Don Nickles

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Ashcroft), the Senator from Montana (Mr. Burns), the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Grams), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain), and the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Roth) are necessarily absent. I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from Montana (Mr. Burns), and the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) would each vote ``yea.''

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. One, I thank my colleague from South Dakota, the minority leader, for his statement. I think that would be a great idea. We need to pass these conference reports, and send them to the President. Somebody said, there is a veto threat on one or two of them, and on Commerce-State-Justice. I think there is some work going on right now, and some things could happen that would make it possible for that bill to be signed. I do not know if the President has threatened to veto the tax bill. Regardless, we need to get these completed. It would be great if we could get them completed today or on Monday or Tuesday, but if we could do it today, I think it would be in the interest of all of our colleagues. Certainly, I know Senator Stevens doesn't think it would be humanly possible to get the Labor-HHS bill out before Tuesday, but if we could clear everything else but for the Labor-HHS bill, that would simplify all of our work. I think it would be a real positive thing for our colleagues. So I would be happy to work with my friend and colleague to try to make that happen. Senator Stevens suggested, knowing that Labor-HHS could not be completed until Tuesday for a vote, extending the time for the continuing resolution until Tuesday so we do not require everyone to be here. A lot of us will be here Saturday and Sunday and Monday. But to be, one, respectful of religious holidays on Saturday and Sunday, and to accommodate people's schedules, is there support on both sides to amending the continuing resolution--and saving taxpayers some money so we do not have to go through performance sessions--to amend the CR to make it go through Tuesday?

Mr. NICKLES. Will the minority leader yield?

