that we have been trying for a long while to get this amendment fully debated, get it through the Senate and back to conference with the House. It appears now that, whatever may happen on the floor this afternoon, this is likely to be a part of an omnibus appropriations bill at some point in late January or, likely, mid-February. Time is very short. Someone used the word ``patience'' earlier today. Boy, we have had a lot of patience in dealing with this issue. There is broad, bipartisan support for it--or there has been at least. We have been waiting and waiting, and it has been blocked in the Senate from bringing this to the floor. Finally we are here today. This is not an idle matter for a lot of American families. For many farm families, the decision will be a decision about whether they will be able to continue living on and working on their family farms. For those who don't know about them, those who never lived on a farm and don't know what they do on a family farm, don't understand the risks that are taken on a family farm, there are ways they should avail themselves to find out. It is an important part of this country. The network of farm families that are spread across the prairies and lands of this country and produces the foodstuffs, raises cattle, plants and harvests crops, takes all the risks, is an unbelievable group of Americans, and in many ways they are America's all-stars, the entrepreneurs who risk everything virtually every year. When real trouble comes--a natural disaster--the best instinct of this Chamber has always been to say to them: We want to help you. That is all we are saying with this amendment. We want to help family farmers have a chance to continue to stay on the lands. My hope is we will give broad, bipartisan support for this legislation today.

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, first of all, my colleague Senator Conrad has described this amendment very well. I appreciate his leadership, as do other Members of the Senate. For those of us who care about the future of family farming, this is a very important issue for us. I am pleased to be here today to be a cosponsor of this amendment to provide disaster aid to farmers. Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys in the 1930s in one of their songs had a refrain that I have often used on the floor of the Senate: The little bee sucks the blossoms and the big bee gets the honey; the little guy picks the cotton and the big guy gets the money. It hasn't changed much over 70 or 80 years. Somehow the big interests always have their day in the Congress. It wasn't too many months ago that they had their day. There was a little provision tucked in a bill that passed the Congress that said to the largest corporations in America: When you repatriate the income you have earned from abroad, we will give you a big deal. You get to pay an income tax rate of 5\1/4\ percent. I think that was worth about a $100 billion tax cut to the biggest economic interests in this country. It was done without a lot of debate. There is plenty of money to give a $100 billion tax cut to the big interests, but now it is time to talk about working families, family farmers, small producers. The big interests get their day. Now we are talking about the people who shower after work rather than before work. We are talking about the people who go out and work all day. They grease combines. They plow the fields. They milk cows. They do chores. Then, at the end of the day, they take a shower and clean up because they worked hard all day. They and their families live under a yard light hoping they are going to be able to make a living. Often they plant a seed and hope it grows. They wonder whether they are going to have disease that will destroy their crop. Perhaps hail will destroy their crop. Maybe it will rain too much, or maybe it won't rain at all. Maybe if they get a crop, avoiding all those diseases and natural disasters, including weather disasters, maybe if they get a crop and they haul it to the elevator, it is worthless because that price has collapsed. Yet that family living on the farm takes all of those risks by itself, and sometimes it doesn't work out for them. This country for decades--for decades--has always said to family farmers who live out there alone in the country: When things happen that are tough for you--natural disasters, collapse in prices--we want to help you; we want to offer you a helping hand. We have always said that in the form of disaster aid. It used to be that the disaster aid came in the regular farm bill because we had a disaster title in that bill. That has been changed. So now each year we have to come and plead for disaster help when a disaster occurs that hurts families living out on the farms in this country. What has happened this year? Here is a satellite description of what happened in our country. This is July, I believe, of this year. The red in this satellite photo shows the drought. The red shows the destroyed forage. One can see the epicenter of this drought is right up in here, but the drought occurs in a wide area of this country. Look at the epicenter of this drought. Let me read something that comes from a rancher right up here, right in the epicenter of the drought. He says in a letter dated July 12: The grass is so dry that it breaks off when the cows walk on it. The cricks and dams, they're all dried up. We're going to have to sell some of the cows pretty soon so we can try to save the rest of them. If you can do anything to help us out, we would really appreciate it. ``If you can do anything to help us out, we would really appreciate it.'' Did anybody get an appreciative note from those who were saved $103 billion by getting a 5\1/4\-percent income tax break? Did anybody get a note of thanks? Did anybody else get to pay a 5\1/4\ income tax rate? Nobody in America gets to do that. But the biggest economic interests got to do that last year because this Congress was generous: Let me give you a big tax cut of $103 billion. Now we are talking about a few billion dollars that would reach out and help families--yes, the small producers--reach out and help families over troubled times. That is what this is about. Let me describe a little of the history of this situation. Three times the Senate Appropriations Committee on which I serve has approved amendments to provide disaster assistance. Three times I have offered those amendments, and three times they have been accepted. Last December, 1 year ago, during the conference committee on the fiscal year 2006 Defense appropriations bill, I offered a disaster amendment. The Senate conferees--both sides, Republicans and Democrats--agreed to it and accepted it. The House conferees, at the request of President Bush, objected to it because President Bush said he would veto the bill if it was part of the bill. In June of this year again, the full Senate approved an amendment that was on the Katrina-Iraq supplemental bill, which I included in the Appropriations Committee. Let me mention that in both cases, my colleague Senator Conrad played quite a significant role in helping to draft the amendment. He serves on the Senate Agriculture Committee, and I serve on the Appropriations Committee. We used the Appropriations Committee as the mechanism by which we have tried to get this done. Three times the Appropriations Committee in the Senate has passed amendments that I have offered to provide disaster relief. The first two occasions were occasions in which the White House objected. The President actually said, and his advisers said, they would recommend that he veto legislation that would provide disaster help for family farmers. In June of this year, I attached the other disaster package. It is the one Senator Conrad and a large group of us--Republicans and Democrats--put together. That is what is on the floor of the Senate right now, to be amended by the new disaster package my colleague Senator Conrad offers this afternoon, which I fully support. So this is not a new subject. No one should come to the floor of the Senate surprised. We have dealt with this subject before. The Senate has approved it before by a fairly significant margin. We have been blocked in two conferences with the House of Representatives because the White House decided to block that help. Let me describe a couple of pieces of history about drought. It is not a new thing to have a weather disaster wipe out family farmers across this country. One can see the epicenter up in the northern Great Plains, but one can see the destroyed forage in a wide band in the heartland of our country. Some while ago, we saw the tracking and the description and the physical damage of Hurricane Katrina. It occurred right down here in the gulf. It hit this land with devastating force, unbelievable force, and it destroyed a lot of things. Our hearts were broken as we watched what happened in the gulf. Part of what the hurricane destroyed was the crops that family farmers had down in these fields. They got washed away and destroyed completely. The Congress passed legislation that said to those farmers: You lost your crops due to a weather-related disaster, and here is some disaster aid. The Congress said to these farmers: You lost your crops due to weather, we are going to help you. These farmers have lost their crops due to weather. They are just in a different part of the country. No, it is not a hurricane, it is a drought. This had a name; this didn't. Is there a difference? These farmers write to us and ask: What is the difference? We had a weather- related disaster that wiped out everything we had--all the feed, all the crops. We had to sell our cows because if you have a cow and you have no feed, that cow is going to market. We lost everything, they say. How is it you help farmers in one part of the country who suffered an entire loss of their crops due to a hurricane and then turn a blind eye to farmers in other parts of the country who lost their crops due to drought and other weather-related disasters? How do you justify that, Congress? The answer is there is no justification for that. When we decide we are going to help--and we should, and I have always supported that, during tough times we are going to help family farmers--then we must reach out to all the farmers in this country who suffer these devastating