Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. The two bottles of Lipitor are identical bottles: same company, same pill, made in the same manufacturing plant, sent to different places. One is sent to the United States to be purchased by a United States consumer, and the other is sent to Canada to be purchased by a Canadian consumer. What is the difference? This is 40 percent less expensive than this one. The American consumer is charged more than the Canadian consumer. Why is the American consumer not able to get that 40 percent discount or pay a price that is 40 percent less? The answer is, the pharmaceutical industry stops the reimportation of prescription drugs except for the small use by those who can go back and forth physically across the border. They do that because that enforces their pricing mechanism which requires the highest prices be paid by the American consumer. Prevacid, 50 percent savings in Canada versus the United States--same pill, same bottle, made by the same company, shipped to two different places, and one is a dramatically lower price. Zocor, 46 percent difference; Celebrex, a 55-percent difference--and the list goes on. The American consumer is charged the highest prices in the world for these prescription drugs. I, personally, think it is unfair. The way to deal with that is to allow the American consumer access, as others have access, to an international trading system; to say if you can purchase an FDA- approved drug from Canada, you are welcome to import it into this country. The pharmaceutical industry says there are safety issues with that. There are no safety issues with that, not if it is an FDA- approved drug produced in FDA-approved plants. The Europeans have been doing something called parallel trading for a couple of decades. If you are in Germany and want to buy a prescription drug from Spain, no problem. You can do that. If you are in Italy and want to buy a prescription drug from France, no problem. Under a system called parallel trading, they are able to import and reimport prescription drugs to find the best price. Only in the United States are we prevented from doing that. We put together a piece of legislation. We worked very hard on the legislation. Thirty-two Senators, Republicans and Democrats, have worked to accomplish this legislation. On March 11, 2004, over 2 years ago now, at midnight in the Senate, I lifted a hold I had on a nominee in exchange for what I thought was a commitment by the majority leader to bring drug importation legislation to the Senate. I thought it was a commitment. He says he didn't think it was a commitment. I am not going to try to question his integrity but, nonetheless, we still wait 2 years later and are not able to have a vote on this legislation. In July of 2005, my colleague, Senator Vitter from Louisiana, said he received a commitment from the majority leader to bring this very issue to the Senate if the Senate achieved a 60-vote demonstration of support for reimportation. The Senate met that hurdle when it adopted the Vitter-Nelson amendment on a 68-to-32 vote. On July 14, I and my colleagues--three Democrats and three Republicans--wrote to the majority leader saying: We have now waited for a long while, and we hope that you will decide to do what you had assured us you would do; that is, give us an opportunity in the Senate to pass this legislation. The U.S. House has already passed legislation on this. The Senate clearly has the votes to pass it if the attempts to block it are ceased and we would be able to pass legislation that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, will save consumers $50 billion over 10 years, $5 billion a year. That is not an insignificant savings. It seems to me this is an issue that ought not be very controversial except, as I understand, to the prescription drug industry. Let me hasten to say there are some good people working in that industry. Those companies produce some miracle lifesaving drugs. But there are no miracles from miracle drugs if you cannot afford to take them. That is why I believe the pricing of those prescription drugs to the U.S. consumer, charging the highest prices in the world, is fundamentally unfair. It is why I and many others are attempting to remove a restriction in law that prohibits the reimportation of FDA-approved prescription drugs. In many cases, these drugs are actually made in the United States and then exported to be sold for a much lower price in other countries. Then the U.S. consumer is prevented from accessing those same lower priced drugs despite the fact they were made in this country. We passed a prescription drug benefit in Medicare recently, and it has now been implemented. That had a provision in it that prevents the negotiation for lower prices--just as the VA and others have done. This actually prevents Medicare from negotiating lower prices. I cannot think of anything that makes less sense than a prohibition of the Federal Government from negotiating lower prices. But that is what has happened. Since the prescription drug benefit in Medicare has taken effect, in the first quarter of 2006, we see while the inflation increased at 1.1 percent, we can see the increase in the price of prescription drugs on this chart. I have developed several of them--Ambien, Proscar, Atrovent inhaler, Lexapro--and the price on average has run triple the rate of inflation in the first quarter. This is like hooking a hose to the tank and sucking it dry. It will break the bank from two standpoints: One, the cost of this program to the Federal Government; and No. 2, the ability of consumers to be able to access the same FDA-approved drug for lower prices from Canada and other countries just makes great sense. It is why 32 Members of the Senate have cosponsored the legislation before the Senate. As I said when I started, the majority leader has indicated he fully expected legislation such as this to be in the Senate and to be considered. He said: But we will take it up in the committee of jurisdiction first. That happened last year, in April of last year. They had a hearing. We expected then, and they all said then: We will report legislation out and have time in the Senate to deal with it. But the fact is, it has not happened. On behalf of the American people, who deserve to have the opportunity to have fair prices on their prescription drugs, this Congress, this Senate, ought to take up this legislation and pass it. The legislation that is before the Senate is an authorization bill. We are now on the legislation. It is open for amendment. The amendment that I will ask to be considered is not an amendment that falls by the rules. It is an amendment that is perfectly appropriate under the rules. My understanding is that the bill on the floor of the Senate has been amended. I think we have a first-degree amendment and a second- degree amendment. What has been done, as they say in legislative terms, the tree has been filled so that no other amendments are in order. So in order to offer an amendment, which is proper, you have to ask that the current amendment be set aside, which is the last second- degree amendment that was offered. My expectation is, and I am told this request will be objected to, but let me say, even if it is objected to, I hope the majority leader will work with us. We have limited time. Representations have been made to a number of Members, including Senator Vitter, myself, and others, that we would have an opportunity in this Congress to deal with this issue. The U.S. House of Representatives has done so; the Senate has not. My hope is the Senate would allow consideration of a very carefully developed bipartisan piece of legislation that nearly one-third of the Senate has embraced as cosponsors. With that, I ask unanimous consent the pending amendment be set aside, that the Senate immediately consider the Dorgan-Snowe amendment number 4742 to make drug importation legal and safe.

Mr. DORGAN. I am happy to yield.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the large bipartisan group of Senators that has worked to put this bill together and endorsed the bill through cosponsorship has done so believing, first of all, that there is no safety issue. These are FDA-approved drugs that would be allowed to be imported, No. 1. And, No. 2, very substantial savings would exist. The Congressional Budget Office has said that it would be $50 billion over 10 years, $5 billion a year. There would be additional savings to the Federal Government itself. At a time when we are up to our necks in debt, it is very important to do the right thing not only on behalf of the American consumers but also on behalf of our Government's fiscal policy. The right thing is allowing this to be an opportunity to access the identical FDA-approved drugs at the much lower price that they are being sold in virtually every other country of the world. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

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

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

Mr. DORGAN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, this is a piece of legislation which we offered previously during this Congress, unsuccessfully, I might add, that I and others intend to offer once again. I want to describe it and describe why we intend to offer it again as we find additional legislation on the floor of the Senate with which to offer it as an amendment. It deals with accountability in contracting. The legislation we have introduced is called Honest Leadership and Accountability in Contracting Act of 2006. I introduced it on March 2, S. 2361. The bill is sponsored by 30 of my colleagues here in the Senate. Senator Reid joined me in announcing the legislation that day. The bill includes contributions from a number of Members of the Senate and the work they did on issues relating to this which we have put in the bill. I want to describe the bill briefly. It is a bill that will punish war profiteers with substantial penalties for profiteering during wartime contracts. It is a bill that will crack down on defense contract cheaters by restoring a rule on suspension and debarment, to say we are not satisfied any longer when we see someone cheating on a contract and cheating the American taxpayer to say, Well, you get a slap on the wrist and a pat on the back and a new contract. This gets tough. It cracks down on contract cheaters. It will force real contract competition, and it will do so by prohibiting the awarding of large monopoly, sole-source, no-bid contracts. The legislation has a number of other provisions as well, but it is important legislation. I want to describe why, and I want to describe some of the things I have been doing. Let me start by saying this is not about Democrats or Republicans. It is not about conservatives or liberals. Waste is not part of it. Waste is just waste. Contract abuse is not partisan. It is just abuse of the American taxpayer. Let me describe a couple of things to begin this discussion. This is April 30, 2006, in the New York Times. The United States pays for 150 Iraqi clinics and manages to build 20. A $243 million program led by the United States Army Corps of Engineers to build 150 health clinics in Iraq has in some cases produced little more than empty shells of crumbling concrete and shattered bricks cemented together in uneven walls. What is that about? It is about a huge contract, a contract to produce 150 health care clinics in Iraq, and now we see the money is gone, but the health care clinics weren't built--not 150 of them. Only 20 of them were built. Yet the money is gone. Let me talk about these issues and go back to the beginning of what piqued my interest. In February of 2004, I began hearing from some whistleblowers who said: We want to tell our story. So as chairman of the Democratic Policy Committee, we convened some hearings and listened to them. We held eight oversight hearings on the issue of contracting abuses in Iraq and heard from whistleblowers. I will describe them. We had two oversight hearings on the response to Hurricane Katrina, and I will describe just a bit of that. But let me describe this, going back to February of 2004, almost 2\1/2\ years ago. This is a description of what is happening in contracts