Mr. NICKLES. OK, if our understanding is that the Senator from Oregon receives up to 30 minutes, if you would allocate me up to 30 minutes in response, and hopefully neither one of us will take that much time, and then you can continue the division of time. Certainly it would be appropriate.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, one, I wish to respond to my colleague and my friend from Oregon. He is my friend. We happen to have a disagreement on this issue. We have a difference of opinion, a rather pronounced difference of opinion. I heard several things in his statement that I want to correct. I almost don't know where to start. First, let me touch on a couple of things on procedure. This is so wrong procedurally and should not be in this bill. Again, he is my good friend, but he has known all along I would try to get this bill on the floor. Yes, it was put in the tax bill. I tried to put it in the appropriations bill. We ended up putting it in a tax bill. Is that the best way to legislate? No. I might tell my colleagues and my friend from Oregon I tried about half a dozen different ways to pull the bill up, to have it be an amendable state, to offer my colleague from Oregon or others a chance to have relevant amendments, and those offers were always rejected. So now we have the bill before the Senate. I might also mention, if one is complaining about this procedure, then we shouldn't have any problem with the Commerce-State-Justice because the administration is trying to put an amnesty provision that doesn't belong on the Commerce-State-Justice bill. It did not pass either the House or the Senate, and is totally extraneous to the conference. Senator Byrd had one dealing with trade that was on an appropriations bill. It should not have been. It was inserted. At least this bill did pass the House by over 100 votes. It did pass the Judiciary Committee. It has had hearings. It has been marked up. It has had 42 cosponsors--maybe my friend and colleague from Oregon has been able to convince one or two to get off. Senator Lieberman is still a principal cosponsor, to my knowledge. He testified in favor of this legislation, as have I. So this legislation is not new. It is not a surprise. My colleague from Oregon has sent several letters to all colleagues saying what is wrong with the legislation. I have sent several letters to all of our colleagues saying he was incorrect. So everyone knows about this bill and everyone knows at some point we are going to have a debate on it. I hope it will be passed. Let me touch on a couple of issues that were brought up. My colleague from Oregon said if this bill is passed it is going to tell a million people in Oregon who voted for this on a ballot initiative, a referendum, that their vote does not mean anything. I disagree with that. This bill does not overturn Oregon's law. I want to be very clear about this. This bill does not say anything about making Oregon's law null and void. What this bill does is it deals with pain and pain management. The bill does say: Oregon, you cannot overturn Federal law. It doesn't say quite that. Federal law, the controlling law, is the Controlled Substances Act. That is a Federal law. It passed in 1970. It controls very strong drugs, I tell my friend from New York. These are deadly drugs. They are strong drugs. They are under Federal control. They are not under State control; they are under Federal control. It is a Federal Controlled Substances Act. The State of Oregon cannot pass a law that changes a Federal statute. I make the analogy, Oklahoma might say let's legalize heroin. Oklahomans might pass that in a referendum, but it doesn't make heroin legal. It is still against the Federal law to use heroin. These are federally controlled drugs. They are deadly if they are used in very large quantities, but they are also very helpful. They can help alleviate pain. Unfortunately, we have a real problem in pain. I heard my colleague from California mention she knew a friend who was in enormous pain. We all have friends or families or have known people who are suffering and suffering greatly. I want to alleviate their pain. That is one reason why this bill was created. There were two reasons. We want to alleviate pain. That is why all the pain management groups endorse this bill. I will go through a list. My colleague from Oregon listed a few groups that endorsed his. We have 10 times as many people, groups, physicians, you name it--hospice care, palliative care, the American Medical Association, that endorse this bill; pain management societies--you name it. I will have all that printed in the Record. These groups, the hospice groups and others, their members worked their entire lives because they want to alleviate pain. This bill will alleviate pain. This bill does two things. It says we can use these drugs. My amending the Controlled Substances Act says we can use these very strong drugs to alleviate pain. We put a safe harbor in to protect physicians, making sure when they use these drugs to alleviate pain, if it causes someone's death there will be no problem. The bill also says these drugs cannot be used for the purpose of assisted suicide. Guess what. That has been the law of the land for 30 years. These drugs were never allowed to be used for assisted suicide. The Drug Enforcement Administration--I will put a letter from Mr. Constantine who says he reviewed it--the Controlled Substances Act says these drugs can be used for legitimate medical purposes. In our bill, we state that includes pain management, the alleviation of pain. We put that in specifically so everyone will know: Use these drugs to alleviate pain. It is now in the law. Mr. Constantine also said it is not construed to be used for assisted suicide. You say: Why do you need this bill? You need this bill for two reason. One, we want to make sure everybody knows these drugs can be used to alleviate pain. What about the Oregon law? My colleague from Oregon said this is going to outlaw the Oregon law and nullify a million voters who voted for it. This is going to gut the bill. Granted, they have had dozens of suicides that have been committed using federally controlled drugs. Guess what. The law was always interpreted before that these drugs cannot be used for assisted suicide. They cannot be used to cause someone's death. They can be used to alleviate someone's pain, and we clarify that in our legislation. We go further. We put in funds to educate people on pain management. My colleague from Oregon and I happen to agree with this. There is a real problem in pain management. There are a lot of people who are not doing enough in pain management, for whatever reason. Maybe they have not been