losses. I am not interested in sending financial help to farmers who didn't have these losses. They are just fine. That is not what we are here about today. Today we are about the issue of trying to reach out a helping hand to those farmers who suffered a weather-related disaster and suffered losses. Franklin Delano Roosevelt went out in the country during disasters, and he actually had a tough time traveling. He traveled by train. He showed up in my part of the country on a drought tour. Then he showed up in Huron, SD, on a drought tour. Let me read what the President said. The reason I say this is we asked the President to come out and do a drought tour this past year, or one of his underlings to come out and do a drought tour. In 1936, Franklin Delano Roosevelt did a drought tour. He stopped in Huron, SD, and here is what he said: No city in agriculture country can exist unless the farms are prosperous. We have to cooperate with one another rather than buck one another. I have come out here to find you with your chins up looking toward the future with courage and hope, and I'm grateful to you for the attitudes you are taking. He was on a drought tour speaking from a platform on the back of a train. He was also in Devils Lake, ND, August 7, 1934. Let me tell my colleagues what he said about a drought tour, this President who took a train around the country. He said: I cannot honestly say my heart is happy today because I have seen with my own eyes some of the things I have been hearing and reading about a year or more. A growing drought that was eating the crops and destroying the crops. He said: But when you come to the water problems up here, you are up against two things. In the first place, you're up against the forces of nature. The second, you're up against the fact that man, in its present stage of development, cannot definitely control those forces. The fact is, the President went on a drought tour and said: We want to help family farmers. It is not much different than what we say today. This is important. Let me show a photograph of a North Dakota family farmer. He allowed me to show this photograph on the floor of the Senate. This is a picture of one of the ranchers, these ranchers who, in many cases, had to sell their entire herds or parts of their herds because they had nothing to feed their cows. As I said before, if you have cows and you don't have feed, those cows are going to go to market and be sold. That is what has happened. This is Frank Barnick. Frank and his wife and son raise cattle in Glen Ullin, ND. In this picture, he is walking in a crick bed that normally would provide water for his cattle. As one can see, it looks more like the surface of the Moon. There is no grass there, no water there. Frank says: It's the worst drought I've ever seen. You do a lot of praying wondering how you're going to get through it. One of the issues about getting through these tough times is the issue of what is Congress prepared to do. What is the better instinct of those who serve here? I have served in Congress for some long while, and I have always been proud of being willing to vote for emergency legislation to help people in need. It doesn't matter where it is for me. If it is a hurricane that hits the South in the gulf coast, a hurricane that hits Florida, I want to be there with my vote to say this country wants to say to you, victims of hurricanes, weather- related disasters: You are not alone. You are not alone because this country cares about you. I have always been proud to cast those votes. I never had a second thought about them, and I never wondered very much whether we should. It is part of the better nature of this country to reach out to people and say: You are not alone and we want to help you. I think of all of the things that we have done in this Congress in the last couple of years to help people. We go all around the world. It is an enormously generous country. We do a lot of things to help with everything virtually everywhere, and that is very important and I am supportive of that. But I think it is very important as well that we help people here at home and that we say to people here at home with respect to problems here at home that they are important to us, that what is happening in America is important to us as well. Last year, we had people in the northern part of our State who woke up one morning to find that they had a million acres, a million acres of their ground--these are family farmers who had planted in grains-- washed away and gone and could not be replanted. We had another million acres that could never be planted. We are talking about 2 million acres of ground because of torrential rains that were destroyed with respect to their productivity to raise a crop, and those family farmers sitting out there with that 2 million acres were left to wonder: What next? Will I be able to continue to farm? Will I and my spouse and my son and daughter be able to continue to own this farm? Well, we have had torrential rains and flooding that devastated a region of our State, and then we have the epicenter of the drought, as I have just shown, that is almost unbelievable. My colleague, Senator Conrad, and I and a Congressman took several drought tours, and I have never seen anything like it. When you lose your crop or you lose your pasture and you have no capability to feed cattle or to plant a seed or harvest a crop, is it exactly the same circumstance which that family faces as the circumstance faced by a family farmer in the gulf region in Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana? Of course it is. It is exactly the same. So my colleague today brings a piece of legislation to the floor that we have worked on and tried to perfect that does, as best we can, say to family farmers: Here is a package of disaster relief. No, it is not going to make anybody whole. This is not a massive package that everybody is going to be happy with, but at least it says to those farmers: We want you to have a chance to continue farming. On a couple of occasions I have described the value of this, the cultural value of even caring about farming. Some people say: So what. Let the market system work. If a family is too small to make it and it floods and they can't get a crop and they are broke, tough luck. So long. See you in town someplace. Somebody else will farm that land. We, over some 5, 8, 10 decades in this country have known better than to take that attitude. Rodney Nelson, a writer from my State and a rancher from out near Almont, ND, wrote a wonderful piece about farming. And he asked a question which is important for people in this Chamber to ask. He asked the question: What is it worth? What is it worth, he asks. What is it worth for a kid to know how to weld a seam? What is it worth for a kid to know how to plow a field? What is it worth for a kid to know how to hang a door? What is it worth for a kid to know how to grease a combine? What is it worth for a kid to know how to change the oil in a tractor? What is it worth for a kid to know how to teach a calf to suck milk out of a pail? What is it worth for a kid to know how to brand? What is all that worth? What is all that worth? There is only one place in America where they teach all that. Read the history of the Second World War and see all those young men that marked off America's farms that could fix anything, drive anything, do anything all around the world. There is only one place they teach that, and that university exists on America's family farms. So what is that worth to this country? Does it matter that families live under the yard lights out in the country on our farms? Does it matter? It does to me. It does to me. No, they are not big interests. I understand that. They are small producers. But they deserve a voice in this Chamber. They deserve their day. They deserve the debate about their value and their worth to this country. I guarantee you the big interests get their day virtually every day in these Chambers. This is a day to talk about what it is worth. What is it worth for this country to say to family farmers: You matter and you are not alone when trouble strikes. What is that worth for this country? That is why we offer this amendment today. It is important. In March and April as we prepare for a new year in the Congress and work on appropriations bills and so on, there will be farmers who will learn whether they are able to plant another crop or whether they are going to be kicked off the land. They and their families will learn: Does their dream continue or is it over? And it will depend in large part on what this Congress does on this issue. We should not consider this some sort of idle exercise. It is true that amending this Agriculture appropriations bill is not going to apparently produce this product by the end of this week. But this Agriculture appropriations bill, one way or another, is going to end up in some kind of an omnibus bill in February or early March. I am an appropriator. I am on the committee. And we are going to do some kind of an Omnibus appropriations bill, and I will do everything I can to see that this kind of disaster package is included in it. Putting it in this Agriculture appropriations bill today is the first step in trying to insist that this, too, be a priority for our country. Let me say to my colleague, Senator Conrad, I appreciate working with him on this and many others, and underscore the point that he has made repeatedly: This is not partisan, it is bipartisan. We have aggressive, strong Republican supporters and Democratic supporters to this provision. It is important to understand that. This is about our priorities. It is always about priorities, what is important and what is not important. And so I congratulate and thank the chairman of the subcommittee and the ranking member, Senator Bennett, Senator Kohl, and thank all of those who have joined in a very substantial bipartisan amendment to once again say to this country and this Chamber that family farmers matter to this country. And when they are in trouble, we need to reach out to say to them: You are not alone. The best, most effective way to do that today is to pass this amendment, and I hope we will do that by the end of this day. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I wonder if my colleague would yield for a question.