in Iraq. Henry Bunting is a fellow who came to see me. He worked in Kuwait. He worked for Kellogg, Brown and Root, which is a subsidiary of Halliburton. You might recall, they got big no-bid, sole-source contracts and made a lot of money. He worked as a field buyer in Kuwait. He told us they spent up to $7,500 a month to rent ordinary cars and trucks. Think of that. American taxpayers pay for that. The company had purchased monogrammed towels for $7.50 apiece when they could have cost $2.50. These are hand towels for American soldiers. The company that was buying them told Henry: We want the company name embroidered on the towel. That more than doubled the cost to the taxpayer. The company said: It doesn't matter, this is cost-plus; the American taxpayer is going to pick up the tab. It is almost unbelievable. Another thing Henry told us, 25 tons of nails, that is 50,000 pounds of nails, were ordered and delivered to Iraq. They were the wrong size. They are laying in the sand. It doesn't matter. The American taxpayer is going to pick up the tab. Henry came forward. I wonder what kind of courage it took for Henry to come forward and tell us that, but he did it and good for him. It piqued my interest, however, in February 2004, to hear whistleblowers talk about what was going on with respect to contracting in Iraq. Then, in subsequent stories we would hear about contracting abuses. ``Pentagon auditors found that Halliburton cannot properly document more than $1.8 billion in work under its contracts,'' Army officials said yesterday. The $1.8 billion amounts to about 42 percent of the $4.3 billion the company has billed to the U.S. Government under the contracts. Among other things, they were charging the U.S. Government for feeding 42,000 soldiers every day. It turns out they were only feeding 14,000 soldiers. I can understand missing a cheeseburger or two, but 28,000 meals? Overcharging by 28,000 meals a day? I don't think that is just missing a meal or two. So we began having some hearings because the committees of jurisdiction, the authorizing committees where this money was spent, were not having oversight hearings. We had a woman named Bunnatine Greenhouse come to Congress. I want to tell you what Bunnatine Greenhouse said. Bunnatine Greenhouse was the highest civilian official in the Corps of Engineers, the Army Corps of Engineers, in the Pentagon. She was the highest civilian official, highest ranking procurement official in the Corps of Engineers. She was in charge of all procurement. She had the courage to go public. Here is what she said: I can unequivocally state that the abuse related to contracts awarded to KBR represents the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career. Let me tell you about this woman. Every evaluation ever given her said she is outstanding, she is exceptional. Now she doesn't have her job any longer. She lost that job because she had the courage to speak out. They are investigating that now at the Pentagon. But that is what she said. Instead of taking the company to task, instead of taking the folks in the Corps of Engineers to task, they took to task the woman who had the courage to come here and speak the truth. Bunnatine Greenhouse has been replaced. I mentioned she was demoted. She lost her job. She has been replaced by an American who has no experience in procurement. Isn't that interesting? They bring in a person with 40 years government experience and no experience in procurement. They are actually sending her to school to learn about procurement. I don't understand this. We have seen what happens when you bring in people without experience. We saw it in FEMA, filling top jobs with cronies who had no experience with disaster preparedness or relief, and it just collapsed. Now we have the top civilian contracting official in Iraq who pays for it with her job when she speaks out. She says what is going on is wrong, and we don't have to take her word for it; just look at the headlines. It is wrong. She pays for it with her job, and she is replaced by someone who doesn't have experience in contracting. It just baffles me that somehow this is continuing. I mentioned we have had a good many hearings. I have not preferred to have the hearings, but I have said if the authorization committee of jurisdiction isn't going to hold oversight hearings, and there are whistleblowers who want to speak, I am perfectly willing to hear them on behalf of the American taxpayers. The hearings have shown us just a dramatic amount of waste, fraud, and abuse. Much of it is being investigated. The fellow working for the U.S. Department of Defense for 30 years who ran the fuel operation to get fuel to the soldiers wherever they are in the world retired. Then he came to us publicly, and he said: What the American taxpayer is being charged to fuel those army trucks in Iraq is unbelievable. They are being so overcharged. This is from the guy who used to do it all over the world for 30 years. We had a fellow named Rory show up at a hearing. Rory was a food service supervisor in Iraq. Rory actually testified by Internet. He was a food supervisor, worked for KBR, Halliburton. He said: You know, we had all kinds of food that was transported in to feed the troops in Iraq. We had food brought in that had expired date stamps on it: This food is expired. Don't serve after this date. Our supervisor said it doesn't matter what the date stamp says, serve the food. Put the food on the table. It doesn't matter that it is expired. He said that was routine. Second, he said he was told and others were told: Don't you dare talk to government investigators. When they come around, if you talk to a government investigator one of two things are going to happen. You are going to get fired or you are going to get sent to an area where there is significant hostile action. This man named Rory talked to investigators, and guess where he ended up. He ended up in Fallujah, during hostilities. It is pretty unbelievable to me that we have contractors who tell employees don't dare talk to a government auditor if they show up. Let me show a picture of some money. This is a picture of a transaction in the country of Iraq. This fellow came and wanted to testify. He was a fellow who was in Iraq, in this room. This, by the way, is $2 million in cash in one-hundred-dollar bills wrapped in Saran wrap. He is the fellow who dispensed the money, early on. He had all these contracts going on. This money went to a company called Custer Battles. We had a hearing on that as well. This $2 million went to Custer Battles. Two guys show up in Iraq with not much experience and very little money and they decide to get contracts. They get contracts. It is the Wild West. This guy says it is like the Wild West. They say: You bring a bag because we pay in cash. That is the way we operate. Custer Battles gets a contract to provide security at the Baghdad airport. Among other things, it is alleged they took the forklifts, took them over to a warehouse, painted them blue, and then resold them to the Provisional Authority, which was Uncle Sam. But that is part of the story. They ended up getting $100 million, and this is $2 million of that. This fellow said we actually played football with these things. We pay in cash, bring a bag, it is like the old West. He said it was unbelievable. Let me show what the Baghdad airport director of security said about the company that got this money. He said: Custer Battles have shown themselves to be unresponsive, uncooperative, incompetent, deceitful, manipulative and war profiteers. Other than that, they are swell fellows. This is from the director of security, in a memo to the U.S. Federal Government, then called the Coalition Provisional Authority. The Baghdad airport director of security, here is what he said about the people who were getting our money. I look at all these things, and I ask the question: What is going on? How can they do this? Just the other day, the Pentagon finally announced that we are going to now require some bidding on contracts--billions of dollars late. Let me show you what they said. ``Army to end expansive, exclusive Halliburton deal.'' I am not just talking about Halliburton. It happens most of these press things are about Halliburton, KBR, but there are others--Custer Battles and others as well. Whenever you have this much money being thrown out there with no-bid contracts and sole-source contracts, I am telling you it is like a hog in a crick. All you hear is grunting, there is a lot of shoving, and everybody wants the money. ``Army to end expansive exclusive Halliburton deal,'' It says: Army is discontinuing a controversial multibillion dollar deal with oil services giant Halliburton to provide logistical support to U.S. troops worldwide, a decision that could cut deeply. Understand, the Army says very late: OK, now we will start bidding. We will have several companies bid. And by the way, once the bidding is done, we will have another company oversee the company that gets the bid. Oversight is the responsibility of the Pentagon. When they put out a contract, it is their responsibility to provide oversight. Our responsibility is to figure out what we are spending in Congress, who is spending it, with what efficiency, and if it is wasted, to call into account those who are wasting it. Let me go back to the first chart that I showed today. This is yet another company. This company is Parsons. A $243 million program led by the United States Army Corps of Engineers, through a contractor, to build 150 health care clinics in Iraq and has in some cases produced little more than empty shells of crumbling concrete and shattered bricks cemented together into uneven walls. We pay for 150 clinics and we get 20. The money is gone. The question is, Where did the money go and why? Who has it? What did we get for it? Is there accountability to the taxpayer for this sort of thing. I understand in wartime money is spent in a way that is different, from time to time, than it is spent in peacetime. Sometimes you just have to spend extra money to get things done. But $45 for a case of Coca-Cola; $7,600 a month to rent vehicles? I don't think so. I mean, that is just the tiny little tip of the iceberg. The question is, What comes of all of this? How do we stop all of this? How do we decide, on behalf of the American taxpayers, that this matters and we are not going to let this happen again? We have some people coming tomorrow who are going to talk about this contract, people who were in Iraq and watched this happen. We are going to evaluate what happened. As has been the case in every circumstance, we will refer what we find to the Department of Defense and ask why. We held a hearing on the subject of water. I know the Presiding Officer, in fact, in his subcommittee has taken a look at this and has asked some tough questions and is trying to figure out what was happening there. We have never quite figured out what has happened because the contractor and the Defense Department each point fingers and say nothing happened. Then they say the other side made it happen. About this water circumstance, we had people come to testify, saying: We were there. Here is the report. The report says they were hooking up for nonpotable water--that water which is used by soldiers in Iraq to brush their teeth, to wash their faces, to take showers--they were hooking up hoses that had water that was more dangerous than water that came right out of the Euphrates River, water with no disinfectant at all. In fact, we had an e-mail from an Army physician who is in Iraq. She said: I have seen this. In fact, I went and tracked the hoses to find out where this water was coming from and what the contractor was doing with it. It was contaminated water that was worse quality than the water you take if you dip a pail in the Euphrates. It is unbelievable. People get paid for this, they are incompetent, and they decide it doesn't matter? The person in charge of all the water in Iraq to be served to U.S. troops for Halliburton wrote an internal memorandum that I have made public. He said this was a near miss for us. It could have been mass sickness or even death. That was Will Granger, the top water quality manager, on May 13, last year. Remember, this is a company