Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, this amendment is very simple and very short. Its brevity is contained in line 4 to line 6. It is an amendment that says we will: On page 5, beginning on line 15, strike ``Treaty; and'' and all that follows through ``that exports'' . . . and insert the following: (9) to continue to support implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1172. Let me describe what this means and why I am offering it. In May of 1998, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed Security Council Resolution No. 1172 after India and then Pakistan, detonated nuclear weapons. The Security Council unanimously passed a resolution. The resolution I have in my hand, in part, says that the Security Council is gravely concerned at the challenge that the nuclear tests conducted by India and then Pakistan constitute to international efforts aimed at strengthening the global regime of nonproliferation of nuclear weapons and also gravely concerned at the danger to peace and stability in the region. Continuing, it says that the resolution condemns the nuclear tests conducted by India on 11 and 13 May, 1998, and by Pakistan on 28 and 30 May, 1998, demands that India and Pakistan refrain from further nuclear tests, calls upon India and Pakistan immediately to stop their nuclear weapon development programs, to refrain from weaponization or from the deployment of nuclear weapons, to cease development of ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons and any further production of fissile material for nuclear weapons; it says the Security Council recognizes that the tests conducted by India and Pakistan constitute a serious threat to global efforts toward nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament, urges India and Pakistan and all other states that have not yet done so to become parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty without delay and without conditions. That was the reaction of our country and of the United Nations in May of 1998, following the detonation of nuclear weapons by both India and Pakistan, a point in time in which the world was very concerned about those actions. Our country then led a multinational effort to pass a resolution in the United Nations, Resolution 1172. That resolution, which passed unanimously and which has become a resolution that represents our policy and our support for these basic tenets, is at odds with the underlying legislation being considered by the Senate. I offer a piece of legislation, an amendment, that says it is still U.S. policy to support the implementations of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1172. How does this square with what is before the Senate? Resolution 1172 demonstrated that our country, the United States, and the rest of the international community, agree there should be no further nuclear weapons testing in South Asia and there should be an end to dangerous nuclear arms competition and no additional nuclear weapons produced. That resolution is as relevant today as it was in 1998. Both India and Pakistan have violated Resolution 1172. They continue to build nuclear weapons, they produce fissile material for weapons in both of those countries, they continue to develop new nuclear-capable missiles. No one in this Chamber would like to see, in my judgment, India or Pakistan resume nuclear testing. Now, the Bush administration wants to lift international restrictions on nuclear trade with India. It is as if the United Nations Security Council resolution doesn't exist, never happened, doesn't apply to our country, doesn't apply to India. What does that say to North Korea? What does that tell the country of Iran? This past July, the United States convinced the Security Council of the United Nations to call upon Iran to fully cooperate with the IAEA and suspend its uranium enrichment program, stop work on a heavy water production. Iran has not complied and the U.S. working with other nation states on the Security Council to pass another resolution. In October, the Security Council passed Resolution 1718, which condemns North Korea's nuclear test and demands that North Korea not conduct any further nuclear test or launch of a ballistic missile. It also calls on North Korea to abandon all nuclear weapons in existing nuclear programs in a complete, verifiable, and irreversible manner; also, to give up its ballistic missile program. But these resolutions on Iran and North Korea will, in my judgment, mean far less if the United States does not reaffirm its commitment to Resolution 1172 with respect to India and Pakistan. As the world watches our actions--and we have Ambassador Burns and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice rushing to India to negotiate these kinds of agreements that begin to untie and unravel decades of leadership by our country against the proliferation of nuclear weapons. As the world watches our actions, what will they learn from this discussion, from these actions by the Senate? Will they learn today that we remain committed to Resolution 1172 of the United Nations? It would be, it seems to me, a huge step backward for the Senate to say that Resolution 1172, which was our policy, which passed unanimously in the United Nations, which called for the cessation of the production of additional nuclear weapons by both India and Pakistan, if we were to tell the world that somehow that is no longer our policy, that is no longer operative--at least it is not operative with respect to India and Pakistan. As I said earlier, the burden falls to us to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. It is our responsibility. We are the major nuclear superpower in the world. We inherit the requirement to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists, try to prevent a cataclysmic terror attack anywhere in the world and especially against the cities of our country by a terrorist group who has a nuclear weapon. It is our responsibility to do that. What then embraces that responsibility? What kind of things should we be doing in the Senate? Should we be deciding in the Senate that one way to do that is to allow the production of additional nuclear weapons on this Earth? Of course not, that is absurd. Will the underlying bill that is before the Senate allow the production of additional nuclear weapons? Of course, it will. Everyone agrees with that. We all understand that. If that weren't the case, there would not be a requirement to keep eight of the nuclear reactors behind a curtain that will never be inspected. We understand what is going on. I read this morning the statement from one of the top advisers in India that said they have a responsibility to move quickly and aggressively to continue to build their nuclear deterrent. That is exactly what is at work here. Has our country now decided it is not our responsibility to stop this? Have we decided to be the green light to allow others to build additional nuclear weapons? Is that the junction we have reached? Not with my vote. I understand all the arguments about the geopolitics and about India and China and counterweights and all of these issues. None of it, in my judgment, justifies a decision by the United States of America to send a signal to the world that we believe it is all right for anybody to begin producing additional nuclear weapons. Our role, our responsibility, is to find ways today, on Thursday, November 16, 2006 to shut down the production of additional nuclear weapons, put pressure on those who want to build more nuclear weapons, to say to them it is not acceptable to us to have you building additional nuclear weapons. Yes, that goes for India. It goes for Pakistan. It goes for China. It goes for all of those countries. That ought to be our message. It ought to be unified. It ought not to be convoluted. It ought to be clear. Yet the underlying message with what is on the floor of the Senate--again, negotiated by Ambassador Burns and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, largely in secret; I read about it, by the way, in the Washington Post--the underlying message is we have decided to develop a relationship with India that is a counterweight to China in that region. One way to do that is to allow India to be able to purchase the things they need with which to produce additional nuclear power. They have been prevented from doing that because they refused to sign the nonproliferation treaty. They refused to sign that treaty; therefore, they have had sanctions against them and resolutions at the United Nations enacted that have condemned the actions. And now, in one fell swoop, they are told: Never mind. It does not matter. We are friends, and that friendship transcends the sanctions that exist for those of you who have not signed the nonproliferation treaty. I think this is a horrible mistake. Again, I do not question the motives of those who disagree with me. But we have made some very serious mistakes recently because some big thinkers made some big mistakes. This is a very big mistake. It is likely that the Senate will pass the underlying legislation today. I will regret that. But if it passes that legislation without reaffirming the basic support for Resolution 1172, this message today will have been a very destructive message to the rest of the world with respect to our country's leadership away from nuclear proliferation. So, Mr. President, I would hope that we could have a vote on this resolution. I have a second resolution that I shall offer. But with that discussion of my resolution, I will yield the floor so my colleagues can respond to it.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, just a couple of----