Mr. DORGAN. In the context of how much money is required to try to be helpful to family farmers as they struggle through this weather-related disaster period to determine whether they are actually going to be able to continue farming, I noticed a story the other day--I believe it was yesterday--which stated that we now have 100,000 private contractors we are paying in the country of Iraq. We are passing pieces of legislation here in the Congress, hundreds of billions of dollars of supplementals, emergency supplementals. My understanding is that we are going to be presented with another emergency supplemental for $120 billion. In terms of what one spends, at least with respect to helping farmers who have gotten hit with tough times, you know what you are doing and where it is going to go. The point I am making is, isn't it the case that in the context of all of this, we are not talking about a great deal of money, but in this case we are talking about a lot of people who will be directly helped, and it likely will determine whether many of them will be able to continue working on the family farm and operating the family farm? I understand this is an expenditure of money, but to the extent that we have emergencies bantered around here virtually all the time, it really is an emergency when a weather-related disaster hits--really hits--and devastates a region. That really is an emergency, to determine whether you are going to be able, or willing, to help families in deep trouble. Isn't it the case that this is not a substantial amount of money, given all the other things we have decided to very quickly say yes to?

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the Senator from Oklahoma, makes some important points. He talks about the need to have patience. One of the issues for all of us is we are about out of patience on this issue. The fact is it has been almost a year and a half trying to move this the third time--not just this but a different variation of this--trying to find a way to help those producers who are hurting. Patience is a virtue, but sometimes we run out of patience, and we are near that end. With respect to the question of payment limits and so on, I agree with the Senator. Senator Grassley from Iowa and I have coauthored amendments--and we will again offer amendments on the floor of the Senate--to establish payment limits in the farm bill. My colleague Senator Conrad has been an active supporter of that. We don't have disagreement on those kinds of issues. I think the crop insurance program, while important, has never been sufficiently contracted to reap prices and replace disasters when a real disaster strikes. That is part of the issue here. These aren't just bad rains or high winds; these are real disasters when you see the epicenter of a drought that destroys all of the farmers. I am sympathetic. I understand what the Senator from Oklahoma is saying. I hope he understands patience is not inexhaustible when producers are wondering whether they and their family are going to be able to continue. I am talking about a lot of families who are struggling very hard. Let me say finally the sentiments of the Senator from Oklahoma about trying to help family farmers is very much, in sync with the sentiments of Senator Conrad and others. We very much want this Congress to reach out a helping hand to those farmers who risk losing everything if we don't help them some, and say, You are not alone, we are going to help you. That is what we are trying to do here.

Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield for a brief point?

Mr. DORGAN. I don't have disagreements about the issue of the pay-for here, and I think my colleague has already described he has a provision that would pay for this. There is a rule XVI against it if he puts it in this bill. I suggest perhaps we do a unanimous consent on the pay- for. If he doesn't, I know a politician who will easily pay for it. I will do a unanimous consent to pay for it. It will be objected to, regrettably. These things ought to be paid for. The first time we suggest this is when a family is in trouble on the farm. We have had hundreds of billions of dollars come through here with hardly a blink, none of it paid for. That ought to change. I am with the Senator from Oklahoma. Let's try to change that. The fact is, this does not have a pay-for, not because Senator Conrad doesn't want it there or I don't want it there; it ought to be there. We have the device by which this can be paid for. There is a rule against it, but we ought to do a unanimous consent to describe the fact that it will be objected to, but we want it paid for.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN. I have two amendments to offer. I will be happy to offer and debate them in order and to work with the chairman on whatever arrangements he might wish for a vote on these amendments.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my second amendment be considered, notwithstanding the Harkin amendment that was previously offered.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me ask the chairman. I wish to respond for 2 minutes to the comments which the chairman just made in opposition to my amendment prior to proceeding to the vote.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I wish I were on the Senate floor today able to be supportive of the chairman and ranking member of the committee. They have both given persuasive and eloquent statements about the matter. I come to the floor of the Senate with a different view. I come here very disappointed because I think we are beginning down a very troublesome road for this country. I want to talk a little about what all this means. I know the issue is not an issue that rates at the top of the attention of the American people at the moment, this Government, or the press corps. This is an issue about whether there will be more nuclear weapons built in a world in which there are already too many nuclear weapons. This is an issue in which we are going to discuss the issue of nonproliferation, stopping the spread of nuclear weapons at a time when we have terrorism in this world that we worry could result in a terrorist organization acquiring a nuclear weapon and detonating a nuclear weapon in a major American city. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to show a couple of items on the floor of the Senate.