which says this didn't happen. The Pentagon says it didn't happen. This is the internal Halliburton company report: This event should be considered a ``NEAR MISS'' as the consequences of these actions could have been very SEVERE, resulting in mass sickness or death. Officially, this company still insists this didn't happen. Their internal reports by their own employees in Iraq demonstrate it not only happened, it was very serious. I don't do this because I am trying to make life miserable for somebody. I do this because we need to protect the American troops, first and foremost; and second, we need to protect the American taxpayers. I much prefer that the authorization committees of jurisdiction through which this money moves would hold tough accountability hearings, call people in, put them under oath. But that has not happened. As a result, I have held a series of hearings as chairman of the Policy Committee. Such a hearing will occur in the morning on this issue of health care clinics. My hope is that at some point, we will find an appetite in this Senate from people on both sides. This is not a Republican or a Democratic issue. I hope we will find an appetite by everyone in this Senate to decide we are going to insist on people being accountable for the money that is spent and for what is done with respect to providing for American soldiers and doing what is necessary to be done under these contracts. These contractors have fallen far short. The American taxpayers have been fleeced. They have taken a bath as a result of these kinds of actions. I know as I say this that there are undoubtedly some very good contractors. They have some good workers who risk their lives. They have done some good work. I say, God bless them. But when I see stories such as this, it makes my blood boil. Harry Truman served in this Chamber. In fact, the first desk I had was a desk sat in by Harry Truman. He sat in this Chamber back in the early 1940s when we were at war. A President of his own party was in the White House. Harry Truman said: There is too much waste, fraud, and abuse in the Pentagon, in military spending, and they established the Truman Committee. He went all around the country holding hearings. They found billions of dollars of waste, fraud, and abuse. That was the legacy of the Truman Committee. We ought to have one again. I have offered in the Senate, and I have been voted down. I think I have offered it now three times. By the way, I will offer it again. A good idea does not have to die a natural death. At some point, it can survive and succeed. But more than the Truman Committee, I believe we ought to pass the legislation I described as I started. That legislation is legislation I introduced on March 3 of this year. It is now the end of July. On March 2, Senator Reid, myself, and 30 of my colleagues introduced legislation called the Honest Leadership and Accountability In Contracting Act of 2006. It is long past the time for this Congress to have done what we should have done a month or 2 ago, 3 months ago; that is, pass this legislation, punish war profiteers, and do so aggressively. End cronyism in these key positions, especially in contracting, crack down on contract cheaters, and force real contract competition, real competition that gives the taxpayer the best price and holds accountable those contractors for getting the job done and getting it done in the right way. I am going to pursue this, as I have indicated, with additional hearings, if necessary. I would much prefer they be done by the authorizing committees. One way or another, we are going to pursue these questions and ask for accountability and demand accountability. As I said when I started, none of this is about politics. Republicans and Democrats work together on things from time to time in this Senate. This is one we can and should and I hope will work together on to fix for the good of this country and for the good of the American people.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me ask that my time be taken from the time allotted to Senator Bingaman.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I will speak to an issue I spoke about nearly a month ago in the Senate. Because nothing has happened substantially since then, I wanted to raise the issue. We are coming to the end of the legislative session. We will be here the rest of this week and next week. The time for consideration is going to be devoted to legislation the majority leader has already described. Then we are off in August for an August break, back in September, off in October for the election. The issue I want to talk about is the Indian Health Care Improvement Act. The reason I want to do that is I want to describe something that is happening in this country that very few people think much about, perhaps some don't care much about, but I know that there are some in this Senate who do, and I believe they would agree with me that we need to move forward and pass the Indian Health Care Improvement Act. Let me describe why this is urgent. Some while ago I came to the Senate and told my colleagues about a young woman--I did that with the consent of the young woman's relatives--a young woman named Avis Littlewind. Avis was, I believe, 14 years old. Avis took her own life. She laid in a bed for 90 days. She was supposed to have been in school. Instead, she lay in a fetal position in bed. At the end of that time she took her own life. No warning signs went up to anyone, nobody from the school, nobody from the mental health area, the tribe, or the family. Somehow she just escaped attention. She, like her sister, 2 years before her who had also taken her life, decided that life was hopeless, that she was helpless, and she ended her life. I went to that Indian reservation because there are clusters of teenage suicides on some of these reservations. We had a cluster on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation shortly after that period. I talked to the folks on this reservation, the school officials, the family members, the classmates, the tribal council. I discovered that had this young woman been referred to treatment, there was very little treatment available, very little mental health capability available to this young girl, and that is the case on most reservations. Because I have known about the sad situation with respect to health care for American Indians for some long while, I was not particularly surprised at what is happening with respect to mental health treatment on reservations. We have a trust responsibility for American Indians. We have a trust responsibility for their health care. We fail miserably. We have tried--my colleague, Senator McCain, myself, and other members of the Committee on Indian Affairs--to put together a piece of legislation to extend the Indian Health Care Improvement Act and try to make some improvements in delivery of health care to American Indians--yes, for children, but elderly folks and others who are suffering. Yet that piece of legislation languishes. Senator McCain and I just talked about it yesterday, and the committee wants to get that legislation through, get it passed, complete it. Let me describe the circumstances in terms of numbers. Then I will talk about some of the Indian folks who have had some difficulty. We have a responsibility under Medicare. Here is what we provide: The per- person expenditure on Medicare is $5,900 a year. We also have a responsibility, by the way, for health care for Federal prisoners, those whom we arrest and convict and send to Federal prison, putting them away from society. We provide a cell, a bed, and we are required to provide for their health care. With respect to their health care, we spend $3,800 a year for Federal prisoners' health care. We have a responsibility, a trust responsibility, for the health care of American Indians, as well. That responsibility is met in this manner: Indian Health Care Services medical care, $1,900. We spend exactly one-half of what we spend for Federal prisoners on health care for American Indians. The per capita expenditures are exactly one-half. I have asked the Indian Health System, the folks in charge, how much health care is delivered versus what is needed. The answer is about 60 percent. Forty percent is not available. So the question is: Who is sick, who is hurting, who is injured, who does not get treatment on these Indian reservations? I mentioned, when I spoke about this before, that one of the chairmen of the Indian tribes in my State said that you cannot get sick after June. The answer is: Don't get sick after June. If you get sick after June, our contract health money is gone, and you are not going to get any help because then the criteria is the only help you get is life or limb. If you lose a limb or lose your life, you get help; otherwise, hobble around in pain. Whatever that chronic condition is, sorry, tough luck, out of luck, out of money. Don't get sick after June. What an unbelievable message. This is not a Third World country. This is a big country, and we do a lot of things. But some things we don't do nearly well enough; and that is, keep our promise and keep our trust responsibilities with respect to health care for Native Americans. A man from the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians in my State said: Well, the doctor told me that I needed an MRI urgently on my knee. But he said: The Indian Health System facility on Turtle Mountain has no money, so you don't get an MRI. You have a bad knee, you have trouble, you have pain, but we are sorry, there is no money to find out what the problem is. No MRI. A member from the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Tribes had a daughter who was born prematurely and suffered some complications as a result. That child died when she was 2 years old because they did not have any funds, the Indian Health Service had no funds to send that young child to a high-risk hospital, one that could probably begin to treat those conditions. The chairman of one of the tribes told me one day about being out riding a horse with another tribal member when the other member was injured. He was bleeding severely from his injury. That reservation does not have a 911 emergency service. There was no ambulance to take the man to the hospital, not to mention that the health facility on the reservation is not open after hours anyway. And it is not open on weekends. On that reservation, there are isolated communities, some 30 minutes, almost an hour from an ambulance or a health care facility. So the chairman of this tribe then tried to play doctor and made a tourniquet and tried to find a way to get this person to a health care facility before the person bled to death. It is pretty unbelievable what is happening with respect to Indian health care. We have a very serious diabetes issue. The prevalence of diabetes on Indian reservations, in many cases, is not double or triple or quadruple; it is even much higher than that. The Indian diabetes mortality rate is quadruple the diabetes mortality rate among other Americans. On the Spirit Lake Indian Reservation, a couple of the elders ran out of insulin. It was not a very good beginning to that story. You need insulin if you have diabetes. But it got much worse. They went to the Indian Health Service clinic that serves that reservation, and there was no insulin available--none. They said: We will not get another shipment for 24 hours. That sort of thing goes on because there is not sufficient resources devoted to meet our responsibility to the Indian health needs. In addition to the kinds of things I have described--these things are rampant--in addition to that, we have this methamphetamine scourge that has a devastating impact all across this country but especially on Indian reservations. The statistics that describe the problems and the chronic difficulties that the Indian Health Service confronts dealing with methamphetamine is just, as I said, devastating. At a recent hearing we had in the Indian Affairs Committee, a young woman who is a tribal judge from the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Reservation testified that methamphetamine is related to 90 percent of the cases of tribal individuals who enter treatment on the reservation. And there