Mr. DORGAN. Yes.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, it is my intention to respond briefly to a couple of comments that have been made in objection to my amendment, and then to offer my second amendment, per agreement with the chairman. That would probably take me about 10 minutes, and to speak in support of my second amendment.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I listened intently to my two colleagues who apparently cannot find the ability to support this amendment. I do want to make a couple of observations. One of my colleagues said that India is in full compliance with its commitments. Well, yes, that is true. And the reason they are in full compliance with their commitments is they do not have the commitments we have. They have not signed the nonproliferation treaty. They do not have the commitments that we would expect of them. So are they in full compliance with the commitments that do not exist? I do not know. I mean, I guess. It is not much of an excuse for India, in my judgment. I don't understand that objection. The discussion of ``this agreement would cease if the following'' omitted one key issue: ``This agreement will cease if India continues to produce additional nuclear weapons.'' No, that was not included in this bill. Why? Because this agreement allows India to continue to produce additional nuclear weapons. That is at the root of this agreement; otherwise why would you have nuclear facilities put off limits behind a curtain, behind which India can produce additional nuclear bombs? So this issue of that we have safeguards, and this agreement will cease if the following exists, does not include that this agreement will cease if India continues to produce additional nuclear weapons. Why doesn't it include that provision? Because all of us here know what is going to happen. What is going to happen is this agreement is going to pass, and our ally, a wonderful country, India, is going to be told by this country: It is all right if behind a curtain uninspected facilities continue to produce additional nuclear bombs. That is all right with us. It works fine with us. It is not all right with me. It does not work fine with me. The past versus the future? I am glad we are not debating the Constitution. That is the past. Man, that is a couple hundred years past. What are the virtues of the Constitution? How about the virtues of the past, the efforts in the past at nonproliferation, the efforts in the past when we were serious about these issues? Really serious. And this country took it upon themselves to say: We are going to lead the way. We, by God, are going to lead the way because it is our burden. It is our responsibility. We inherit that requirement. Yes, that is the past, and I am proud of that past. In fact, this morning I described part of that past, credited, I might say, to my colleague from Indiana and my former colleague from Georgia, and my colleague from Delaware. I hold in my hand a wing strut from a Soviet bomber that likely carried a nuclear weapon, which could have been dropped on an American city. That wing strut came from an airplane that was not shot down. That airplane was sawed up by an agreement. That sawing of that Backfire bomber, whose wing strut I now hold, was paid for by American taxpayers. We destroyed nuclear weapons, no, not by battle, not through firing our nuclear weapons. We destroyed them by saws and other methods of destruction, paid for by the American taxpayer. We destroyed nuclear weapons. Four countries that possessed them are now free of nuclear weapons. We destroyed delivery systems, Backfire bombers, missiles. Yes, that is the past, a past I am enormously proud of, a past we need more of, a past we need to learn from. The future? The future is a process here by which we say: Do you know what. India, you are a good country--and let me join in that description of the county of India. But we also say: We don't care so much anymore you didn't sign the nonproliferation treaty. We don't care that you violated Resolution 1172 of the United Nations. That is all OK. And, in fact, we are going to tell the suppliers of the world that can supply you with things you need to produce nuclear power go ahead and do that. The sanctions are off. We have decided that our position has changed. It used to be that we and the rest of the world would not allow you to purchase that because you would not sign the nonproliferation treaty. We have changed our minds. In fact, we are going to tell the suppliers to furnish that to you, and you can use it behind the curtain with some of your facilities to produce additional nuclear weapons. You can do it because there will be no inspections. That, frankly, is the circumstance of this legislation. So we have disagreement. I regret that. But I feel very strongly. I know my colleagues feel strongly about their position on this issue. I would just say, I hope we will not decide today as a Senate to say that Security Council Resolution 1172 does not matter because it is old. It is timeless. It is not old. It is timeless in its position of what we should stand for as a country. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Let me respond briefly. There is a very big difference between this and the agreement we had with the Soviet Union. In the Soviet Union agreement, both sides, the United States and the Soviet Union, decided they wished to reduce the number of nuclear weapons and the delivery systems of those weapons. As a result of that decision, both sides wishing to reduce both weapons and delivery systems, we embarked on a process that was very helpful to both countries and to the world and to world peace. This is very different. This is mutual interest. But now, we are told it is in our mutual interest, us and India, to have India be allowed to produce additional nuclear weapons, not reduce nuclear weapons. Under this agreement, everyone will agree, India will be allowed to increase nuclear weapons. If India is allowed to increase nuclear weapons under this agreement, that is very different from the agreement we had with the Soviets by which we decided to reduce. The point is, this agreement says it is in our mutual interest to allow India to increase its production of nuclear weapons. That is clearly not in our mutual interest, but that is what the resolution says. Second, my colleague is right, none of this operates in a vacuum. This will not be in a vacuum, either. Pakistan will insist on producing more nuclear weapons. So will China. Pakistan has already told our country: If you are going to do this with India, we want you to do it with us. So this decision will not be made in a vacuum vis-a-vis India; this decision will have an impact regionally and around the world. My colleague is very skillful in presenting his position. I admire both of my colleagues and their skill and determination as well. We just have a difference of opinion. I think this is a very significant mistake. I have a second amendment which I will send to the desk and offer for its consideration and try to truncate the description of that very briefly, if that is appropriate to the chairman.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 5182 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to offer a modification to the first amendment I offered today. The amendment had two line numbers in it that were made to the original copy of the legislation. That legislation was subsequently changed. So let me ask unanimous consent that on the initial amendment I offered today, on line 1, the reference to line 15 be struck, and it is line 8; on line 2, the reference to line 15 be struck, and it is line 9.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the second amendment I have sent to the desk says that before this United States-India agreement can go into effect, the President must submit to the Congress a written determination that India has committed to certain basic provisions consistent with U.S. nonproliferation goals and with the NPT, the nonproliferation treaty. It requires the President to determine that India has committed to, for example, putting all of its reactors that supply electricity to the civilian sector under the IAEA inspection regime. This would close a loophole that exists in the proposed agreement, and that loophole allows India to keep electricity-producing reactors out of the IAEA inspection regime. Eight of them will be out of the regime, and those eight are going to be behind a curtain, unable to be inspected, and able to produce the materials to produce additional nuclear weapons. Fourteen of the existing and planned nuclear reactors would be inspected, and eight of them would not. If those other eight reactors produce civilian electricity, my amendment would require that India allow inspection of them. The bill as now written would allow India to produce energy with nuclear reactors that are closed to IAEA safeguards. My amendment says that is a loophole which should not be allowed. If India can keep energy-producing reactors outside of these safeguards, why shouldn't other countries be allowed to do so? How will our country say to others: Well, we have special deals. We have loopholes here for one, but we are not consistent. There is no consistency with respect to our position on these issues. The amendment also requires India to undertake a binding obligation not to assist, encourage, or induce nonnuclear weapons states to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons. That is what our country has obligated itself to do under the nonproliferation treaty. It is what other nuclear weapons states have done as well, including Russia, China, Britain, and France. They have all agreed to and signed the nonproliferation treaty and agreed to that basic provision, a binding obligation not to assist, encourage, or induce nonnuclear weapons states to manufacture or acquire nuclear weapons. Lastly, my amendment requires the President to determine that India has committed itself to pursuing negotiations on measures directed at reducing nuclear stockpiles and eventually eliminating nuclear weapons. These are the same commitments, the very same commitments our country has made, the same commitments other nation states which have signed the nonproliferation treaty have made. So I believe it is appropriate that if we have this agreement with India dealing with the issue of nuclear weapons, they should be under the same obligations we are under. Even though they have not signed the nonproliferation treaty, we have. We have obligations under that treaty. They should accept the obligations under that treaty, in my judgment, even though they have not yet signed it. This debate today has been interesting and, in many ways, very frustrating as well. I intend to support very aggressively the amendment offered by my colleague from New Mexico, Senator Bingaman. I believe that amendment is very important and at the root of much of what I have talked about today as well. It seems to me this is a case for our children and our grandchildren about