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, my colleague, Senator Lugar, is someone who has been a real leader with Senator Nunn on the Nunn-Lugar program, which I have been proud to support. It has been a program that has actually reduced the number of nuclear weapons and reduced the delivery systems for nuclear weapons. It is what we aspire to do. It is what our country should lead the world in doing, and that is to step away from the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the building of new nuclear weapons. This is a piece of a wing strut from a Backfire bomber. This used to be flying in the air, part of a wing strut from a Soviet Backfire bomber that likely carryied nuclear weapons that threatened our country. We didn't shoot this plane down. This wing strut was sawed off. The wing was destroyed. The plane was destroyed. It was dismantled. How did that happen? We actually paid for it. My colleagues, Senator Nunn and Senator Lugar, proposed legislation that allowed us to, with the Russians, actually begin to destroy and reduce delivery systems and nuclear weapons. So this bomber that carried a nuclear weapon, presumably to threaten this country, doesn't exist anymore. A piece of its wing is in my desk drawer in the United States Senate. This is a vile of ground-up copper. This used to be part of a Soviet submarine, that prowled under the water with missiles and warheads presumably aimed at U.S. cities. Yes, this used to be a Soviet submarine carrying weapons of mass destruction threatening our country. This was a hinge on a missile silo in the Ukraine, and that missile silo contained a missile. That missile contained nuclear warheads, presumably aimed at a U.S. military target or a U.S. city. This hinge, of course, is in my desk today, not in a field in the Ukraine. Where that missile used to sit, there is no missile. There is no missile silo. There are now sunflowers planted in that field in the Ukraine. The Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus--all three countries--had several thousand nuclear weapons and are now free of all nuclear weapons. How did all that happen? Was it by accident? No, no, it wasn't. This country embarked on a set of policies and proposals that resulted in the reduction of delivery systems and nuclear weapons. Have we been enormously successful? I have described some successes, but we have, oh, probably 25,000 to 30,000 nuclear weapons remaining on this Earth. Far too many--25,000 to 30,000 nuclear weapons. We have much to do to step away from the abyss of having a terrorist organization or rogue nation acquire nuclear weapons and threaten our country or threaten the world. We have all experienced 9/11/2001 where several thousand innocent Americans were murdered. That was an unbelievable terrorist attack on our country. It could happen again with a nuclear weapon. We are going to spend $9 billion or $10 billion this year building an antiballistic missile defense system to create some sort of an electronic catcher's mitt to catch an intercontinental ballistic missile someone might aim at our country armed with a nuclear warhead. That is one of the least likely threats our country faces. We are going to spend close to $10 billion for a threat that is one of the least likely threats we face. The most likely threat, perhaps, instead of an intercontinental ballistic missile coming in at 18,000 miles an hour aimed at an American city, is a container ship pulling up to a dock in a major American city at 3 miles an hour with a container that contains a weapon of mass destruction onboard, to be detonated in the middle of an American city. Let me read for the Record, as I start--and I want to then talk about this specific agreement--I want to read an excerpt from Graham Allison's book. He is at Harvard. He wrote a book called ``Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe.'' I talk about 9/11/2001, several thousand Americans murdered by terrorists. The detonation of a nuclear weapon in an American city by a terrorist group will not mean several thousand Americans being murdered; it could likely mean several hundred thousand Americans being murdered, or more. Let me read to you from Graham Allison's book. I am quoting: On October 11, 2001, a month to the day after the terrorist assault on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President George W. Bush faced an even more terrifying prospect. At that morning's Presidential Daily Intelligence Briefing, George Tenet, the director of central intelligence, informed the president that a CIA agent code-named Dragonfire had reported that Al Qaeda terrorists possessed a ten-kiloton nuclear bomb, evidently stolen from the Russian arsenal. According to Dragonfire, this nuclear weapon was now on American soil, in New York City. The CIA had no independent confirmation of this report, but neither did it have any basis on which to dismiss it. Did Russia's arsenal include a large number of ten-kiloton weapons? Yes. Could the Russian government account for all the nuclear weapons the Soviet Union had built during the Cold War? No. Could Al Qaeda have acquired one or more of these weapons? Yes. Could it have smuggled a nuclear weapon through American border controls in New York City without anyone's knowledge? Yes. . . . In the hours that followed, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice analyzed what strategists call the ``problem from hell.'' Unlike the Cold War, when the United States and the Soviet Union knew that an attack against the other would illicit a retaliatory strike of greater measure, Al Qaeda-- with no return address--had no such fear of reprisal. Even if the president were prepared to negotiate, Al Qaeda had no phone number to call. Clearly, no decision could be taken without much more information about the threat and those behind it. But how could Rice engage a wider circle of experts and analysts without the White House's suspicions leaking to the press? A CNN flash that the White House had information about an Al Qaeda nuclear weapon in Manhattan would create chaos. New Yorkers would flee the city in terror, and residents of other metropolitan areas would panic. I continue to quote: Concerned that Al Qaeda could have smuggled a nuclear weapon into Washington as well, the president ordered Vice President Dick Cheney to leave the capital for an ``undisclosed location,'' where he would remain for many weeks to follow. That was standard procedure to ensure ``continuity of government''. . . . Several hundred federal employees from more than a dozen government agencies joined the vice president at this secret site. . . . The president also immediately dispatched NEST specialists (Nuclear Emergency Support Teams of scientists and engineers) to New York City to search for the weapon. But no one in the city was informed of the threat, not even Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. As the CIA's analysts examined Dragonfire's report and compared it with other bits of information, they noted that the attack on the World Trade Center in September had set the bar higher for future terrorist spectaculars. I won't read to the end. I ask unanimous consent that this document be printed in the Record at the end of my statement.