are very few places to get treatment, as a matter of fact. The plain fact is, this is an area of responsibility for this Congress, and we are not meeting it. We passed a piece of legislation through the Indian Affairs Committee a long while ago, describing the need and describing the requirement for reauthorizing the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, and that bill languishes. We have lots of things to bring to the floor of the Senate that should not be here and do not need to be here. This Congress often treats the light far too seriously and the serious far too lightly. This is a serious matter, and we ought to be dealing with it. We ought to deal with it now. We have responsibilities. Go to Indian reservations and take a look at these children and ask yourself whether the health care of these children ought to be a function of whether this Congress decides to appropriate enough money. It ought not be. A sick child is a sick child anywhere in this country and ought to feel, and their parents ought to feel, they have access to decent health care when that child is sick. So on behalf of myself and Senator McCain and other members of the Indian Affairs Committee, I say that I believe this is a priority. This is not a Third World country. I do not want anybody to say to me: In our area the refrain is ``Don't get sick after June 1 because there is no money.'' Let's not have that happen in this country anymore. Let's provide the funding that we require for the Indian Health Service to do what they should do to provide the kind of health care we know is necessary. Once again, we have responsibility for prisoners whom we incarcerate in Federal prisons, and we have trust responsibility for the health care of American Indians; and we are spending half as much for the health care for American Indians per capita as we spend on Federal prisoners. That, in my judgment, is a shame. I am not suggesting we spend too much on Federal prisoners. They are our charge. They are incarcerated. We are responsible for their health care, but so too are we responsible, under a trust relationship, to help take care of the health care needs of that population. Mr. President, I hope that with the cooperation of the majority leader and others in this Chamber, that Senator McCain and I and others can move this piece of legislation through the Senate and through the House and get it to the President for signature--the sooner the better. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I just this morning spoke to a couple of hundred young people called Junior Statesmen who are gathered in the Capitol. It is an organization that comes to the Capitol and learns about Government. I talked to them about the Voting Rights Act some, and I talked to them about what we take so much for granted in this country, including the right to vote. I described what happened, at least as I read the history books, on November 15, 1917, at Occoquan Prison. That is the day on which a good number of women were severely beaten at the Occoquan Prison. Several dozen women were picked up because they demonstrated in front of the White House. They were arrested for demonstrating because they were in the streets demonstrating, insisting that women ought to have the right to vote in this country. Because they demanded the right to vote, demonstrating in the streets of this capital, they were arrested and taken to the Occoquan Prison. Among those women were Lucy Burns and Alice Paul. The description of what they did to those women includes putting handcuffs on Lucy Burns, tying the handcuffs with a chain, and then putting the chain above a cell door and letting her hang the entire evening, with blood running down her arms. That was the fate of Lucy Burns. Alice Paul had a tube forced down her throat. They tried to force feed Alice Paul, and she nearly drowned. The transgression of these women: They were demanding the right of women to vote. It is interesting what some people have done to demand the right of citizenship and what others so often and so regularly take for granted. My colleague was talking, I believe, about the struggle that minorities in this country, including especially African Americans, have made to have the right to vote, and I believe the previous speaker was talking about Selma, AL, on March 7 in 1965, when State troopers brutally beat civil rights workers. The marchers were fighting for their right to vote. On that day, in 1965, that day in March, they were brutally beaten because they insisted on the right to vote, just as Alice Paul and Lucy Burns had done some 60 years before that. Lyndon Johnson said this about what is called Bloody Sunday. He said: At times, history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man's unending search for freedom. So it was at Lexington and Concord. So it was last week in Selma, Alabama. There, long-suffering men and women peacefully protested the denial of their rights as Americans. Many were brutally assaulted. One good man, a man of God, was killed. From that, we know that the Voting Rights Act was passed a very short time later. Days later, in a joint session of Congress, President Johnson outlined the Voting Rights Act, and within months, the Congress had passed it. Let me talk about another minority in this country, Native Americans, the first Americans, those who were here first--American Indians. Although the Voting Rights Act applies to all Americans and all minorities, let me talk just a little about its impact on Native Americans, American Indians. They were first given U.S. citizenship rights in 1924. Think of that. Almost a century and a half of this country's experience passed before Indians were recognized. It took from 1924, nearly 40 years later, for all of the States in this Nation to say to American Indians: Yes, you have the right to vote. You have the full rights of American citizenship. The last State to clear the hurdles and the obstacles to voting by American Indians was New Mexico, in 1962, only 3 years before the Voting Rights Act. Think of that. These were the Americans who were here first. They lived here when the rest of us came here--American Indians. We come today on the issue of extending the Voting Rights Act. I believe it has been almost a quarter of a century since we have done that; 1982 was the last time Congress reauthorized the Voting Rights Act. It has been hailed by many as the single most effective piece of civil rights legislation that has ever been passed. I was in Philadelphia some weeks ago and went to the Constitution Center. At the Constitution Center they have these statues of the 55 men--yes, only men--who sat in that hot room in the hot summer and wrote the Constitution of the United States. The three words that began that great document were, ``we the people''--not just some of the people, all the people--``we the people.'' And all of the power in this document called the Constitution of the United States is vested in the power of one--one American casting one vote at one time. That is all the power in this Government. That exceeds all the power of all the Presidents, all the power of all the Senators--the power of one person to cast one vote on one day to alter the destiny of this country. Except we have learned over time that some have been denied that opportunity: African Americans, American Indians, women. It has taken a long time and a bloody struggle, regrettably, to make certain that everyone has the right to exercise the power of one, to become part of ``we the people.'' My guess is that the spirit of Lucy Byrne and Alice Paul exists in this debate about voting rights. The spirit of the civil rights marchers who were beaten brutally--one lost his life on that bloody Sunday--their spirit exists as this Congress turns again to the subject of voting rights and asks the question: Will we do everything possible to ensure that every American is able to exercise the power of one as part of ``we the people'' in this great country? That is why this is such an important piece of legislation. That is why some take it for granted day after day. It is why others have given their lives for it. Today, when this Congress passes the Voting Rights Act, to extend the Voting Rights Act once again, I think it will have been one of its finest hours. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Is there an order of speaking this evening, if I might inquire of the manager.

Mr. DORGAN. First, let me say to the Senator from Utah, as well as to my colleague, the Senator from Delaware, that their leadership has been very important on this legislation. They will not know the names of those whose lives are saved, but lives will be saved because this legislation has passed. I very much appreciate their diligence and hard work. This is a piece of legislation about protecting children. I don't know what is second place in the lives of many people, but I know what is in first place, and that is the protection of children. They cannot protect themselves. It is our responsibility as parents; it is our responsibility in this country to do the things necessary to protect our children. There are so many stories that it is almost hard to begin, and you don't know where to stop. My interest in this goes back some long ways. My colleagues have described John Walsh and the tragic loss of his son Adam Walsh. Those of us who have lost children understand that pain, but it must be enormously compounded by the pain of someone who loses a child who has been abducted. My experience, especially with respect to North Dakota, a couple of years ago was to learn one day that a wonderful young woman had been abducted in a parking lot of a shopping center in Grand Forks, ND, a young woman named Dru Sjodin, and, we later found, murdered. There is a trial underway for someone charged with murder in that case, but that case is like so many cases, it seems to me. It is the case of Adam Walsh, it is the case of 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford, it is the case of a 12-year-old girl named Polly Klaas. It is the case of Sarah Michelle Lunde, age 13. Pull back the curtain and then ask the question: Who is it abducting these children? Who are the sexual predators killing these children? This is not some mystery. We know the answer to this. The answer is, in most cases, that these murders and these abductions are done by those who have been in our criminal justice system and who have abducted and murdered before. I held a meeting in Fargo, ND, following the abduction of Dru Sjodin and the introduction of legislation I call Dru's law. What brings me to the floor of the Senate today is the components of Dru's law have been included in this legislation. So, finally, it will become law. The Senate has passed Dru's law twice on its own. We have not gotten it through the U.S. House. Now it will be through the U.S. House and Senate as a part of this Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, and it will become law. A meeting I held in Fargo, ND, to discuss Dru's law is a meeting at which I showed this poster. This meeting was just over a year and a quarter ago now. I held the meeting at the city hall in Fargo, ND. Prior to the meeting, I searched the computer for a registry of sex offenders to find out who was living within 1 mile of where we were meeting at city hall in Fargo, ND, who had previously been convicted as a sexual predator--who were they? I would share the names with the folks who came to that meeting to say: Here is a registry in North Dakota of sexual predators. There is no national registry; this is North Dakota's registry. This is a poster that I showed the folks who came to Fargo that day as an example of someone who lived within a mile of where we were having the meeting. His name is Joseph Duncan, first-degree rape. He raped a 14-year-old boy at gunpoint, burned the victim with a cigarette, made the victim believe he was going to be killed by firing the gun twice on empty chambers; terminated from treatment; served a lengthy prison sentence; paroled, then absconded; had a long history of sexual aggression as a youth. That is his sheet from the registry in North Dakota. What I didn't know that day was that 1 month before the meeting I was having in Fargo, this same man