what kind of a world they are going to live in. It is interesting. If you just fast forward from 1960 to 1980 to 2000 and fast forward from 2001 to today, we went through a Cold War with the Soviet Union where we had heavy nuclear weapons, huge nuclear weapons with big bombers and powerful missiles aimed at each other, so we had a Cold War. Massive numbers of nuclear weapons were built. We had a standoff between our country and the Soviet Union. There was great concern and worry that somehow, something would happen in which someone would launch a missile or a submarine or an airplane would launch a missile with a nuclear weapon and we would start a nuclear war and our two countries would be obliterated. It didn't happen. Instead, we chose a much more constructive direction. We and the Soviet Union began what is called arms control talks, and we reached arms control agreements. Those agreements began the destruction of weapons systems, delivery systems, nuclear weapons. I admit that a very small amount of those delivery systems and nuclear weapons were actually destroyed, but some of them were. It was actually moving in the right direction rather than the wrong direction. We developed a test ban treaty. We led the way. We said: We are going to no longer test nuclear weapons. We said that to the world. A nonproliferation treaty. We said this is important to do, and we were the leaders in saying this is the right course for the world. Now we are told: You know what, that is old-fashioned; that is the past; this is the future. I say that what we did then is timeless. These values don't change, the value of deciding that our future ought to be a future with fewer nuclear weapons rather than more nuclear weapons. If anyone has listened closely, they will know there has been no refutation of the assertion that some of my colleagues and I have made that this agreement will mean we have more nuclear weapons produced. No one has disputed that. This agreement means we are signing up to have more nuclear weapons produced on this Earth. One--just one--nuclear weapon in the hands of a terrorist group pulling up to a dock in a major American city on a container ship at 2\1/2\ or 3 miles an hour can potentially kill hundreds of thousands of American citizens--just one--and there are 30,000 out there. Can anyone here tell me that every one of those 30,000 is safeguarded and that no terrorist organization will acquire one? Can anybody tell me that is going to be the case? I started this morning talking about a CIA agent called Dragon Fire who reported 1 month after 9/11 that a Russian 10-kiloton nuclear weapon had been stolen by a terrorist group and taken into New York City and was about to be detonated. That episode has been written about in a book. Most of us have heard of it. It was a time when for a month we didn't know if it was true or not. It wasn't disclosed publicly because there would have been mass hysteria if it was thought that a 10-kiloton nuclear weapon had been stolen from Russia and was now in New York City about to be detonated. It eventually was discovered that had not happened. But when they did the postmortem on that situation, it was understood that it was clearly possible. Russia had those weapons. They were not safeguarded well. They are not, and they were not. They could have been stolen. It could have been smuggled into a major American city by a terrorist group and it could have been detonated, killing hundreds of thousands of people. That is the consequence of one nuclear weapon. Just one. We have 30,000 or so on this Earth. What are we doing today? We are saying it is all right if they build more--in this case, India. It is OK if they build more. This is not going to be done in a vacuum. What we do here today will have consequences for Pakistan, it will have consequences for China. You think they won't decide if India is going to be allowed to build more nuclear weapons that they won't build more nuclear weapons? Of course they will. That is what this is about. I understand it is argued that this is geopolitics; you don't understand it; you can't see over the horizon. Maybe not. What I do understand is that this world will be a safer place with fewer nuclear weapons, this world will be a safer place if we care about nonproliferation, if we reduce the number of nuclear weapons, and this world will not be safer if at the end of today we have decided that we have given a green light to a world with more nuclear weapons. I hope my colleagues will agree with me and support my amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I will try not to take the 2 minutes, but it is important to point out the chairman, in responding--and I suspect the ranking member in his response--is saying this is a killer amendment. It is not offered as a killer amendment, but it is the case that my amendment would impose upon India exactly the same burdens that exist upon our country. My colleague, the chairman, said the President ``did not negotiate''--he started the sentence. That is what brings me to the floor--that the President ``did not negotiate.'' What he did not negotiate was a requirement and a burden on India which clearly is a nuclear weapons state. He did not negotiate a requirement and a burden on them that we ourselves assume under the nonproliferation treaty. My amendment would simply provide that requirement and that burden to the country of India. I come from a town of 300 people. I have to relearn always the lessons of the Senate--and not just the Senate but the way the Government works. In my hometown you always call things just the way they are. You saw it, you spoke it, and described it. In this body, however, now we know that India has a nuclear weapon--has many of them. We know they have detonated them, and we know they are a nuclear weapons state. So we have decided as a country officially to describe India as a responsible state with nuclear technology as opposed to a nuclear weapons state. I don't know; maybe it works here. It doesn't work in my hometown. We have to call things as we see them. We have responsibilities--all of us do. Our responsibility is, I think, toward nonproliferation, to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, to reduce the number of nuclear weapons. I regret that the underlying piece of legislation is going to result in more nuclear weapons being built. The second amendment I have offered is an amendment that simply says let us impose on those with whom we negotiate the same burdens we inherit ourselves. In fact, the United States negotiated with India in the way that exempts them from those burdens. I think that is fundamentally wrong. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, my amendment, in light of the underlying bill brought to the floor of the Senate, would express that we would continue to support the implementation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1172. The reason that is important is it had been the policy of this country to not only author but to support that resolution after India and Pakistan exploded their nuclear weapons. It calls on them to immediately stop their nuclear weapons development programs, refrain from weaponization or deployment of nuclear weapons, cease the development of ballistic missiles, and so on. That has been a very important tenet of this country in supporting that United Nations Resolution 1172. Despite what we are doing in the underlying bill, I would hope this country and this Senate would express our support for that which we drafted and that which we encouraged the rest of the world to support some while ago.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the second amendment I had offered says that before the United States-India agreement can go into effect, the President must submit to the Congress a written determination that India has committed to certain basic provisions that are consistent with the U.S. nonproliferation goals and with the nonproliferation treaty. In other words, I would suggest that we should impose the same burdens on India as we have on ourselves. There is great reluctance to do that by this Chamber, but that was my amendment. I must say there is very little education in a third vote if I believe it weakens our efforts in nonproliferation nuclear weapons. So rather than have a third recorded vote, I will ask that we vitiate the recorded vote and vote on this amendment by voice.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. First, I ask unanimous consent on behalf of Senator Feingold that a fellow in his office by the name of David Bonine be granted floor privileges for the duration of the debate on S. 3709, the India-United States nuclear legislation, and any vote thereon.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, my colleague from Florida was describing the issue of prescription drug pricing in our country--an amendment that would be offered to a subsequent appropriations bill dealing with the FDA and its enforcement of the reimportation of prescription drugs. Let me point out, as he properly said, that Senator Snowe and myself and others, a large bipartisan group, Senators McCain and Kennedy, introduced legislation--and have been blocked from having it considered for some many months in the Senate--dealing with the comprehensive approach to reimportation of FDA-approved drugs. The American consumer is now charged the highest prices for prescription drugs in the entire world. Let me say that again. The American consumer is charged the highest prices for prescription drugs anywhere in the world. It is not fair. That pricing policy has to change. One of the ways to change it will be to put downward pressure on pricing in this country by allowing American consumers to access those identical FDA-approved drugs, some of which are actually made in this country; to reimport them from other countries, FDA-approved, made and manufactured in manufacturing plants approved by the FDA. My colleague talked about Canada and the United States. That is an obvious issue. My State borders Canada, and we see people coming back and forth going to Canada to purchase prescription drugs, in some cases for one-tenth the price they are charged in this country. We need to find a way to pass the comprehensive legislation. My colleague from Florida cosponsored that bill and worked with us on it-- myself, Senator Snowe from Maine, Senator McCain, Senator Grassley, Senator Kennedy, a pretty significant bipartisan group in the Senate. We have not had a vote on that only because it has been blocked. We will have a vote on that in the next session of Congress if we are not able to offer it in the coming weeks. In the next session of Congress, we will have a vote on it. We will have very substantial numbers in the Senate supporting that legislation. When we do, it will be good news for American consumers who now pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. That is unfair. I certainly support the amendment that deals with a funding limitation that would be offered as described by my colleague from Florida. That in itself does not solve the larger problem. He has indicated that. I believe Senator Vitter would indicate that as well. It is a step in the right direction. I am supportive of it with the understanding that we will have a more comprehensive piece of legislation on this issue which will be introduced, will be offered, and will be voted on with a very large majority in the Senate. The House of Representatives has already demonstrated its support for such a plan. If we can't get it done in the lameduck session, as soon as we turn the calendar and begin a new year, I am convinced we will get this done. I appreciated the words of my colleague from Florida. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, my colleague was on the Senate floor yesterday, as I was, and he was offering an amendment on the Military Construction appropriations bill dealing with agricultural disaster. In exchange for withdrawing that amendment on the Military Construction bill, he was given some assurance that the Agriculture appropriations bill would come next to the Senate and he would be able to offer that amendment on the Agriculture appropriations bill. Let me, first of all, support my colleague, Senator Conrad. He knows and I know that the Agriculture appropriations bill includes a disaster piece that I added in the committee many months ago. That amendment I offered in the committee was one we had worked on with Senator Conrad and many other Senators on a bipartisan basis. It was Senator Conrad and myself who were recognized in the committee to offer the agricultural disaster plan. That was in the spring of this year. Subsequent to that, we have now had a very substantial drought that has enveloped a fair part of this country, devastating some additional crops, and we have not been able to get the Agriculture appropriations bill back to the Senate so we can make an adjustment to the disaster plan for farmers, an adjustment to include the 2006 disaster, but we have not been able to get it to the floor of the Senate. That is why my colleague, Senator Conrad, offered it yesterday as an amendment to the Military Construction bill. We have already passed it twice in the Senate; that is, an agricultural disaster plan. Two times I added it in the Appropriations Committee. On two occasions--I believe both were with supplemental bills--both occasions we went to a conference with the House of Representatives. I had money in for a farm disaster plan. In both circumstances, we went to the conference; the Senate conferees, at my request, had a vote, insisted on the Senate position which included an agricultural disaster plan for family farmers who got hit with the weather disaster; and on both occasions the President threatened a veto and got the House conferees, at the request of the Speaker, to object. Therefore, twice it got knocked out in a conference. The third time now, I have added the farm disaster piece to the Agriculture appropriations bill. We did that before this growing season in which we had a very devastating drought, so that needs to be adjusted. My colleague, Senator Conrad, is offering the farm disaster piece that would try to reach out to those family farmers who now do not know whether they will be able to continue farming, reach out with a helping hand to say: You are not alone. We cannot make you whole, but we can help you during a tough time. This Congress has already said to the farmers in the Gulf of Mexico: You will get disaster aid because you got hit with Hurricane Katrina and you lost your crops. You get disaster aid. This Congress has essentially said to other farmers and this President has said to other farmers: You might have lost all of your crops from a drought or a flood, but it didn't have a name named ``Katrina.'' It is not like a hurricane, it is not named; therefore, you are not going to get any disaster help--just those who got hit with Hurricane Katrina and lost their crops. That is not fair. No one in this country would think that is fair. So what we are trying to do--I in the Committee on Appropriations and my colleague, Senator Conrad, here in the Senate with this amendment-- is to say to farmers who are out there wondering: Will our family be able to continue on the farm next year? Will we be able to do spring planting? Will we have the capability to put a crop in? At this point, the answer for many of them, thousands of them, is: No, we are not going to be able to continue farming because we had a disaster. Where a crop should have existed on our land, there was barren land, no seeds, no crop. It used to be in our farm bill we had a disaster title. When a disaster occurred, we, with that disaster title, could say to farmers: We want to help you. Now there is no disaster title in the farm bill, and each year when there is a disaster we have to reach out to try to create a disaster bill. This country goes almost every place in the world to help when there is trouble. What about at home? What about when there is trouble on the family farm? I know that is far from the city lights and far from the cameras, but the fact is, that is real trouble for families whose dream is about to end because they cannot continue farming. Why? Is it because they mismanaged? Is it because they are not good farmers, because they can't grow a crop? No. It is because a drought came around and destroyed everything on their farm or it is because a flood came and washed it away. In 2005, in parts of our State, there were over a million acres that could not be planted--think of that--could not be planted at all, and nearly another 1 million planted acres and all the seeds were washed away with torrential rain where one-third of a year's worth of rain fell in 24 hours. Think of that. Then you say to those farmers: You know what. Tough luck. You are on your own. That is not the way this country has dealt with farmers. We have always believed there is value and importance in having farmers on the land farming and creating America's food supply. We have always said: We want to have a bridge across troubled times for you. When price depressions occur, when natural disasters occur, we want to create a safety net for you. We have always done that. Now what happens with disasters, with no disaster title in the farm bill, we face a situation where, because of two years--2005, with substantial flooding, and in 2006, a protracted drought in some significant areas of the country--we face a prospect of losing a great many family farmers just because this country will have said--if we do not do what Senator Conrad and I and others want to do, this country will have said: It doesn't matter. The only farmers we will help are in the gulf region, those who were hit by a hurricane. Some of my colleagues have said it is tempting to name a drought. Give it a name, if that is what is required here. Give these natural disasters a name. We do with hurricanes. My colleague is suggesting the right remedy. We have, apparently, some people saying we need to go to another piece of legislation. Perhaps there is the India nuclear agreement. My colleague says, properly--and I was in the Senate when this exchange took place--my colleague says: Yesterday, I withdrew my amendment from the Military Construction bill--and he did--and I heard the discussion as a result of his withdrawing that amendment. I believe there is an understanding that the next piece of legislation we go to, which would be this afternoon, is the Agriculture appropriations bill. That will give him the opportunity--and me and others--to both introduce and speak to farm disaster aid that is long overdue, that should have been done long ago. Senator Conrad has indicated that he would object to other procedures and other proceedings unless we reach an understanding of going to the Agriculture appropriations bill. I certainly support that and would be in the Senate with him, prepared to object, just as he would. That is the background. That is the story. My colleague, Senator Conrad, is perfectly within his rights. He is absolutely accurate in terms of what we understood when we left the Senate yesterday. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, my colleague has sought unanimous consent to bring up the Agriculture appropriations bill. I recognize, and I know he recognizes, that we don't have the power of scheduling in the Senate. That is the basis of that request. Those who observe the process of legislating might wonder sometimes, if you are not doing anything, why are you not doing something? Clearly we are not doing anything at the moment. We have no business pending. We are attempting to do a piece of legislation dealing with the agricultural disaster for family farmers who suffered weather- related disasters. That is on the basis of the discussion yesterday, where the leader of the Senate wanted to finish the Military Construction bill, and my colleague, Senator Conrad, withdrew his amendment dealing with farm disaster help in order to allow that bill to be completed yesterday. So the assumption was, with the back-and- forth my colleague read from the Record, that we would have the opportunity today for my colleague to offer an amendment to the Agriculture appropriations bill because the assumption and intent was to bring up the Agriculture appropriations bill first thing today. That has not been the case. We came into session at 2:15, I believe, and we essentially are doing nothing. So someone watching these proceedings might want to ask the question: If you are not doing anything, why aren't you doing something? Are you not doing anything because there is nothing to do? That is not the case. We are not doing anything, despite the fact