Mr. DORGAN. At the end of this process, they finally determined after about a month that this was not a credible threat. Dragonfire's report turned out not to be credible. But at the time they took the report very seriously. They analyzed it this way: Was it possible that a Russian 10-kiloton nuclear weapon could have been stolen? Yes, it was possible. Is it possible a terrorist group could have acquired it? Yes. Is it possible it could have been smuggled into New York City? The answer was yes. And, if so, was it possible a terrorist group could detonate a nuclear weapon in a major American city? The answer was yes. This is not fiction. I am reading an excerpt of a book of something that happened in October of 2001. My greatest fear is that we do not yet understand the difference between what was and what is. What was, was a standoff called the cold war in which two major nuclear superpowers aimed massive numbers of nuclear warheads at each other, but understanding, under the concept of mutually assured destruction, called MAD, that if either attacked the other, the other would be literally vaporized by an avalanche of nuclear weapons. The result was that there was a standoff, a mutually assured destruction standoff, and although both sides in that Cold War--the United States and the Soviet Union--possessed the most unbelievably powerful killing machines known to humankind, they were not used. Neither side ever used them. Fast-forward to today. The Cold War is over. President Bush, in fact, visited with the President Putin yesterday, in Russia. Times have changed, but this world still has somewhere between 25,000 and 30,000 nuclear weapons, the loss of one of which could be cataclysmic for this world. The detonation of one nuclear weapon in a major city will change everything--everything--and be a catastrophe unlike any we have previously known. If we have 25,000 or 30,000 nuclear weapons on this Earth, what is the responsibility of this great country? What is our responsibility? What burden falls on our shoulders? I submit it is the burden to provide world leadership to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons and to reduce the stockpile of nuclear weapons. That is our responsibility. That responsibility falls on us. How do we do that? Listen, our country has provided leadership in a nonproliferation treaty, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the test ban treaty. Our country has been moving always, telling the rest of the world we aspire to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. Now we live in this age of terrorism where we see people who are perfectly content to kill themselves. They don't care. As long as they can take a weapon with them and kill themselves and many others with them, it doesn't matter to them. They are reaching for some higher glory, apparently. In this age of terrorism, everything about nuclear weapons has changed. The loss of one nuclear weapon, the loss of one anywhere on this globe to a terrorist organization is going to be devastating. So if that is the case, what does it have to do with what we are talking about today? We are now talking today about a country called India. India is quite a remarkable place--a wonderful country with wonderful people. It is a big country. It is trying to build an economy. You can read some books about what is going on in India and the discussions about progress--it is quite a remarkable place. Our country aspires to have a better relationship with India. I support that. I believe we ought to reach out to India and improve our relationship, cement our relationship. I know there are some who see all of the geopolitical relationships on this Earth as aligning one way or the other. We align with this country to be a counterweight against this set of interests, and it is kind of akin to teams. So I confess to you, I come here today not perhaps understanding all of the sophisticated elements of counterweights and the nuances of why someone believes it is essential, at this point, to allow India to produce additional nuclear weapons in order to create some sort of counterweight to China, but I want to talk about this issue. I was unbelievably surprised to read in the newspaper of the travels of Ambassador Burns, someone for whom I have high regard, and of the interest of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in going to India and reaching a deal without consulting Congress that I think begins to unravel, and undermine several decades of efforts in our country to tell the world: It is our responsibility and our major goal to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and try to reduce the number of nuclear weapons and reduce the nuclear threat. We would not be in this position today with this bill with India if India had followed the example, for example, of South Africa. They secretly had nuclear weapons by the 1980s. But South Africa dismantled them prior to the transfer of power to the postapartheid government. Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus had more than 4,000 nuclear weapons in those three countries when the Soviet Union was dissolved which they gave up in the years following. And I must say that my colleague Senator Lugar and others had significant successes in working with those three countries to accomplish that. So Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus are all now free of nuclear weapons. Any nuclear deal--any relationship we have with another country that deals with nuclear power and nuclear issues should be judged, in my opinion, on whether it reduces the number of nuclear weapons. Does it reduce the nuclear weapons that exist or increase them? It is quite clear that what we are debating will result in an increase in nuclear weapons in India. I don't think there is much doubt about that. This bill fails that test, in my judgment. Experts have warned that there is enough weapons-usable fissile material in the world to make about 130,000 nuclear weapons. A working nuclear bomb, we are told, can be made with as little as 35 pounds of uranium-235 or 9 pounds of plutonium-239. And the acquisition of a nuclear weapon by a terrorist is, in my judgment, the greatest threat that exists in our country. Retired GEN Eugene Habiger, who commanded America's nuclear forces, said that nuclear terrorism ``is not a matter of if, it is a matter of when.'' Henry Kissinger wrote in the Washington Post recently: The world is faced with the nightmarish prospect that nuclear weapons will become a standard part of national armament and wind up in terrorists' hands. Former Senator Sam Nunn wrote in the Wall Street Journal: We know that terrorists are seeking nuclear materials-- enriched uranium or plutonium--to build nuclear weapons. We know that if they get that nuclear material, they can build a nuclear weapon. We believe that if they build such a weapon, they will use it. We know terrorists are not likely to be deterred, and that the more this nuclear material is available, the higher the risks. Osama bin Laden has been seeking nuclear components since the 1990s. In 1998, Osama bin Laden issued a statement entitled ``The Nuclear Bomb of Islam,'' declaring: It is the duty of Muslims to prepare as much force as possible to terrorize the enemies of God. And Osama bin Laden's spokesman announced that the group aspires ``to kill 4 million Americans, including 1 million children,'' in response to casualties supposedly inflicted on Muslims by the United States and Israel. The more countries there are with nuclear weapons and weapons-grade nuclear material and the more weapons each of them has, the greater the threat that one will be used by a rogue nation or will fall into the hands of terrorist groups. Now, frankly, we have not been very aggressive as a country in recent years in stopping proliferation. Instead of talking about how we would reduce the number of nuclear weapons, we were on the floor of the Senate, during previous debates, talking about the fact that we need new nuclear weapons. Our country has said we need designer nuclear weapons; we need bunker-buster nuclear weapons. We have people openly speaking about the desire in this country to build additional nuclear weapons. We attacked Iraq because we believed it possessed and was seeking nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction. We are spending $10 billion a year, as I said, on missile defense for fear that North Korea already has nuclear weapons. And we are talking about serious issues with Iran in order to try to stop its nuclear program. And the No. 1 nightmare is that a terrorist group may acquire a nuclear weapon. No one in my judgment can credibly say that a world that has more nuclear weapons is a safer world. It is just not. Nowhere in the world is the threat of nuclear terrorism more imminent than in South Asia. It is the home to al-Qaida which seeks nuclear weapons. It is an area where relations among regional nuclear powers are always tense: China, India, and Pakistan. India and China fought a border war in 1962. India and Pakistan fought three major wars, had numerous smaller scale conflicts since the partition of British India in 1947. Both India and Pakistan detonated nuclear weapons in 1998 and declared themselves as nuclear