had been charged with molesting a 6- year-old boy at a playground in Detroit Lakes, MN, just across the border. Someone in Minnesota checking the registry of sexual predators would not have found his name. He was just miles away living in Fargo, ND, but, in fact, he went over to Detroit Lakes, MN, and was charged with molesting a 6-year-old boy. That is why we need a national registry. Strangely enough, in April of last year, he appeared on those charges, and a county judge set the bail at $15,000, and he was released after posting cash, promising to stay in touch, and he absconded and that is it. The judge said he didn't know he had this record. Then 2 months later, this man we know now from intense media coverage was arrested in Idaho for kidnaping 8-year-old Shasta Groene and her brother, 9-year-old Dylan. The children had been missing for well over a month--2 months actually--when the bound and bludgeoned bodies of their mother, their older brother and their mother's boyfriend were found at their rural home. This man is now charged with three additional murders and the kidnaping of two children that he held and sexually abused for a number of months. Dylan's remains were later located, and Shasta Groene, the young girl, was spotted in a Denny's restaurant by a sharp-eyed waitress who called the police, and she was saved. This case is an example of why there must be a national registry. Dru's law, which I introduced, has three components. One is the creation of a national registry of sex offenders. The underlying legislation improves on that by not only requiring the national registry but also standardizing the information that will be in the national registry. Second, Dru's law requires that when a violent, high-risk sex offender is about to be released from incarceration, the local authorities must be notified, the local States attorney must be notified. There is such a high risk to the population of this high-risk offender being released that perhaps there is cause to seek additional civil incarceration, civil commitment, but they can't do that if they don't know about the impending release. In fact, when a high-risk offender is released from prison, they can't just say: So long, good luck. That is exactly what happens in too many cases. Martha Stewart is thrown in jail. They put Martha in jail for 6 months, and when she gets out of Federal prison, she gets out of Federal prison wearing an ankle bracelet, an electronic bracelet that allows law enforcement to track her whereabouts. I can give you an example of a very violent sex offender let out of prison with no maintenance, no monitoring, no electronic bracelet, just: So long, see you later; you served your time. Yes, we will see them again when they create another violent crime, another rape, another murder, another abduction. That is why I support passing this kind of legislation. This legislation is going to save lives. Again I ask the question, and it is so fundamental: If we send Martha Stewart home with an electronic bracelet on her ankle, we can't do that to violent sex offenders when the psychiatrists at the institute of incarceration have said, ``We believe this person to be at high risk for real offending''? Nearly three-quarters of the violent sex offenders are going to repeat that offense when released from prison. We know that from statistics. Do we have an obligation to protect children? The answer is, you bet we do, and it is long past the time. That is why this legislation is so very important. As I said when I started, there is so much here that is partisan in this Chamber and the other Chamber, and there is so much that swirls around all of us in politics that we don't like very much about today. But there are times when we do things that will make a difference, and we do things working together, Republicans and Democrats. This is one of those moments of which we can be proud. Senator Hatch and Senator Biden did a wonderful job. They mentioned their staffs, and that is important. It is always the case that politicians take the bows, but it is important to understand that staff plays a very significant role in helping us write legislation, do the research to get it correct and get it passed. I thank my colleagues, and I especially say to the parents of Dru Sjodin: I believe that in honor of her memory we have, in this legislation, done something significant. Section 120 is the Dru Sjodin national sex offender public Web site. We create the three elements in Dru's law in this legislation, and I believe, in her memory, we will save other lives. There are many parents out there today who have lost children, some to the horror of abduction by sexual predators. If this legislation will--and I believe it will--prevent others from experiencing that horror, and if this legislation will--and I believe it will--save children, then we will have done significant work here tonight. It is perhaps little noticed by some. We don't have on legislation of this type perhaps filled Chambers and substantial attention to it, but while it is perhaps little known publicly, what transpires here in the Senate tonight will have a significant influence on the future of children in this country. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, my understanding was that I would be recognized for 10 minutes following the presentation by Senator Coburn. I don't object to anything someone else wishes to do, provided that following that presentation, I am recognized for 10 minutes. Would that be part of the unanimous consent request?

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, all of us have great pride in being able to serve in this great body and the purpose of it is, of course, to be engaged in public policy debate, how to advance this country's interests. We come to this debate today on something that is very important, very controversial. This country's search in many areas-- social justice, science, and so many areas of our lives--is a search that never ends. We have split the atom. We have spliced genes. We did the human genome project, developed the owner's manual for the human body. We invented plastics and radar and silicon chips, cured polio, cured smallpox, built airplanes and learned to fly them, and built rockets and walked on the moon; we invented the telephone, the computer, and the television. It is pretty unbelievable, but this country is hardly out of breath. We continue to inquire, continue to search, and continue to ask questions. Those questions, especially in science, are, in some cases, difficult questions. We will have three pieces of legislation we will vote on tomorrow dealing with stem cell research. One piece of legislation prevents something that is not being done. I will not have any problem supporting that; preventing something that is not being done is not posing any difficulty for me. The second piece of legislation authorizes that which is already authorized. I have no difficulty with that vote either. I will be happy to support that. The third piece of legislation is called embryonic stem cell research. That is the basis of the controversy being discussed today. Those in this Chamber and those throughout this country who have lost loved ones to dreaded diseases understand the urgency to unlock the mysteries of these diseases. I lost a beautiful young daughter some years ago to heart disease. I wondered then, and I wonder now, and I will wonder for some long while, if there is anything that we could do to unlock the mystery of that devastating killer. But it is not just heart disease. It is diabetes, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, cancer--the list goes on and on. Every day, people die. Every day, there are scientists who inquire: What can be done? What can we do to unlock the mysteries to find cures for these terrible diseases? Stem cell research. Mr. President, there are 1 million people walking on this Earth who were conceived outside of the womb in a test tube. There are 1 million living people who were conceived through in vitro fertilization. We had somebody testify before the Senate Commerce Committee a few years ago, and he said none of those people should have been born, it was wrong and in vitro fertilization should not exist. It is wrong, he said. I disagree with him. It is the blessing to provide the opportunity to have a family to so many couples who were childless through in vitro fertilization, using the egg and sperm and uniting them outside of the womb, implanting them, and providing a child for those families. At in vitro fertilization clinics, many more eggs are fertilized than are used. Some are stored and frozen. Those frozen embryos at in vitro fertilization clinics, when they are not going to be used in the future, are discarded, simply thrown into a wastebasket. They become waste and they are discarded. Some of my colleagues would say each and every one of those represents murder. I don't believe that, but some of my colleagues would insist on that position. That is murdering an embryo. We have 400,000 of those embryos stored, cryogenically frozen, at in vitro fertilization clinics. Around 8,000 to 11,000 of them a year will be simply discarded. The question is: Should we relax the ban on Federal funding of stem cell research and allow the use of frozen embryos that otherwise are going into a wastebasket, that otherwise are going to be discarded? Should we allow the use of them with ethical boundaries and be concerned about the ethics of its use for scientific research, to try to find the cures to these terrible diseases? Should we allow that? The answer clearly is yes. Are we comparing someone who is suffering from Parkinson's, someone who has Alzheimer's, someone with heart disease or cancer or diabetes to an embryo that is going to be discarded into a wastebasket--8,000 to 11,000 of them a year? Do we find an equivalency there Do you believe that all of those unused fertilized eggs that are frozen at an IV clinic, an in vitro fertilization clinic, that are discarded, that each and every one represents a murder? Some believe that. I don't. What is pro-life, I believe, what is life-giving is to be able to continue in this area of science with ethical guidelines but continue this search to unlock the mysteries of these diseases. My colleague a moment ago said quite correctly that we don't prevent stem cell research. He is quite right about that. This issue is the restriction of Federal funding, and, of course, a substantial amount of the funding for scientific research, research in health care in this country, comes from the Federal Government. If we take a look at what has happened with respect to the United States and the rest of the world, we will see, because President Bush has imposed restrictions on stem cell research, we have lost a substantial amount of ground to the rest of the world. We are falling far behind. This is not about Republicans or Democrats. It is not about conservatives or liberals. Let me quote Nancy Reagan: Science has presented us with a hope called stem cell research, which may provide our scientists with answers that have so long been beyond our grasp. I just don't see how we can turn our backs on this--there are just so many diseases that can be cured, or at least helped. We have lost so much time already, and I just really can't bear to lose any more. Nancy Reagan watched the ravages of Alzheimer's disease destroy her husband, our former President, the late Ronald Reagan. I believe she understands the urgency with which we pursue this purpose. I can read the pain in this message, and that pain exists--my guess--with so many in this Chamber and across the country who have watched loved ones die because of dread diseases that have wasted away their lives. The question is: Are we willing to do something about that? Can we do something about that? Will we retard or will we advance science? Will we hold back or will we encourage the scientists to search for these cures? I hope the Senate will do just as the House has done and indicate that we believe that with proper ethical guidelines, stem cell research should continue with Federal funding. I believe, as I said, this is about saving lives, this is not about taking lives. I understand that this is a sensitive subject. In fact, in my last campaign for office 2 years ago, my opponent ran television commercials saying that my position was to be supportive of planting embryos into mommies' wombs and growing them for a while and then harvesting them for body parts. That is the Byzantine nonsense which, unfortunately, attends part of this debate. No one here--certainly not me--would ever countenance anything resembling that, and yet much of the political discussion about this issue becomes so bizarre and so Byzantine that it is detached from reality. The bill that is before the Senate that I just described--I am not talking about the first two bills, the one that prevents something that is not being done. I don't have a problem with that. Or the one that authorizes something that is already authorized, and I have no problem with that. I am talking about the legislation dealing with stem cell research. The bipartisan coalition that brought it to the Senate includes Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, and liberals. My hope is the Senate will act on this legislation with a veto-proof majority and decide whatever the President does that we have made this decision and the decision should stick.