that there are things to be done, because people object to doing things. That is a strange situation. What should be done? The Agriculture appropriations bill should be brought to the floor. That was the intention yesterday. That bill is one I worked on last spring. I am a member of that agriculture appropriations subcommittee. I offered an amendment that my colleague Senator Conrad and many others worked on on a bipartisan basis. That amendment, dealing with farm disaster aid to farmers, was agreed to. It went through the entire process. But the bill has not been brought to the floor. It needs to be modified now because we have had a devastating drought in the middle of 2006. My colleague would modify, with his amendment, the original amendment and provide the disaster aid we want to provide to family farmers. This is not some notion out of left field. It is what this country has always done. If you have a devastating drought--and tens of thousands of farmers have seen their crops dry up in the field, and they have lost everything--the Congress has always said: We want to help you. It is interesting to me that we go all over the world helping. I am proud that our country is there to say we want to help. But what about here at home, in the middle of our country, in the northern Great Plains in North Dakota, where farmers and ranchers had to sell their entire herds because there was nothing to eat? You cannot run a farm and you cannot keep a cow if you don't have feed. What about those folks who lost everything? Do we want to help them? I think so. It is what we have always done. But we have been blocked from bringing it to the floor of the Senate. We have things to do right now, and yet we are doing nothing because we have people blocking the attempt to bring up legislation we should be working on. So my colleague, Senator Conrad, asked unanimous consent to go to the Agriculture appropriations bill, which we thought we were going to as of yesterday, and we believed that was the intent. If we cannot reach an agreement on that, let me ask consent of a different nature. My understanding today was they could not go to the Agriculture appropriations bill, or would not, or whatever, and they wanted to go to the India nuclear agreement. Let me ask this: I ask unanimous consent that the Senate immediately proceed to the Agriculture appropriations bill pending the disposition of the Indian nuclear agreement.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the point is to say the following: We are not doing anything at this moment. There is much work to be done, some of it very important. We have a lot of farm families wondering: Will we be able to have money to run our farms, for spring planting, or are we going to be told by our bankers and lenders that we cannot continue? There is an urgency to this. If it cannot be the case that we move to that this afternoon, then OK. If it is the case that there are objections to moving to the Agriculture appropriations bill today and someone says let's bring up the India nuclear deal, the question I raise is, Can we get an agreement following that, so that we have certainty? We are not asking for the Moon here. All we are asking for is certainty to be able to bring to the floor of the Senate and to have a vote on a disaster relief package that is supported by almost three- fourths of the Senate. My hope is that the majority leader and others will agree with us that we need to find a time. Perhaps the time cannot be today. Can it be at a future date? As my colleague indicated, the Presiding Officer is constrained to object on behalf of the majority leader. I understand that. That may not even be his position. I know he has farmers and agricultural folks in his State as well. My hope is that, with the cooperation of the majority leader, we can lock in a determination of when we have business on the floor of the Senate that will allow Senator Conrad and I and others to offer the amendment to provide disaster aid. That is what we are asking. This is not a puzzle for which there is no solution. This is very simple. We just need to understand, will there be an attempt to continue to block this or will there be an obvious opportunity for us to offer the amendment? If there is an opportunity, at that point I think we can lock in a time. My colleague, Senator Conrad, and I and others would be satisfied with that and we would know we will get to the point to pass this for the farmers in the Senate. That would be an enormous and beneficial thing to do on behalf of thousands of families who work very hard in this country. They get up in the morning and do chores. We don't use the term ``do chores'' around here. Nobody does chores in the Senate; that is, getting up in the morning, feeding cattle, dealing with the hogs, chickens, and the horses--doing chores. These are people who work very hard. I think it is important for us to recognize that this devastating drought hurt a lot of families very badly. We helped those families as a result of the loss of crops in the Gulf of Mexico as a result of Hurricane Katrina. I am pleased we did that. We should not limit help in the form of disaster aid to just those folks who lost crops due to a disaster named ``Hurricane Katrina.'' That is the point we are making. I regret that we have not been able to get consent. My colleague has indicated--and I join him--that he would be constrained to object to moving on other issues until we get an agreement. When we get an agreement on when we are going to be able to vote on this amendment, at that point, then we can move on. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, first, thanks to my colleague who states well the reasons we are on the floor. I think we have said most of what needs to be said in support of those farm families who have struggled and who have been hit and devastated with something they could not have envisioned: a natural disaster, drought and flood in both cases in our State in successive years. I mentioned earlier this is not unusual. Traditionally in our country when family farmers have been hit with a tough blow, this country has said: You are not alone. We want to help you. And we have passed some kind of disaster legislation. We have provided some kind of help to those families. They are the ones who live out on the farm alone. It is a tough life. I was looking back yesterday at 70 years ago in our region, first in South Dakota and next in North Dakota, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt did a train trip and it was a drought tour. On that drought tour he went out to say to people: I want to see what is happening out here and I want to tell you we are going to help. That was 70 years ago. This isn't new. We are not asking for something that has not been done before. It is something that has always been done. The President has threatened to veto agricultural disaster aid when it has passed the Senate twice before. There were amendments I added in the Senate Appropriations Committee providing disaster help for farmers. It proceeded through the Senate. It went to conference. I was a conferee. The President threatened the veto and he got the House conferees to resist it and knock it out. We asked the President to do a drought tour, to go out and see the middle part of the country. Go to the Northern Great Plains, the epicenter of drought, and take a look at ground that is not growing anything. It is just bare ground where crops used to exist. The President was not able to do that. I want to quote Franklin Delano Roosevelt who 70 years ago on a train did do that drought tour. Here is what he said in Huron, SD, from the back platform of a train. The drought inspection trip was the occasion for Franklin Delano Roosevelt to be on the back platform of a train, speaking to the citizens of Huron, SD, and the family farmers in the surrounding area. He said: No city in an agricultural country can exist unless the farms are prosperous. We have to cooperate with one another rather than trying to buck one another. I have come out here to find you with your chins up, looking toward the future with confidence and courage. I am grateful for the attitude you are taking out here. As I said, it is a question of working together. Then he was in Devils Lake, ND, on his train trip. He said: Today out here I don't ask you to have courage and faith. You have it. You have demonstrated that through a good many years. I am asking, however, that you keep up that courage and especially keep up that faith. If it is possible for government to improve conditions, government will do it. That is Franklin Delano Roosevelt 70 years ago. He said: I assure you, the interests of these communities are very close to my heart. I won't forget the day I have spent with you. We hope that nature is going to open up the heavens. When I came out on the platform this morning, I saw a rather dark cloud and I said to myself, Maybe it is going to rain, but it didn't. All I can say is I hope to goodness it is going to rain good and plenty. He said: I will tell you, my friends, I am not going to let up until I can give my best service to solving these problems. Seventy years ago Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a man who knew family farmers, a man who knew America's workers, got on the train and went to take a look at what had happened, at the suffering in the Northern Great Plains as a result of that drought and said: We are going to help. This is not new. My colleague Senator Conrad and I are not asking for something that hasn't been done. In fact, in more modern times, the agriculture bill, known as the farm bill, has always included, until the recent decade or so, a provision called the disaster title that could be triggered when there was a disaster. That is not the case now. So each year we have to come to the Senate to ask for a separate disaster aid package, to try to reach out and help those who otherwise are going to be thrown off the farm and told they can't continue. Is it their fault? No, it is not their fault. Bad managers? No, not bad managers. Spend too much? No. It was a drought that came and destroyed everything they had, and where, in some parts of the country, a flood came and wiped out everything that existed on their farm. It is not their fault. It is the best of this country then to reach out and say: We want to help you. We think