powers. And after that, all of us in the world held our breath as they began fighting a limited war in Kashmir. Now, it has traditionally been the case that the United States has led the international community in efforts to deny India, Pakistan, and other nonnuclear States access to nuclear technology. That has been our traditional role. We have always been the one who said: No, no, no. We can't do that. We need to limit the capability of nations that will not sign up to nonproliferation. We pushed for the nonproliferation treaty, which prohibits nuclear assistance to these so-called nonnuclear States, unless they agree to put all of their nuclear facilities under international safeguards and to give up the option of developing a nuclear weapon. That has been our position. It has always been our position. Article I of the nonproliferation treaty obligates the recognized nuclear weapons States, including the United States, to: Not in any way assist, encourage, or induce any non-nuclear weapons State to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. That is Article I of the nonproliferation treaty. We signed it. We helped write it. We supported it. It is what we believe in. The United States helped form the Nuclear Suppliers Group in 1975 to help prevent the misuse of peaceful nuclear technology. In 1978, we passed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act, which restricts nuclear commerce with States that don't agree to the full scope of the safeguards. We pushed for U.N. Security Council Resolution 1172 which condemned India's and Pakistan's 1998 nuclear tests and called upon them to cease their nuclear weapons programs and join the nonproliferation treaty as nonnuclear weapons states. We did that. In 1998, President Clinton imposed sanctions on both India and Pakistan, under section 102 of the Arms Control Act, which requires sanctions on any non-nuclear weapons state that has detonated nuclear devices. Now, these policies did not stop India's and Pakistan's nuclear weapons programs, but they did restrain them and they hindered them. In fact, that is precisely why we are here with respect to India. The Bush administration has taken a different tact now. Their proposal is to provide ``full'' assistance to India's civilian nuclear program, while India keeps its nuclear weapons, which represents a complete abandonment of our traditional approach to nonproliferation. I don't think you can come to the floor and argue that this is part of an approach we have always taken. This is a U-turn. This is a 180- degree change from the approach we have always had. The Bush administration formed an agreement that allows New Delhi to dramatically expand its stockpile of nuclear weapons and could ignite a regional arms race. That is what we have here. They can have reactors behind the curtain that will not be subject to inspection by anybody. That is part of the deal. It will undermine 30 years of nonproliferation efforts at the very time when we are engaged in these issues with North Korea and Iran. It is a major, it seems to me, exception to the prohibition of nuclear assistance to any country that doesn't accept international monitoring of all of its nuclear facilities. This is a major exception to that. And it also is one that gives legitimacy to a nuclear arsenal that India secretly developed, and it is not going to help us in any way. It will hinder us in convincing others to give up their nuclear weapons. Now, India never signed the nonproliferation treaty. Because of that, Pakistan never signed the treaty. In the 1960s, India used both American technology and also Canadian technology and the nuclear fuel provided under what was called the Atoms For Peace Program to secretly build nuclear weapons. By doing so, New Delhi broke an explicit pledge to both the United States and to Canada about the use of technology and nuclear fuel only for peaceful purposes. In 1974, India conducted its first nuclear weapons test. It denied that it had done so. It said it was a peaceful nuclear test. In May, 1998, they conducted a series of nuclear tests and declared themselves as a nuclear weapons state. In response, Pakistan did exactly the same thing and declared themselves as a nuclear state. Because India has a shortage of domestic uranium, the application of the U.S. and international laws that prevent the sale of nuclear fuel and other nuclear assistance to them has seriously constrained its nuclear power industry and nuclear weapons program. All of us understand that India has energy issues. It has an expanding population and it wishes to build additional powerplants, nuclear powerplants, but it also wishes to build additional nuclear weapons. India's power reactors, we are now told, are operating at less than capacity due to fuel shortages and their utilization rates are expected to decrease even further. Very little uranium is leftover from its domestic supplies for India to turn to nuclear weapons. So in the past year-- couple of years--New Delhi has stepped up efforts to get our assistance in obtaining nuclear fuel and reactor components so it can increase its nuclear power. But the fact is, it will also increase its nuclear weapons programs. Here is what the deal that is now brought to the floor of the Senate does: My understanding is that it obligates the United States to persuade the members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group to change their rules which bar sales to India. It allows India to buy sensitive nuclear technologies, now forbidden under the nonproliferation treaty. It includes nuclear fuel, nuclear reactors, and advanced technology. This agreement would open the door to India's cooperation with France, Japan, and others who want to do business with India and who now have not been doing business with India because of the NPT. In return, in this agreement, India has agreed to allow the IAEA inspections and safeguards at 14 of their 22 planned nuclear power reactors. But eight of their nuclear power reactors will be placed behind a curtain. No one will be able to inspect them. That is where they will be able to continue increasing the production of nuclear weapons, and it is not-- you wonder, do they want to produce additional nuclear weapons? Let me quote directly from a senior adviser to India's nuclear program, December 2005, an article in The Times of India. Dr. Subrahmanyam says: Given India's uranium ore crunch and the need to build up our minimum credible nuclear arsenal as fast as possible, it is to India's advantage to categorize as many power reactors as possible as civilian ones to be refueled by imported uranium and conserve our native uranium fuel for weapons- grade plutonium production. This is clear: Given India's . . . crunch and the need to build up our minimum credible nuclear deterrent arsenal. . . . That is what this is about in India. We have those who support this, who say it is not perfect, but it is not bad. I don't know whether the contention on the Senate floor is going to be that this will not result in additional warheads. But I am clear, and I think everybody should be clear, it will. India will produce additional nuclear weapons. We believe, if that makes the world safer, I guess that is what one can argue. I do not believe that at all. I think the addition of nuclear weapons to the stockpile that exists in this world is a serious danger to the world. Pakistan has already said: If you are going to give this deal to India, how about giving this deal to us? We might want to look at what we are doing. The administration just proposed, by the way, a big arms package for Pakistan: 36 Lockheed F-16C/D fighter planes, 500 JDAM satellite-guided bomb kits, 700 bunker buster bombs, 1,600 laser-guided bombs, 800 conventional bombs, 500 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles, 200 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, 130 Harpoon antiship missiles, 115 self-propelled howitzers. That is an arms package to Pakistan. But Pakistan would say: We have nuclear weapons. We exploded them. We showed you we have nuclear weapons. You are going to give this deal to build more nuclear weapons to India. We want that deal for Pakistan. We want to build more nuclear weapons. What will China say? What will China say when they see this agreement and decide that India is increasing its stockpile? China will say: We want to increase the stockpile of nuclear weapons. India is in the process of becoming a full-fledged nuclear power with a triad, an emerging triad. Aircraft? They have a number of types of aircraft used to deliver a nuclear weapon, or that could be so used, and land-based missiles and naval weapons. I do not allege that India is a country that is an aggressor. That is not my point. I think our relationship with India is important. I believe we ought to connect with India. We ought to reach out to India. We ought to have an improved relationship with India. I don't know, maybe it is advantageous to have India as a counterweight in the region to China. But, look, do any of us really believe that an agreement that pulls the rug out from under decades of positions we have held in this country on nonproliferation that results in the building of additional nuclear weapons advances