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me thank the Senator from West Virginia for reminding us, once again, of an important part of this country's great history. He educates all of us on the floor of the Senate, and I appreciate his comments.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I believe my colleague, Senator Dodd, is on his way to the Chamber, but let me ask unanimous consent that Senator Brownback proceed, with the understanding that we would reclaim our time on this side when Senator Dodd arrives.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I was in a town called Zeeland, ND, because we have a serious drought occurring in ranching country. We had ranchers and farmers--this is a town of about 120 people and 170 ranchers and farmers showed up very concerned about how they are going to feed their cattle. We talked a lot about the drought and the devastation for ranchers and farmers when it doesn't rain and how they take care of their cattle herd and what might happen to them. One of the issues raised in that meeting repeatedly was--in addition to the lack of rain--if you are running a farm or ranch, you are a heavy user of energy. What has happened to the price of energy, particularly the price of fuel, has been devastating to those farmers and ranchers. Our State university pointed out that the average farm and ranch in North Dakota is confronted with about $18,000 a year in higher costs because of what has happened to the price of fuel. This morning I woke up and listened to the news, just as I did yesterday, and found that the price of oil is over $75 a barrel and continuing to go up. If we take a look at the major integrated oil companies in this country, we will discover the substantial increase in profits--this is 2005 over 2004, last year's numbers: 43-percent increase, 37-percent increase, 31-percent increase in profits. The Congressional Research Service just did an evaluation for one of our colleagues which says that cash reserves for the major integrated oil companies have grown from over $9 billion in 1999 to nearly $58 billion now. Let me say that again. Cash reserves of the major integrated oil companies now stand at over $58 billion. It made me think about a story that was in BusinessWeek 2 years ago, ``Why Isn't Big Oil Drilling More?'' Rather than developing new fields, oil giants have preferred to buy rivals, ``drilling for oil on Wall Street.'' While that makes financial sense, it is no substitute for new oil. Oil has been over $20 a barrel continuously since 1999. Far from raising money to pursue opportunities, oil companies are paying down debt, buying back shares and hoarding cash. That was 2 years ago. It is worse now. Last fall, we offered a windfall profits rebate that would have collected from those companies that were not using their revenues to expand their search for additional oil. For those that were buying back stock or drilling for oil on Wall Street, they would pay a fee, the total proceeds of which would be rebated to consumers. Those who were building additional refineries or investing back into the ground to search for oil would not pay the fee; they would be exempt. The oil companies were very upset by that proposal, but the fact is, they would decide whether they would pay it. None of it would come to the Government; it would all be rebated to consumers. They would decide whether they pay it based on their decisions. Are they going to buy back stock with their profits? Are they going to hoard cash, drill for oil on Wall Street, or are they going to use those profits to expand the supply of energy? I believe given what is happening, as we know, there is no free market in oil. I know there is a lot of discussion on the floor of the Senate about free market. We have oil ministers from the OPEC countries sitting around a table behind a closed door talking about how much they are going to produce and what price they aspire to have. We have big oil companies married up through blockbuster mergers, and they have two names--ExxonMobile, PhillipsConoco; they have more raw muscle in the marketplace--and, third, the futures market has become an orgy of speculation, no question about that. With these three elements, there is no free market in oil. The price of oil is now at $75 a barrel. Almost all consumers in this country-- yes, those who drive up to the gas pumps and pay $50, $60 and more to fill their tanks, and especially farmers and ranchers--are struggling to find out: How do I buy fuel for spring planting? How do I buy fuel for the harvest? How do I put up hay for the cattle? How do I do all of that? They are the ones who bear all the pain, and in the meantime the major integrated oil companies are waltzing to the bank with a treasury that is full of money coming from consumers. This does not work. In the longer term, aside from the question of how dependent we are on offshore oil, it seems to me Congress has to decide that it is going to intervene if we are going to $58 billion in cash reserves created by the major integrated companies. Those cash reserves are not working. Those cash reserves are not expanding the supply of energy, they are not expanding the supply of oil, and therefore reducing prices. They are being used--as I said, in BusinessWeek there was one example of drilling for oil on Wall Street or buying back stock. That is not a way to bring prices down and provide some relief to consumers. Last fall, Senator Dodd and I offered a proposal that would have provided a rebate to consumers from those companies as a result of those companies not using those profits to reinvest in expanding the search for energy. We came up very short in the vote. It is our intention to offer that proposal once again. At $75 a barrel for oil, with increases particularly for farmers and ranchers in an agricultural State, it is reasonable to ask: What is Congress doing? Is it just content to observe, just watching? What is Congress doing? So if nothing intervenes in the coming days, Senator Dodd and I intend to offer, once again, that proposal. Let me underscore that the point of that proposal is this: That proposal will be the most significant incentive to expand production and expand the search for additional production that we could have. This is not punitive. It is to say: Either you are using it to expand the production of energy supplies and bring down prices or you are going to have to rebate some of it back to the consumers. In 2004, the oil industry had its highest profits in its history. The average price for a barrel of oil was $40. Now it is $75. Those major integrated companies haven't done anything to increase expenses or any other issues; they are just collecting that additional revenue. I want the oil industry to find additional oil and to produce in areas that are available to them. The best way, the most significant incentive I can think of is to say to them: If you are thinking about what to do with that cash reserve of $58 billion and deciding between buying back your stock or trying to do additional mergers and acquiring oil through mergers rather than drilling, then you would be a lot smarter to find a way to expand production by investment because that means you will not be impacted at all by the proposal we would offer. This proposal is about expanding investment in exploration and thereby expanding the supply of energy and bringing down the price of energy. So that is what Senator Dodd and I will, once again, attempt to do. I hope that in the coming days we will begin to see some lessening of the burden of these energy prices on the American consumer, farmers and ranchers and others. In the meantime, I don't think we ought to take a look at a $58 billion cash reserve by the major integrated companies, most of them--three of them; nearly 90 percent of them are three companies--and say, that is OK, it doesn't matter to us, while everybody else is feeling the pain and bearing the burden of these dramatically increasing prices. Mr. President, I yield the floor and make a point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. DORGAN

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

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, this morning in the Washington Post there was an article announcing a decision by the Defense Department that relates to something I have held a good many hearings on through the Democratic Policy Committee in the past several years. We have been holding hearings on waste, fraud, and abuse with respect to the very large sole-source contracts that have been given to certain companies to do business in Iraq and provide food and fuel and logistics support for our troops. What we have discovered is very substantial waste, fraud and abuse. This morning, finally, the Washington Post says: ``The Army to End Expansive, Exclusive Halliburton Deal. Logistics Contract to be Open for Bidding.'' One of the side bars of the story talks about: ``Whistle-blowers told how the company charged $45 per case of soda, double-billed on meals, and allowed troops to bathe in contaminated water.'' All of these were issues given us to us by whistle-blowers who came to our Committee to testify because there was virtually no oversight on these issues by the other Committees. The decision to terminate these sole-source contracts is long overdue. Sole-source contracts are contracts that are, in my judgment, invitations for abuse. The bill that I introduced some months ago, along with 30 other Senators, called S. 2361, the Honest Leadership and Accountability in Contracting Act of 2006, is a piece of legislation that insists on this exact provision, but goes much, much further--the provision that says we ought to break up these contracts and have them competed for so that the competition for contracts will give the taxpayers some feeling they are not being cheated. A fellow named Henry Bunting testified at a hearing we held. He was a whistle-blower. He actually worked for Halliburton in Kuwait. His job in Kuwait was to purchase hand towels for American soldiers. So he got a requisition to buy hand towels for American soldiers, and he would order the hand towels. But then he was told: No, we don't want you to order those hand towels; we want you to order new hand towels. He brought a sample of the hand towels with him. The reason they wanted him to order different hand towels is they wanted the company name to be embroidered on the hand towels, which tripled the cost of the towels for the taxpayers. No one would have believed that soldiers need to have hand towels with the embroidered name of the contractor providing the hand towels. That is exactly what happened. And it is exactly what the whistle- blowers told us was happening with respect to procurement. This whistle-blower, who worked with the company, said: This is something my supervisor said we are going to do, and we did it. He said: We saw $8,500-a-month SUV rentals. We saw $40, $45 a case for Coca-Cola It is pretty unbelievable when you hear all of the stories. Those stories come from giving billions of dollars of contracts