you are important to this country. I mentioned yesterday a fellow named Rodney Nelson from my State who writes prose. He is a cowboy poet. He lives near Almont, ND, and he wrote a piece once that I have not forgotten. He asked in that piece: What is it worth? I think it is important for us to ask the question, What is it worth? What is it worth to have a kid who knows how to weld a seam? What is it worth to have a kid who knows how to work livestock? What is it worth to have a kid who knows how to grease a combine? What is it worth to have a kid who knows how to fix a tractor? What is it worth to have a kid who knows how to build a lean-to? What is it worth to have a kid who knows how to teach a newborn calf how to suck milk out of a bucket? What is all that worth? What is it worth to have a kid who knows how to plow a straight line? There is only one university in America, only one, where they teach all those skills, and that is the family farm. Some people say it doesn't matter. It does to us. That is why we are here. This is not about a handout. It is about a helping hand during a time of trouble, during a drought and a flood. It is the best of what this country can do, and it is what this country should do. I hope, before this day is out, we will have an agreement by which we will have an opportunity to offer this amendment, get a vote on this amendment, after which clearly it will pass the Senate, and we will be on the way to getting this to the President. My hope is that the President will not block it. He previously said he would veto legislation such as this, but I think, since he said that, things have changed. My hope is that he will recognize that change. There has been a lot of discussion about change in this country in recent days, particularly in the last week. Change has a lot of meaning to it. Change is a word that we hope the President will embrace with respect to this issue. Twice previously he has blocked disaster aid for farmers who suffered a disaster as a result of weather-related problems. Twice previously he has blocked it. We hope he recognizes the change necessary to decide that now we need to help those family farmers. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I make a point of order a quorum is not present.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent, on behalf of Senator Bingaman, that Jonathan Epstein, a fellow from his office, be granted the privilege of the floor during the pendency of S. 3709, H.R. 5682, and any rollcall votes thereon.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague Senator Conrad for his leadership, my colleague Senator Johnson, and so many others, Republicans and Democrats, who have worked together to try to construct a piece of legislation that would provide some disaster help for farmers, and then to try to get it through the Congress and get it to the President's desk for his signature. This has been a long, tortuous trail. Twice before the Senate has passed disaster relief for family farmers--twice. Both times it went to a conference with the House. I was a conferee on both occasions. I was involved with my colleagues in attaching it to the appropriations bill as it went to a conference. We got to conference. Both times the President threatened to veto the legislation, to block it. And he got the conferees on the House side to require that it be taken out of the conference report. Therefore, this is the third attempt on the floor of the Senate to do this piece of legislation. And it is very important. Let me talk for a moment about this issue of farming because we all come to work and we wear neckties and suits and take showers at the start of the day. Farmers take showers at the end of the day because their work is hard. They feed cattle. They plow the ground. They grease a tractor. They run a combine. They put up hay. They do all the things that represent very hard work out in the land, and they are economic all-stars. The ability of the American family farmer to feed more and more people is pretty extraordinary. But they work very hard and they produce a product. If things cooperate, if they get decent weather, enough rain, the disasters don't come, the insects aren't there, then they produce a crop. They produce a kernel of corn, perhaps some wheat, a kernel of barley, some rice. What happens is the wheat gets puffed by a company someplace, after it gets hauled by railroad, and then it gets put in a box and sold as puffed wheat. The farmer gets almost nothing. The railroads take too much, and the box of puffed wheat costs an unbelievable amount of money. The same is true with crisping rice. It goes into a box called Rice Krispies. The same is true with corn. They flake the corn, put it in a box, and call it corn flakes. The railroads get a lot of money for hauling that corn to market, the people who sell the corn flakes get a lot of profit, and the farmer gets almost nothing. That is what farming has always been about. But they only get the crop in the first place if they do not get wiped out by a natural disaster--whether disease, insects, or so on. Now, what has happened in the last couple of years, particularly in our part of the country, the Dakotas were called the epicenter of a drought, the epicenter of a drought. So those farmers, who in the spring went out and planted their crops, discovered they did not have any crop growth at all. Nothing came up in those fields. It is pretty unbelievable to drive by a field that is supposed to be a field of grain and see it look like a moonscape. I drove to Zeeland, ND, one day, a very small town just north of the South Dakota border. And as I drove into that town, to my left was a patch of ground that looked like moonscape--no vegetation at all. There had been no rain there. One hundred ranchers gathered in a small community hall in Zeeland, ND, to talk about what this meant to them. One after another, they stood up to talk about what it means when you don't get rain. One fellow from another part of our country who had moved back to North Dakota said: I had never, ever understood why they measured rain in hundredths. How much rain did you get? Twenty hundredths, twenty- four hundredths. I never understood before why they measured rain in hundredths until I came to North Dakota, a State with 15 to 17 inches of annual rainfall in an entire year. And then what happens? It stops raining, and you have a drought and nothing grows; or it rains too much, and you get one-third of the annual rainfall in one day. We have had both happen. One happened the year before, in 2005; one happened in 2006. Some will say: Well, you just come and talk about farming all the time. Family farmers this, family farmers that. There is a writer in North Dakota, a farmer, a rancher, down near Almont, I believe. His name is Rodney Nelson. He asks in some of his prose some very important questions: What is it worth to our country? What is it worth for a young person to know how to plow a field, to grease a tractor? What is it worth for a young person to know how to weld a seam, how to combine a field of grain? What is it worth to have a young person know how to build a lean-to, how to take care of cattle, how to care for livestock? What is it worth to have young people know how to work in the bitter cold and do chores in the morning in the bitter cold, or to be out in the fields when it is unbelievably hot, combining that field of grain? What is that worth? There is only one university in America where those studies are taught, and that is America's family farms. What is it worth to us? Do we want to save those farmers when they run through some tough times, when they reach a tough patch? That is what has happened here. Always before our country has said: Do you know what. When you are out there alone, living under a yard light, and you and your family are trying to make a living and you get hit with a natural disaster, this country is going to help. This country wants to reach out a hand and say: You are not alone. We want to help you. Well, in the new farm bills, they took out the disaster title. There ought to be one. I intend to offer legislation to put a disaster title back in the farm bills so we are not begging at the end of every session to try to provide some help to farmers who otherwise are going to go broke. Let me describe, as my colleague has done, this picture of a soybean field in North Dakota. There are not any soybeans there. That is a field that is dead, with barely any green at all. Normally, these soybeans would be lush, filling that piece of ground, and would be a foot tall. But, as you can see, these plants are worthless. There is not much alive in that photograph. I have talked to farmers who sold off their entire herds. I talked to a young farmer who built a herd of cattle for 3 years. It was his life's goal to take over from his parents. He built his herd for 3 years and was barely making it, and then this drought hit and he had nothing to feed his cattle. If you don't have anything to feed your cattle, those cows are going to market. His cows are gone. He is out of business. Shown in this picture is a man from my State who was a rancher. His name is Frank Barnick. He is shown walking on a creekbed. It does not look like that. It looks like, again, a moonscape. That is a creekbed that would hold water for his cattle, but it is dry. Frank said this is the worst drought he has ever seen. These people, Frank and his neighbors and friends, are not asking a lot from this country. They are asking if this country cares whether family farmers are able to live on the land and continue farming. They hope that the answer is yes and that this country understands farmers contribute something very important. Family farmers contribute something very important to this country. A fellow who I thought was a wonderful author, used to write in a book about the nurturing of family values in America. He always described that family values in America came from family farms, the seedbed of family values, and they rolled to small towns and big cities, nurturing the value system and culture along the way. We have attempted time and time again to get some disaster aid for people who need help. We asked the President, in the middle of the drought this year, to come out and do a drought tour. He was not able to do that. I went back and recalled