our interests? Advances the world's interests? Of course not. It falls on our shoulders as the nuclear power in the world. It is our responsibility to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. Will our children or our grandchildren someday see a nuclear weapon detonated in a major American city? Will we see that? We didn't see it during the Cold War because we had mutually agreed destruction; that is, both countries, us and the Soviet Union, understood if one launched a missile or airplane containing a nuclear weapon to be detonated in our country, we would launch sufficient nuclear weapons to completely destroy their country and their society. Both sides understood that. Both sides understood we have arsenals that would destroy each other and neither side did. Neither side was an aggressor. In an age of terrorism, all of that has changed. In an age of terrorism, if we do not embrace policies that stop the production of additional nuclear weapons, we have missed an enormous opportunity to prevent the detonation of a nuclear weapon in one of our cities. This agreement simply does not stop the spread of nuclear weapons. It doesn't prevent the production of additional nuclear weapons. This undermines that which we have described as our goal in the United Nations. It undermines that which we have for decades described as being our goal as a leader in nonproliferation. It provides the green light for India to produce additional nuclear weapons. With all the sophisticated arguments in favor of this agreement, I fail to see how undermining decades of effort at nonproliferation and now providing a green light to India to produce new nuclear weapons, additional nuclear weapons, makes this a safer world. Quite the contrary. I think it is dangerous. I think this agreement is a horrible mistake. I think all of the sophisticated calculations mean very little when we have decided to send signals to the world that we do not oppose producing additional nuclear weapons; that we support that. We are willing to decide to undermine the nonproliferation treaty. We are willing to ignore United Nations resolutions all because Ambassador Burns and Secretary Rice and the Bush administration said: You know what, we have all these calculations about weights and counterweights and geopolitical strategies and here is our new one. It is a new strategy that undermines decades of what ought to be the best virtue of this country, and that is providing world leadership, real world leadership, aggressive world leadership to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and prevent the building of more nuclear weapons and begin reducing the number of nuclear weapons that exist in this world. As I said when I started, I regret very much I am on the other side of this issue from Senator Lugar. Senator Lugar has great credibility on these issues because he has done a very substantial amount of good work. I am not quite sure how I should describe this. I was extraordinarily surprised when I read the first account in the newspaper that it was likely that this agreement was going to be supported by my colleague and friend. I would say the same with respect to Senator Biden. I have great respect for them. So I am someone who comes to the floor of the Senate in disagreement. That doesn't mean I in any way disparage their abilities or their intellectual honesty in pursuing strategies they believe are best for this country. I have very strong opposition to those who believe, however, that this in any way represents our best interests. I wish I could come to the Senate floor with a better message, but I do not. I believe one day we will look back on this with great regret. We have seen that in this decade already with some other decisions, information provided us with respect to Iraq and other decisions we have made. We have already, in my judgment, had opportunities to understand regret about policies undertaken that turned out to be not in this country's best interests. I believe if we open the floodgates with this agreement, we will seriously undermine this country's best interests. Exhibit 1 [From Blueprint Magazine, October 7, 2004] Nuclear Terrorism--Book Excerpt (By Graham Allison) On October 11, 2001, a month to the day after the terrorist assault on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President George W. Bush faced an even more terrifying prospect. At that morning's Presidential Daily Intelligence Briefing, George Tenet, the director of central intelligence, informed the president that a CIA agent code-named Dragonfire had reported that Al Qaeda terrorists possessed a ten-kiloton nuclear bomb, evidently stolen from the Russian arsenal. According to Dragonfire, this nuclear weapon was now on American soil, in New York City. The CIA had no independent confirmation of this report, but neither did it have any basis on which to dismiss it. Did Russia's arsenal include a large number of ten-kiloton weapons? Yes. Could the Russian government account for all the nuclear weapon the Soviet Union had built during the Cold War? No. Could Al Qaeda have acquired one or more of these weapons? Yes. Could it have smuggled a nuclear weapon through American border controls into New York City without anyone's knowledge? Yes. In a moment of gallows humor, someone quipped that the terrorists could have wrapped the bomb in one of the bales of marijuana that are routinely smuggled into cities like New York. In the hours that followed, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice analyzed what strategists call the ``problem from hell'' Unlike the Cold War, when the United States and the Soviet Union knew that an attack against the other would elicit a retaliatory strike for greater measure, Al Qaeda-- with no return address--had no such fear of reprisal. Ever if the president were prepared to negotiate, Al Qaeda had no phone number to call. Clearly no decision could be taken without much more information about the threat and those behind it. But how could Rice engage a wider circle of experts and analysts without the White House's suspicions leaking to the press? A CNN flash that the White House had information about an Al Qaeda nuclear weapon in Manhattan would create chaos. New Yorkers would flee the city in terror, and residents of other metropolitan areas would panic. The stock market, which was just then stabilizing from the shock of 9/11, could collapse. American Hiroshima. Concerned that Al Qaeda could have smuggled a nuclear weapon into Washington as well, the president ordered Vice President Dick Cheney to leave the capital for an ``undisclosed location,'' where he would remain for many weeks to follow. This was standard procedure to ensure ``continuity of government'' in case of a decapitation strike against the U.S. political leadership. Several hundred federal employees from more tan a dozen government agencies joined the vice president at this secret site, the core of an alternative government that would seek to cope in the aftermath of a nuclear explosion that destroyed Washington. The president also immediately dispatched NEST specialists (Nuclear Emergency Support Teams of scientists and engineers) to New York to search for the weapon. But no one in the city was informed of the threat, not even Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Six months earlier the CIA's Counterterrorism Center had picked up chatter in Al Qaeda channels about an ``American Hiroshima,'' The CIA knew that Osama bin Laden's fascination with nuclear weapons went back at least to 1992, when he attempted to buy highly enriched uranium from South Africa. Al Qaeda operatives were alleged to have negotiated with Chechen separatists in Russia to buy a nuclear warhead, which the Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev claimed to have acquired from Russian arsenals. The CIA's special task force on Al Qaeda had noted the terrorist group's emphasis on thorough planning, intensive training, and repetition of successful tactics. The task force also highlighted Al Qaeda's strong preference for symbolic targets and spectacular attacks. Staggering the imagination. As the CIA's analysts examined Dragonfire's report and compared it with other bits of information, they noted that the attack on the World Trade Center in September had set the bar higher for future terrorist spectaculars. Psychologically, a nuclear attack would stagger the world's imagination as dramatically as 9/11 did. Considering where Al Qaeda might detonate such a bomb, they noted that New York was, in the jargon of national security experts, ``target rich.'' Among hundreds of potential targets, what could be more compelling than Times Square, the most famous address in the self-proclaimed capital of the world? Amid this sea of unknowns, analysts could definitively answer at least one question. They knew what kind of devastation a nuclear explosion would cause. If Al Qaeda was to rent a van to carry the ten-kiloton Russian weapon into the heart of Times Square and detonate it adjacent to the Morgan Stanley headquarters at 1585 Broadway, Times Square would vanish in the twinkling of an eye. The blast would generate temperatures reaching into the tens of millions of degrees Fahrenheit. The resulting fireball and