to one company. That is what has happened on contracts called LOGCAP and RIO, and finally the Pentagon suggests maybe it is going to shut these down and require competition. Looking forward, I am going to ask the Pentagon to consider all of the information that we have uncovered in these hearings, because provisions in defense contracting require that you hold companies accountable for actions they have taken in the past, when you consider new bids for the future. It is interesting that this also relates to something that is now happening in the Pentagon. The woman who testified before the committee--there has been a great deal of discussion about her--was Bunny Greenhouse, the top civilian contracting official in the Corps of Engineers at the Pentagon. She rose to the top. Every performance evaluation said she was the best. People outside the Government who had dealt with her said she was the best, professional, knew what she was doing. She said: I can unequivocally state that the abuse related to contracts awarded to KBR-- That is Halliburton-- represents the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career. This woman was honest and public about what she saw. She was demoted. She lost her job. That job has now been filled by someone else, someone who has 40 years experience with the Government but has no contracting experience. A person with 20 years contracting experience, the highest civilian official in the Corps of Engineers loses her job to be replaced by someone who is now being sent to school because she doesn't know contracting. This is happening at a time when we hear these stories of $85,000 trucks left by the side of the road to be burned because of a flat tire--the taxpayer is paying for it; it doesn't matter--25 tons of nails, 50,000 pounds of nails ordered, wrong size, throw them in the sand. Want to find 25 tons of nails? They are in the sand in Iraq, paid for by the American taxpayer. Where is the accountability? It is unbelievable the amount of waste that has existed. And the one person who had the courage to talk about it publicly lost her job. That is still the subject of a great deal of angst in the Pentagon. So yesterday the Pentagon announces that they are finally going to end sole-source contracts and require competitive bidding, and finally the taxpayers appear to get a break. But this was several overdue. There is more that needs to be done. One of the things the Pentagon has apparently also decided to do is to outsource oversight. You can't outsource oversight. It has been tried before. They had companies that were partners in contracts in other countries come into Iraq to provide oversight over each other. You can't do that. You can't delegate oversight, especially not to companies with conflicts of interest. The oversight responsibility for spending the taxpayers' money is with the Government, not someone you hire that will have a patently obvious conflict of interest. While the Pentagon is taking a step forward today in their announcement about the ending of these sole-source contracts, they are taking another step backward on this issue of deciding they are going to hire other companies to provide oversight to make sure the taxpayers' money is being spent in the way anticipated. That makes no sense. Here is another whistleblower account. Rory Mayberry worked in Iraq for Halliburton. He worked in food service. He was the manager of a food service that provided food to the troops. He came to us and said: We had food that was date stamped expired. The Halliburton supervisors said: It doesn't matter, just feed to it the troops. And they said: By the way, don't you dare talk to a Government auditor. If a Government auditor comes around and you talk to that person, either you will be fired or you will be sent to an area where there is hostile action. He talked to a Government auditor. He was sent to Fallujah during the height of the action there. The stories are unbelievable. And finally, the Pentagon is taking a step in the right direction in one area, stepping backward in another. But I hope the Pentagon understands, when they open these contracts called the LOGCAP contract and the RIO contract, when they open these contracts and finally insist that there be competition between companies in order to provide some safety for the American taxpayer and to be sure that we are getting what we are paying for, I hope they will understand that there has to be adequate oversight. We have introduced legislation, myself and many of my colleagues, called the Honest Leadership and Accountability in Contracting. What the Pentagon is doing today appears to be in line with one piece of it, and it is a step in the right direction. But much more needs to be done. I ask those in the Pentagon to take a look at what we will send to them as a result of a number of hearings in which whistleblowers who have worked for these contracts, particularly Halliburton that has received very large sole-source contracts worth billions of dollars without bidding, I would hope they would take a look at this and evaluate whether the performance is performance that is worthy of receiving other contracts. The list is endless. I will not go over it again. This morning's announcement by the Pentagon is finally a recognition that there needs to be competition. It is one step in the piece of legislation I and many of my colleagues offered some months ago. My hope is they will finish the job and do what is necessary to give the taxpayers full value and full measure for the money that is being spent on these contracts. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, nearly one-third of Medicare beneficiaries are going to become all too familiar with what is called the ``doughnut hole'' over the next several months. The doughnut hole is a gap in coverage that exists in most Medicare prescription drug plans. Here is how the doughnut hole works: Under most plans, Medicare will pay for 75 percent of drug costs up to $2,250 after an initial $250 deductible. But then Medicare pays nothing until drug expenses exceed $5,100. During this gap in coverage, beneficiaries continue to pay monthly premiums but get no drug coverage at all. I think this is unfair. That is why I am introducing the Prescription for Fairness Act. This legislation is simple. It says seniors should not have to pay monthly premiums during the time when they have no drug coverage. The legislation would waive the monthly premium for any month that a senior is trapped in the doughnut hole. The legislation will help people like Mrs. McLain, an 88-year-old woman who lives in a long-term care facility in Bottineau, ND. She enrolled in the Medicare prescription drug benefit earlier this year. Her brother, who helps pay her health care bills, was recently contacted by their local pharmacist. The pharmacist explained that Mrs. McLain no longer has Medicare drug coverage and must pay about $500 every month for her diabetes medications. This is not an expense that they had planned for, nor one they can afford. They did not realize that this coverage gap existed when they enrolled in the plan. This is one of countless stories that we will hear over the next several months as seniors fall into this coverage gap. Some will say that beneficiaries trapped in the doughnut hole should have selected plans that provide better coverage. I think it is unfair to blame beneficiaries for selecting the wrong plan. A new report by the Government Accountability Office found that the call centers operated by the Medicare prescription drug plan sponsors only gave accurate and complete information to callers about one-third of the time. More than one in five callers received completely inaccurate information. It is worth noting that the Prescription for Fairness Act will have no affect on the bottom lines of the participating Medicare prescription drug plans. Under the legislation, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services will simply pay the monthly premium on behalf of the beneficiary. It is offset by reducing the Medicare stabilization fund. This fund is completely unnecessary. It is a $10 billion pot of money that was added to the Medicare Modernization Act to provide bonus payments and incentives to managed care companies to enter the Medicare market. It is time that Congress provides a safety net for seniors, not health plans. This legislation merely provides seniors some relief in the short term. The legislation would expire after fiscal year 2008. This Congress still needs to close the doughnut hole. In October, I joined Senator Bill Nelson to introduce the Medicare Prescription Drug Gap Reduction Act, which would allow the Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate fair drug prices and the savings would be used to eliminate the doughnut hole. Believe it or not, the Medicare Modernization Act contained a provision that explicitly prohibits the government from using its market clout to negotiate for fair drug prices for our seniors. I am hopeful that the Senate will take up the Medicare Prescription Drug Gap Reduction Act. In the meantime, let's make sure seniors are not charged for a benefit that they are not receiving. The Prescription for Fairness Act does just that. I am pleased to be joined by Senators Bingaman, Stabenow, Lautenberg, Johnson, Mikulski, Clinton, Menendez and Akaka in introducing this important legislation. I am also pleased that Families USA has endorsed this legislation. I ask for unanimous consent that a copy of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, nearly one-third of Medicare beneficiaries are going to become all too familiar with what is called the ``doughnut hole'' over the next several months. The doughnut hole is a gap in coverage that exists in most Medicare prescription drug plans. Here is how the doughnut hole works: Under most plans, Medicare will pay for 75 percent of drug costs up to $2,250 after an initial $250 deductible. But then Medicare pays nothing until drug expenses exceed $5,100. During this gap in coverage, beneficiaries continue to pay monthly premiums but get no drug coverage at all. I think this is unfair. That is why I am introducing the Prescription for Fairness Act. This legislation is simple. It says seniors should not have to pay monthly premiums during the time when they have no drug coverage. The legislation would waive the monthly premium for any month that a senior is trapped in the doughnut hole. The legislation will help people like Mrs. McLain, an 88-year-old woman who lives in a long-term care facility in Bottineau, ND. She enrolled in the Medicare prescription drug benefit earlier this year. Her brother, who helps pay her health care bills, was recently contacted by their local pharmacist. The pharmacist explained that Mrs. McLain no longer has Medicare drug coverage and must pay about $500 every month for her diabetes medications. This is not an expense that they had planned for, nor one they can afford. They did not realize that this coverage gap existed when they enrolled in the plan. This is one of countless stories that we will hear over the next several months as seniors fall into this coverage gap. Some will say that beneficiaries trapped in the doughnut hole should have selected plans that provide better coverage. I think it is unfair to blame beneficiaries for selecting the wrong plan. A new report by the Government Accountability Office found that the call centers operated by the Medicare prescription drug plan sponsors only gave accurate and complete information to callers about one-third of the time. More than one in five callers received completely inaccurate information. It is worth noting that the Prescription for Fairness Act will have no affect on the bottom lines of the participating Medicare prescription drug plans. Under the legislation, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services will simply pay the monthly premium on behalf of the beneficiary. It is offset by reducing the Medicare stabilization fund. This fund is completely unnecessary. It is a $10 billion pot of money that was added to the Medicare Modernization Act to provide bonus payments and incentives to managed care companies to enter the Medicare market. It is time that Congress provides a safety net