that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt came out for a drought tour. We don't have a lot of Presidents stop through North Dakota. When they do, we are enormously honored to have them join us and be a part of North Dakota. I wanted to read you a couple of things that President Roosevelt said. He stopped in Huron, SD, exactly 70 years ago. Then he stopped in North Dakota--both on a drought tour, both on a train--and spoke to people. Here is what he said to our neighbors to the south in Huron, SD, on a drought inspection trip. He said: No city in an agricultural country can exist unless the farms are prosperous. I understand our economy has grown in ways that make this less than an agricultural country, but it certainly has not been the case with respect to agricultural States, where a predominant part of our economic base is still agriculture and family farming. Here is what else the President said in Huron, SD, 70 years ago, understanding that family farmers were having great trouble during that drought: I have come out here to find you with your chins up, looking toward the future with confidence and courage. I am grateful to you for the attitude you are taking. That is the only way you could ever farm. There isn't anybody who would decide to be a farmer if they didn't look forward to the future with hope. They plant a seed and hope. They hope what they planted will produce a crop. It is the only way farmers can exist. When Franklin Delano Roosevelt went to North Dakota 70 years ago on a drought tour, here is what he said: But, when you come to this water problem through here, you are up against two things. In the first place, you are up against the forces of nature and, secondly, you are up against the fact that man, in his present stage of development, cannot definitely control those forces. He continued: Today, out here, I do not ask you to have courage and faith. You have it. You have demonstrated that through a good many years. I am asking, however, that you keep up that courage and, especially, keep up the faith. If it is possible for Government to improve conditions in this State, Government will do it. We hope that Nature is going to open the Heavens. When I came out on the platform this morning and saw a rather dark cloud, I said to myself, ``Maybe it is going to rain.'' Well, it didn't. All I can say is, I hope to goodness it is going to rain, good and plenty. My friends, I want to tell you that I am glad I came here. I want to tell you I am not going to let up until I can give my best service to solving the problems of North Dakota. Again, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 70 years ago to family farmers: If it is possible for Government to improve conditions, we will do that. He said to the farmers: You are not alone. We want to help. Let's say that again today, let the Congress say that to our farmers: You matter. You make a difference to this country's future. Your contribution to our culture and our economy is important. This Congress has not forgotten that. We will remember it today by investing in the future and saying to family farmers: We want you to be able to continue to farm. We don't want you wandering, as you go into spring planting, whether you are going to have the ability to remain on the farm with your family, producing food for a hungry world. We want to pass a disaster aid package, one that puts this Congress in the same position that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was in 70 years ago, saying, if it is within the capability of this Government to help, we intend to help. Again, let me compliment my colleague, Senator Conrad. I am pleased to work with him, as I have for many decades. This is an important amendment to offer now. While this is not the optimum place to offer this amendment, as this appropriations bill deals with different appropriations, we have not had the opportunity to do anything but this because we have not been given the opportunity to move this legislation separately. We offer it hoping for good will and for the support of others. This is not partisan. It is bipartisan. Republicans and Democrats from farm country understand the importance and the value of doing this kind of legislation that says to family farmers: You matter to this country. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I reserve the right to object. I understand the recognition is Senator Conrad and then a Republican slot at which point I would be recognized.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I didn't come to the floor to speak about our economic situation, but I get so inspired by my colleague from New Hampshire that it is hard not to respond to at least a portion of it. Let me just make a comment about where we are with this economy of ours because the implication in the presentation was, boy, these tax cuts for wealthy Americans really did help this country. In 2004 the economy grew at 4.2 percent. Yet the median family income in this country fell and poverty increased. This is the first sustained period of economic growth since World War II that fails to provide real income growth for the average working family in this country. The fact is, wages and salaries are now at a lower percent of the GDP in this country than they have been since they started keeping score in 1947; some progress for working people. I admit, the folks at the top of the ladder are doing really well because the economic program provided by the majority and by this President says ``let's provide the largest tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans because we believe it will all trickle down someday to the rest of the American people.'' But, it will not and it has not and, regrettably, we now have a dramatic increase in indebtedness. We are going to borrow close to $600 billion in the coming year in budget policy and $800 billion in trade deficits. That is a total of $1.4 trillion in a $13 trillion economy. So, that puts us over 10 percent of red ink in a single year. This is working real well? I'm sorry, that doesn't even pass remedial economics. That is not why I came to the floor to speak, but it is hard to ignore cheerleading for an economic policy that has put this country up to its neck in debt, hurt working families, and enriched the most wealthy Americans. I came to the floor today and asked for some time because I wanted to talk about what I have been seeing in the newspapers and what I read this morning in the newspaper. The President, yesterday, went on another political trip, and the President, in Alabama, said that the party of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the Democrats, are the cut-and-run party. That follows Congressman Hastert, the Speaker of the House, suggesting Democrats are coddling terrorists. That follows comments by the majority leader of the House, Congressman Boehner, suggesting that Democrats care more about terrorists than the American people. This stuff is way beyond the pale. Cut and run, the President says? Cut and run? What kind of talk is this? I don't understand that. Is someone in this Chamber suggesting that we cut and run someplace? Not that I am aware of. Not one person I know of is suggesting we cut and run. But it would be worth us talking about whether our fight against terrorism is a fight that is tough and smart because I don't believe the current fight is very tough or very smart. You know, it is probably useful for us to review some history. So, let me do a bit of that, since the President is suggesting that his party is the party that is muscular and the other party is weak. Winston Churchill once said: The farther back you look, the farther forward you see. Let's look back, August 6 in 2001. On August 6, 2001, the President received what is called a Presidential Daily Briefing which said that ``Osama bin Laden was determined to strike in the United States.'' That was the heading of the briefing received by the President: ``bin Laden determined to strike in U.S.'' Here is what the 9/11 Commission report said, and I will give you the page numbers. After that briefing to the President on August 6 of 2001, ``bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S.,'' here is what the 9/11 Commission said they found, on page 260: The President, ``did not recall discussing the August 6 report with the Attorney General, nor did he recall whether his National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, had done so.'' On page 261, the 9/11 Commission found that the President's National Security Council never met to discuss the possible threat of a strike in the United States as a result of the PDB that said ``bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.'' Imagine that, the President was told, on August 6, 2001, that ``bin Laden determined to strike in the United States'' and nothing was done. In fact, the 9/11 Commission found, on page 262, no indication of any further discussion before September 11 among the President and his top advisers regarding the threat of an al-Qaida strike in the United States. The Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet, page 262, did not recall any discussions with the President of the domestic threat in the weeks prior to 9/11. Finally, it says this, page 265 of the 9/11 Commission report: In sum, the domestic agencies never mobilized in response to the threat. They did not have direction, and did not have a plan to institute. The borders were not hardened. Transportation systems were not fortified. Electronic surveillance was not targeted against a domestic threat. State and local law enforcement were not marshaled to implement the FBI's effort. The public was not warned. Those are the facts of what was and was not done by the President and his advisors after they were warned on August 6, 2001 that ``bin Laden was determined to strike in the United States.'' Those are not my facts, but the facts on the record from a bipartisan commission that investigated following the specific warning of August 6. Now the President is saying, ``Cut and run.'' Let me describe a bit more history. The President and his advisers also said there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. We now know they were not. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He said the aluminum tubes were being purchased to reconstitute nuclear capability in Iraq. We now know those who told us those were facts knew that there were other facts at hand inside the administration that disagreed with their conclusion, but they never saw fit to offer that to the Congress or the American people. Mobile chemical weapons labs, we were told, were a significant threat. The development of mobile chemical weapons labs in Iraq, we now know, came from a fellow code-named ``Curve Ball.'' He was the only source. One source. A man named ``Curve Ball,'' apparently someone who is probably an alcoholic and a fabricator. A single source tells this country there are mobile chemical weapons labs in Iraq, and this country, through the Secretary of State, tells the world that it's a fact. Yet, it turns out to be a fabrication. One source, a drinker and a fabricator, told someone about it and it becomes part of this country's national dialog. Yellowcake. I don't need to go much further about yellowcake from Niger which turns out not to have been true either, with forged documents, mind you. And Mohammed Atta, one of the hijackers, in Prague, turns out not to have been true. As a result of all of that, the war on terrorism took a detour and we went to Iraq. We are now in Iraq. Saddam Hussein was found in a rat hole. He is now on trial. Is that good? Sure, it is good. He was a repressive, brutal dictator who murdered people. Sure, that is good that he's out of power. We are now in the middle of a civil war. Yes, we can describe it that way, probably a low-grade civil war, but a civil war in Iraq. That is where we have American troops stationed at present. And the President just says, stay the course. If anyone suggests, maybe we ought to have a discussion about being smarter and tougher in winning that war, the President says you believe in cutting and running. Being at war deserves thoughtful debate, thoughtful debate about how to win that war, about the detour from the war on terror. Just saying cutting and running, that is thoughtless debate, in my judgment. Stay the course? Stay the course? How? Where? When? For what? The fact is, it is a mess. We have ourselves in a mess. We cannot pull American troops out of Iraq. None of my colleagues, I believe, have suggested we should. None that I am aware of have suggested we should. But stay the course? Shouldn't we be smarter, tougher, more effective, and make course corrections when necessary? Course corrections that will give this country a chance to succeed rather than fail? We have debates about wiretapping in the context of all of this because the President has decided he is going to speak about Iraq in the same context as the war on terrorism. Of course, they are different. They are related somewhat now because we went to Iraq, but they were different. So the President talks about wiretapping. I am for wiretapping conversations between al-Qaida and the United States. I say, wiretap, eavesdrop, find out what terrorists are saying. But no President, no Republican and no Democratic President, ought to have the right to indiscriminate eavesdrop and wiretap on all Americans. We do not even know what this has been about. We do not know how extensive it has been. We don't know how many Americans have been listened to, how many records have been looked at. Yes, let's wiretap and find out what al-Qaida operatives are saying in telephone calls. Let's also protect the basic liberties of this country as we do so. Last week, we had three people testify before a policy committee hearing, with a combined service to this country of over 100 years. They were all combat veterans from Iraq. They led our troops. Two generals, two-two star generals and a colonel. One of the two star generals was offered a promotion to a third star and had a bright promising future, but he turned it down and resigned. He did that because he could no longer serve under the Secretary of Defense and follow a flawed strategy and policy. Here is just one example of what they said. They repeatedly asked for more troops in Iraq. As commanders of their units they repeatedly asked for more troops and repeatedly were turned down. That is at odds with what we, all of America, were told all along the way by GEN. Tommy Franks and General Myers. That is also at odds with what General Pace has stated standing next to Secretary Rumsfeld and standing next to President Bush. These Iraq combat veterans said we repeatedly asked for more troops. We needed more troops to finish the job and do the job, to prevent the growth of the insurgents in Iraq, and we were repeatedly denied. That is at odds with everything the American people have been told. That's not all. Body armor? A young man told me he signed up to go to Iraq, felt it was his duty after 9/11, quit school to do it, and when he gets there his mother, an elementary schoolteacher, had to go online on the Internet to purchase body armor to send to her son in Iraq. Colonel Hammas said, we know we have better armored vehicles to protect our soldiers than the up-armored Humvees. We know we have better armored vehicles. We have already produced 1,000 of them. Why are we not mass producing those vehicles? At the end of World War II we were producing 50,000 airplanes a year to support that war. This country mobilized and said, we are in a war, we are going to win it, we are going to produce what is necessary to support our troops, to protect our troops. Right now, we have better armored vehicles, but we are not producing them. We have not marshalled this country to fight this war, to protect our troops, to win. We have not mobilized this country. Don't believe me, talk to the generals who have been there, who now are risking their reputations by being willing to speak out now on behalf of the troops who can't speak, who can't tell us these facts. There is an old saying, ``A lie travels halfway around the world before the truth gets its shoes on.'' But finally the truth is getting fully dressed. We need the truth and the facts to understand what this country confronts. This country has great capabilities. We should be one nation indivisible. We are not these days. There is too much shouting. There are too many slogans like cut and run. We should be one nation as we confront this terrorism that threatens our country. We should be one nation as we search for ways to deal with the conflict in Iraq and to protect American soldiers who are there on behalf of their country. Most importantly, we need to be tough and smart as we take on these challenges. This is a new war, a different war, the war against terrorism and the circumstances that our troops find themselves in, in Iraq, fighting a war against an insurgency that doesn't wear uniforms. This requires us to be smart and tough, requires us to change tactics and strategy when necessary and to have a national discussion about how we succeed as a country. Yet this President will hear none of it. He will not hear and he will not listen. He is content to go to Alabama and say that those who openly question anything he does are people who suggest we should cut and run. I regret that. What we need to do, it seems to me, is to accept advice from some of the best minds in this country. Bring people together, Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, academics and others, bring them together and let's get the best of what everyone has to offer instead of the worst of each. Let's bring people together in this country. Let's stop this nonsense, one side is coddling terrorists, one side wants to cut and run. That is a playbook we have heard before. It is tired. It is limp. It makes no sense. It divides this country. I ask the President, the Speaker of the House, the majority leader of the House and others, stop this sort of thing. Let's join together and work together to find ways to solve problems; to, as I said, be smart and tough in ways to defeat terrorists, take on these terrorists as one nation. If I sound upset by what I read in the paper today, I am. I don't think it is worthy of the kind of debate we ought to experience in this country. We have seen it twice leading up to the last two elections. We saw the fellow who lay on a battlefield losing one arm and two legs bleeding for his country. We saw him tarnished in television commercials. Political commercials equated him with Osama bin Laden, questioning his courage and commitment to his country. It made a lot of people sick to see that sort of thing. Maybe we can have a national debate that elevates the discussion of this country a bit. Maybe we can have a national debate that sets a little higher tone. I hope so. We can agree that this country is in a tough fight, one we need to win. We will not win this fight if we have these kind of political tactics continued again, one more time, the next 30 days before the election, the third election in a row questioning someone's patriotism, questioning someone's commitment to their country. They did that even with the generals. The general, the two-star general who refused a third star and resigned instead, who commanded the first infantry division in Iraq, had his commitment to his country questioned. Why? Because he had the temerity to speak out, to say, ``I was there. I was leading my troops, I was asking for more troops and I was turned down.'' People need to know that. We shouldn't be questioning the motives or patriotism of people who have committed themselves to their country, who have dedicated their lives to their country, our country. Let's elevate this debate. Let's come together. Let's act as one America. And let's fight these terrorist groups. Let's succeed and prevail, together. Yes, let's find a way to accomplish our objectives in Iraq. Let's do that. If it takes more troops, let's do that. If it takes a different strategy, if it takes changing the course, let's do that. But let's do it together. Let's not get on Air Force One and go to a State six or eight States away and suggest that your political adversaries want to cut and run. That hardly serves thoughtful debate in this country. This country deserves better. Democrats and Republicans need to come together and speak out and speak up for the interests of this country. But, to do that, we have to listen to each other. We have to listen to people like the generals. We have to listen to people who might disagree with us. We can't be stubborn. That's the only way, together, we will win against the terrorists. I yield the floor.