blast wave would destroy instantaneously the theater district, the New York Times building, Grand Central Terminal, and every other structure within a third of a mile of the point of detonation. The ensuing firestorm would engulf Rockefeller Center, Carnegie Hall, the Empire State Building, and Madison Square Garden, leaving a landscape resembling the World Trade Center site. From the United Nations headquarters on the East River and the Lincoln Tunnel under the Hudson River, to the Metropolitan Museum in the eighties and the Flatiron Building in the twenties, structures would remind one of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Office Building following the Oklahoma City bombing. On a normal workday, more than half a million people crowd the area within a half-mile radius of Times Square. A noon detonation in midtown Manhattan could kill them all. Hundreds of thousands of others would die from collapsing buildings, fire, and fallout in the ensuing hours. The electromagnetic pulse generated by the blast would fry cell phones, radios, and other electronic communications. Hospitals, doctors, and emergency services would be overwhelmed by the wounded. Firefighters would be battling an uncontrolled ring of fires for many days thereafter. The threat of nuclear terrorism, moreover, is not limited to New York City. While New York is widely seen as the most likely target, it is clear that Al Qaeda is not only capable of, but also interested in, mounting attacks on other American cities, where people may be less prepared. Imagine the consequences of a ten-kiloton weapon exploding in San Francisco, Houston, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, or any other city Americans call home. From the epicenter of the blast to a distance of approximately a third of a mile, every structure and individual would vanish in a vaporous haze. A second circle of destruction, extending three-quarters of a mile from ground zero, would leave buildings looking like the Murrah building in Oklahoma City. A third circle, reaching out one and one-half miles, would be ravaged by fires and radiation. Uncontrollable blaze. In Washington, a bomb going off at the Smithsonian Institution would destroy everything from the White House to the lawn of the Capitol building; everything from the Supreme Court to the FDR Memorial would be left in rubble; uncontrollable fires would reach all the way out to the Pentagon. In a cover story in the New York Times Magazine in May 2002, Bill Keller interviewed Eugene Habiger, the retired four-star general who had overseen strategic nuclear weapons until 1998 and had run nuclear antiterror programs for the Department of Energy until 2001. Summarizing his decade of daily experience dealing with threats, Habiger offered a categorical conclusion about nuclear terrorism: ``it is not a matter of if; it's a matter of when.'' ``That,'' Keller noted drily, may explain why he now lives in San Antonio.'' In the end, the Dragonfire report turned out to be a false alarm.

Mr. DORGAN. I want to say just one additional thing. I have two amendments that I intend to offer today. I do not intend to take a great amount of time with either of them. Both of them are very important. I wish to say to the chairman, I know he is working through this bill today. I want to be cooperative but not so cooperative that I do not have an opportunity to fully explain amendments that I think are very important relative to what I just described. The amendments I will offer, one has to do with requiring India to comply with what the U.S. is already required to comply with, the second relates to a United Nations resolution, that our country pushed, that represents American policy that appears to be completely contradictory to the underlying bill on the floor of the Senate. I say to the chairman, I will have two amendments. I am prepared in a reasonable period to offer the amendments. I do have, with Senator McCain, an obligation at 12 o'clock for a few minutes off the Senate floor. We are going to be speaking to a group. But following that, I would be happy to come over and offer my two amendments if the Senator is willing to have me do that.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I missed the last point.

Mr. DORGAN. I will be off of the Senate floor for the other requirement that I have, but I will come back. My understanding is there is a proposal to perhaps try to modify one of my amendments?

Mr. DORGAN. Yes. I intend to offer the other amendment, debate it, and ask for a recorded vote on it. I will take a look at the proposed modification to see what that modification is, but I will try to be back on the Senate floor as quickly as possible to accommodate the Senator's interests in getting it done.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, at some point today following the debate with respect to the India security agreement, we will by unanimous consent have an opportunity to have the agriculture appropriations bill on the floor. My colleague Senator Conrad will offer an amendment to that bill which will amend a provision that I added to the bill in the Senate Appropriations Committee. My colleague Senator Burns and I added a farm disaster amendment. My colleague Senator Conrad has been working on an amendment that will expand that to include the 2007 disaster legislation. Because we are going to have an agriculture appropriations bill on the floor today at some point, I thought it was interesting to call attention to a story that was in today's newspaper. Our family farmers--many of whom got hurt badly with the devastating droughts and some of whom have been hurt by floods and so on--as I said yesterday are the economic all-stars of this country. They get up in the morning and do chores. They take showers afterwards--not before. They risk everything they have, hoping their crops will grow. They produce foodstuff for a hungry world. They are the economic all-stars in this country. But let me point out that in this morning's newspaper the U.S. Department of Agriculture has said they are going to eliminate ``hunger''--actually eliminate the word ``hungry.'' The U.S. Government has vowed that Americans will never be hungry again, but they may experience ``very low food security.'' The U.S. Department of Agriculture has decided they are not going to use the term ``hungry'' as they define that number of people in this country who do not have enough to eat and are hungry. There is something called ``an ache in your belly.'' There are hunger pangs for people who do not have enough to eat. Apparently that is not going to be called ``hunger'' anymore. Those folks who can't find anything to eat and are suffering the pangs of hunger and the ravage to their body because of not having food are going to be called people with ``very low food security.'' If you don't have anything to eat, that is a ``very low food security,'' but it doesn't describe in English what is happening. In English, these are people who are hungry. I don't understand sometimes the bureaucracy. I was here years ago when ketchup was described as a vegetable, a part of a daily meal. Of course, that was never very right. It is not a vegetable. Now they are going to eliminate ``hunger.'' Throughout the years I have been here, I have served on the hunger committee when I was in the U.S. House, and I toured much of the world--going to refugee camps, been around parts of this country. I have seen hunger. I have seen devastating hunger. I would desire to eliminate hunger, if we can. Our farmers are part of being able to do that at some point with the prodigious quantities of good food which they produce. We are not going to eliminate hunger by taking ``hunger'' out of the lexicon of the Department and replacing it with ``very low food security.'' I think it is not about the terminology; it is about the will. Do we have the will to decide in a country such as ours to address the issue of hunger and make sure they have enough to eat. We have programs in this country such as food stamps and the WIC Program and other programs to try to address some of these issues. Now apparently we have some folks in the bureaucracy who will address it by changing the words to ``very low food security.'' Remember that when we later today talk about family farmers and the plight many of them have. They are the ones planting the seed and growing the crops--or at least trying to do that, except during the years where there is a disaster when they have serious problems. We have a hungry world. The fact is in this world we circle the Sun. Our little planet has 6.3 billion neighbors. Half of them have never made a telephone call and live on less than $2 a day. There is plenty of hunger in this country and the world. Eliminating the word ``hunger'' from the lexicon of the U.S. Department of Agriculture is not addressing the issue of hunger. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I shall not object, Senator Conrad is not on the floor. I am certain this will be acceptable to him. His amendment will modify the disaster aid amendment that was put in the Senate appropriations bill in the Senate committee. I wish to be recognized following Senator Conrad's statement on this introduction, to be part of that discussion.