for seniors, not health plans. This legislation merely provides seniors some relief in the short term. The legislation would expire after fiscal year 2008. This Congress still needs to close the doughnut hole. In October, I joined Senator Bill Nelson to introduce the Medicare Prescription Drug Gap Reduction Act, which would allow the Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate fair drug prices and the savings would be used to eliminate the doughnut hole. Believe it or not, the Medicare Modernization Act contained a provision that explicitly prohibits the government from using its market clout to negotiate for fair drug prices for our seniors. I am hopeful that the Senate will take up the Medicare Prescription Drug Gap Reduction Act. In the meantime, let's make sure seniors are not charged for a benefit that they are not receiving. The Prescription for Fairness Act does just that. I am pleased to be joined by Senators Bingaman, Stabenow, Lautenberg, Johnson, Mikulski, Clinton, Menendez and Akaka in introducing this important legislation. I am also pleased that Families USA has endorsed this legislation. I ask for unanimous consent that a copy of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. The same pill, put in the same bottle, made by the same company. One is marketed in the United States; one is sent to Canada. What is the difference? The difference is, the U.S. consumer is told to pay 65 percent more for the same medicine. The same pill made by the same company, FDA approved, sent two places, to U.S. consumers and to Canadian consumers, and the U.S. consumers are told, you pay 65 percent more. Why? Because the drug industry says so. Myself, Senator Vitter, and others propose that you ought to be able to access those lower priced, FDA-approved drugs from Canada. The pharmaceutical industry doesn't like that. I understand. I understand why they want to maximize profits. The fact is, they say: If you do that and in any way diminish our profits, we will reduce the amount of research we do on new drugs. Isn't it interesting that they spend more on marketing and promotion than they do on research? Maybe they could cut back a little bit on that advertising on television that says: Ask your doctor whether the purple pill is right for you. I don't have the foggiest idea what the purple pill does, but every time I am shaving in the morning I see the commercial: Ask your doctor whether the purple pill is right for you. Maybe we could cut back the bid on that advertising. We have had commitments to bring this issue to the floor of the Senate. It was midnight when I believed the majority leader gave me a commitment to bring our comprehensive bill to the Senate. We put a provision in the Senate Record. The majority leader says he didn't make a commitment. That is not what the words say. I went to a small school, a class of nine in a small town. All of us should be able to read words and understand what they mean. I believed the majority leader. In exchange for my releasing a hold on a nominee, the majority leader made a commitment to bring prescription drug reimportation to the floor of the Senate. He says he didn't. The fact is, the administration and the majority in the Congress have blocked this. When I say we have a bipartisan bill, I come today to support a piece of legislation offered by Senator Vitter. That is bipartisan. But there are people who have determined they will block legislation that deals with the reimportation of prescription drugs. That is why this is offered to an appropriations bill which is a funding limitation. It is perfectly appropriate to offer this to an appropriations bill. My colleague asked Senator Vitter a wide range of questions. My colleague has been opposed to reimportation of prescription drugs. He gives as spirited a defense of the pharmaceutical industry as anybody I have heard. I believe we ought to give a spirited defense on behalf of the consumers. Why should American consumers pay double, triple, nine times as much for prescription drugs? I had a guy sitting on a hay bale at a farmstead meeting we had. He was in his 80s. He said: My wife has been fighting breast cancer for 3 years. We have been driving back and forth to Canada to buy Tamoxifen. That is a medicine he could purchase in Canada for 80 percent less than it costs in the United States. He lived in North Dakota, so they could drive to Canada and bring it back because Immigration has traditionally allowed a limited amount for personal use to come back across the border. But now the FDA, and under Dr. McClellan some years ago and under Dr. Crawford and others, has made it their mission to describe that somehow there is a terrorist threat or there is a contamination of prescription drugs. These are FDA-approved drugs, many of them made in this country and then shipped outside. And the American people are told: You can't have access to them because they are cheaper than the drugs you have to purchase in the drugstore in the United States. That makes no sense. I am wondering when there will be a critical mass in the Senate to stand up and give a spirited defense of the American consumer. When will that happen? Not soon, I am afraid. That is unfortunate. Perhaps we can ask once again whether we will get a commitment to bring a bill to the floor of the Senate that is bipartisan, that has broad sponsorship. The legislation that I and many others have introduced is legislation that will allow, under a broader range of circumstances, the reimportation of prescription drugs and do so without any safety issues. Perhaps the amendment offered today will stimulate and require that agreement. No one wants to, in any way, diminish the safety of our prescription drugs. There is nothing in the reimportation of FDA-approved drugs that would, in any way, cause someone to legitimately claim there is a safety issue. That is a specious issue. There is no safety involved here. This is about pricing. It is about whether the American people will continue to be stuck by being charged the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. Miracle drugs offer no miracles to those who cannot afford them. All of us have heard the stories. I have heard plenty of people going to the grocery store who decide that first they have to go to the pharmaceutical counter to figure out what their prescription drugs are going to cost before they can decide how much they can buy in groceries. We have all heard those stories. This country has a lot of senior citizens. We are a country of people living longer. That is wonderful. In one sense, we have increased the lifespan by 30 years. Life expectancy has increased by 30 years this century. That means we have more older people. Senior citizens are roughly 12 percent of the population and consume one-third of all the prescription drugs, and they are the least likely to be able to afford them. We have them walking into pharmacies now paying the highest prices in the world. It is not the fault of the local pharmacist. This is the pricing practice of the pharmaceutical industry. They get all upset when people would tarnish their industry. I am not doing that. Good for them. They produce lifesaving drugs, a fair amount of it with research paid for by the American taxpayer at the National Institutes of Health. We have every right to be tarnishing the pricing policy of an industry that says they are going to charge the highest prices in the world to the American consumer. My colleague from Louisiana talks about reimportation with his amendment. Let me talk about what they do in Europe. In Europe they have something called parallel trading. We have actually Europeans testify on that. If you are in France and want to buy a prescription drug from Spain, that is not a problem. They have parallel trading. If you are in Germany and want to buy a prescription drug from Italy, that is not a problem. They have run that for a couple of decades, and there are not any safety issues involved. This spirited defense of the pharmaceutical industry, by raising this specious, nonsense issue of safety, is almost unbelievable. It is a Trojan horse for those who want to keep prices high for the American consumer. Let's have a real debate on the floor, not with a funding limitation. I will support this because it is probably the only way to pry the lid off this issue. But let's have a real debate with the larger bill that we thought had been promised to be debated. Let's decide to stop blocking the ability of the American people to access FDA-approved drugs at lower prices. Let's have the market system work. If the market system works for the big interests, what about the little interests? What about the little guy? Bob Wills of the Texas Playboys back in the 1930s had a line that applies to much of what goes on around here: The little bee sucks the blossom and the big bee gets the honey. The little guy plucks the cotton and the big guy gets the money. Isn't that always the way it goes? And doesn't that apply to this issue of charging the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs to the American people? It is wrong. Everybody in here ought to understand it is wrong. We ought to begin to pry the lid off this issue and fix it. My colleague from Louisiana has offered an amendment. It would not be my first choice, but I will support it. He has offered it, I assume, because it is the only way to get into this issue--this issue being reimportation of prescription drugs--by using a funding limitation to get there. He can do that without requiring 60 votes on this bill. That is the purpose, I assume, of my colleagues from Louisiana and Florida offering this amendment. I think they, too, would probably prefer that we would get an agreement from the majority leader to schedule a time for debate on a larger bill, but that has not been the case. As a result, we will consider this issue and debate this issue now for some while. I will at some point during the deliberations on this appropriations bill ask by unanimous consent that we bring up S. 334 before the August recess and debate that bill. In the meantime, I will be here to offer support to those who are trying to pry the lid off this issue by offering a funding limitation bill, and between coming over to the floor of the Senate, I will watch the proceedings of the Senate on a television set and be entertained by the spirited defense of the pharmaceutical industry by some of my colleagues offering excuses for supporting the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs being charged to the American people, a position that is highly unsupportable, in my judgment. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I come to support the amendment, recognizing that it is not perfect, but recognizing that it has been offered only because another piece of legislation, which is more comprehensive, dealing only with FDA-approved drugs, bipartisan, a broader group of Senators supporting it, has been blocked consistently. Senator Vitter offers this because it is the only way to get this subject to the floor of the Senate. It is pretty unbelievable to hear the spirited defense of the pharmaceutical industry. After we passed a prescription drug benefit in the Medicare bill in the first quarter of this year, the pharmaceutical industry increased the cost of brand-name drugs triple the rate of inflation. I have been before committees on this subject. Senator Snowe and I appeared before our committee. There was a spirited defense of the pharmaceutical industry there. This is an industry that has some of the highest profits in the world. They produce miracle, lifesaving drugs, yes, but they also produce something else. They produce a pricing pattern that says the American people should pay the highest price in the world for prescription drugs. It is unfair. The issue is, can American citizens import FDA-approved prescription drugs, some of them made in this country and then sent to Canada or sent to some other country, can U.S. citizens have access to those drugs, drugs that are safe? The only difference between those drugs and the drugs sold here under the same name is those drugs are priced at a much less expensive price. I ask unanimous consent to show two pill bottles. This is the issue. This is Lipitor.