educated. Maybe they are afraid of liability. Maybe they are afraid of doing too much and that might enhance someone's death. We said you can be very aggressive in pain management. What you cannot do is take federally controlled drugs and use them to kill somebody. These drugs are controlled by the Federal Government. They can be used to alleviate pain. They cannot be used to kill somebody. About the Oregon law, Oregon passes a law and says they are going to say one can have assisted suicide. Fine. You cannot use Federal controlled drugs. These are federally controlled drugs. Oregon cannot amend the Controlled Substances Act. They think they can. Now with the Attorney General's letter, maybe they think they can. It is really awkward. In 49 States, you cannot use federally controlled substances for assisted suicide, but in Oregon you can. So how did Oregon amend the Federal law, the Federal statute? Maybe Oklahoma is going to amend the Federal law. They might not like the .08 we just passed. I heard my colleague say: What about States rights? I am a very strong supporter of States rights but States cannot change Federal law. I am all for giving States the right to opt out. If we want to say the Controlled Substances Act applies unless the States want to opt out, let's pass it. We have not done that. If we want to have a different law to allow States to opt out, maybe it should be used against the Federal law against heroin or cocaine, and we want to have the State opt out on that? I don't think so. Oregon is saying let's have the State opt out on the Controlled Substances Act so we can use these substances for assisted suicide. Oregon cannot change the Federal law. So it is not us, it is not the Federal Government now trying to overturn the Oregon law. Oregon, by referendum, thought they could overturn the Federal law. They cannot do it. They cannot do it. Let's do what we can to alleviate pain. Let's take these very strong drugs--morphine and others that if used in excess can be deadly--let's make sure they are used to alleviate pain. Let's do it aggressively and educate people all across the country in pain management. So we do that as well. Let me also knock down a couple of the arguments that my colleagues used. He said if we do this, it is going to have a chilling impact. Far from it. I will tell my colleagues, the AMA and some other groups, the hospice groups, said that a couple of years ago. We stated very clearly in the Controlled Substances Act that these drugs can be used to alleviate pain. They said: We are afraid it will have a chilling impact so we put in language to guarantee, to give physicians safe harbors, to do all kinds of things in the legislation to encourage using the drugs for pain management but not assisted suicide. So the chilling effect argument is not accurate. In fact, if you look at the several States that have passed laws against assisted suicide but for pain management--and there are several, and I have charts of several: Kansas, Rhode Island, several States--in every one of those States, when they passed legislation banning assisted suicide but encouraging pain management, the use of morphine has gone up dramatically. So instead of having a chilling impact on pain management, it encouraged pain management, it encouraged the use of these drugs, these very strong drugs to alleviate pain. That is the history in every single State. It is interesting to note since Oregon passed their law on allowing or legalizing assisted suicide, it is just the opposite. The use of pain management drugs has actually gone down. I look at Indiana, the use of morphine has gone up substantially. They have banned assisted suicide. Iowa, the same thing, a dramatic increase in pain control drugs when they banned assisted suicide. Kansas, again, more than double. Louisiana doubled the use of these very strong drugs to alleviate pain. In Rhode Island, it more than doubled. South Dakota had a big increase. Again, almost all of these have doubled. Tennessee--it has more than tripled the use of pain control drugs. When the States banned the use of assisted suicide, they used the strong drugs to alleviate pain. This is what we want to do. We want to alleviate pain. We want to be effective. We want to get the very strong drugs that a lot of physicians have been reluctant to utilize and we want to get them into physicians' hands. We want to let them know they have the power, the authority, the education to use these drugs to alleviate pain. Even if they increase the use and it causes someone's death, there is no penalty, and I have to touch on the penalty sanctions. My colleague was so wrong. We want them to alleviate pain. My colleague says: If they do not comply, we will have a new group of Federal officers running around, and this is going to have a chilling impact. He is exactly wrong. The Drug Enforcement Administration is in control of these drugs right now. There are 990,000 registrants who use these federally controlled drugs nationwide. My colleague from Oregon implied that if we pass this bill, we are going to have a new set of Federal police; they are going to be arresting people and they will do years in jails and pay thousands of dollars in fines. We have given zero, none, no additional law enforcement authority. Guess how many drug enforcements there were in fiscal year 1999? There are 990,000 registrants, and they investigated 921 cases, almost all of which were referred by the States. They revoked their registration, which is DEA's enforcement. They revoked the registrations of 29. In 1998--again, there are almost 1 million people who are licensed to dispense these federally controlled drugs--they revoked the registrations of 17; in the year 1997, 18. So DEA already has this authority. They have it nationwide. They have always had it. We do not take it away. We do not enhance their authority. This is a bogus red herring. Somebody is trying to scare the people: We are going to increase the Government power. Hogwash, we are increasing the power of the physicians. We are giving them a safe harbor, giving them greater standing. Before somebody can take action, they have to prove intent before there would be any claim against that physician. We give the physicians greater power and greater reliability that they will not be going to court, that they will not be in trouble with law enforcement if they are aggressively using these drugs for pain management. Under this bill, they can use these drugs aggressively in pain management. They just cannot use them for Dr. Kevorkian assisted suicide, plain and simple. In Oregon, in at least 43 cases, they have used federally controlled drugs to kill someone. We are saying these are federally controlled drugs and you can use them to alleviate pain, but you cannot use them to kill someone. I want to touch on a couple of other issues. I mentioned safe harbor. I have a letter from the American Medical Association, which says: This bill would explicitly include this as a safe harbor, creating a legal environment in which physicians may administer appropriate pain care for patients without fear of prosecution. This is the AMA. They continue: The Pain Relief Promotion Act does not create a new Federal authority to regulate physicians. The bill contains specific rules of construction preserving the roles of States and the Federal Government in regulating the practice of medicine. I could go on and on. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record a volume of information because this is an important issue. I have editorials, a couple of which came from Oregon, one of which is dated July 1, 1999. This is the Oregonian. It says: ``Kill the pain, not the patients.'' That is what we try to do with our bill. We try to kill the pain and not the patients. Also, I have an Oregonian editorial which says: ``A state's rights, a state's wrongs.'' This is dated October 19, 1999. And a more recent editorial from the Oregonian, September 10, 2000, says: Approve pain relief promotion bill. The Senate should put a quick end to Wyden's filibuster and pass a bill that favors pain killing over patient killing. I have a volume of things. I mentioned these three editorials which are very well written, and also I have a legal analysis of the bill; I have a list of organizations supporting the Pain Relief Promotion Act. This list is very long. It starts with Aging With Dignity, the American Academy of Pain Management, the American College of Osteopathic Family Physicians, American Medical Association, American Society of Anesthesiologists, American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians, Americans for Integrity in Palliative Care, Americans United for Life, California Disability Alliance, Catholic Health Association, Catholic Medical Association. I could go on and on. There are medical associations--the Florida Medical Association.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, my colleague was reading a few letters. Incidentally, he kept talking about the American Cancer Association. I do not think they ever wrote a letter saying they were opposed to the bill. He made it sound like they did. I do not know if they did. He has one that is maybe questionable on the bill. We have dozens which spent a lot of time supporting us. The National Hospice Association, the group that takes in individuals in their later years, particularly in the years where they are close to death, supports this bill. So the allegations that this might have a chilling impact is hogwash. To make an allegation that this might be offensive to States rights is absolute hogwash. That is not correct. We are not overturning Oregon's law. Oregon cannot overturn Federal statute. Do we want to repeal the Federal Controlled Substances Act? The Federal Government has been controlling these strong drugs before that act. There was another act that passed years before, but the Federal Controlled Substances Act is what I am amending and clarifying that legitimate medical purposes includes pain management. What is wrong with that? It also says assisted suicide is not a legitimate medical purpose. Think of that. We have had a Federal statute on the books since 1970 to control very strong drugs because we know they are deadly, we know they are hazardous. So the Federal Government passed a law regulating these drugs. The State of Oregon said: Let's legalize assisted suicide, and we will pretend that is a legitimate medical purpose. The Drug Enforcement Administration said: No, it is not. The Attorney General wrote a letter that it is in 49 States, but it is not in Oregon because we did not prohibit assisted suicide. The Controlled Substances Act says these drugs can be used for legitimate medical purposes. It did not say anything about assisted suicide. So the Attorney General comes up with this weird analysis: Maybe it's not prohibited. The Drug Enforcement Administration before her said: No, assisted suicide is not a legitimate medical purpose. The Drug Enforcement Administration is right, and they have been the ones enforcing this law for the last 30 years. Oregon should live under the law just like every other State in the Nation. In 49 States, you cannot use these drugs right now--you cannot use them in Arkansas or in any other State in the Nation because they are Federal controlled substances and they can only be used for legitimate medical purposes. You cannot use the drugs in assisted suicide except in Oregon because the Attorney General says maybe it is OK. The law says you can use them to alleviate pain but not assisted suicide. We put that in the bill. I mention that to my friend from Nevada and my friend from Oregon. It is awfully important that people understand the substance of this legislation, and this legislation would not have a chilling impact. We would not have all these organizations from the American Medical Association to the American Hospice Association supporting this bill. I urge my colleagues to review the letters Senator Wyden and I have provided to further complement their knowledge on this issue. I urge them to review the materials we are printing in the Record, and I urge them to support this bill. I am proud of the fact that 40-some colleagues, maybe 38 now--maybe a couple names were removed--support this bill; Democrats and Republicans support this bill, including Senator Lieberman, who testified with me on a couple of occasions on this bill. I look forward to its adoption and enactment this year. Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time. Mr. REID addressed the Chair.

Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I was told that the time of the Senator expired and I was coming to claim my time to respond.

Mr. NICKLES. I will be happy to let my colleague conclude his thought.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Ashcroft), the Senator from Montana (Mr. Burns), the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Grams), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain), and the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Santorum) are necessarily absent. I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) would vote ``yea.''

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, on October 25, 2000, Representative Henry Hyde introduced H.R. 5544, the Pain Relief Promotion Act of 2000. The text of the legislation is based on the Senate Judiciary committee substitute to H.R. 2260, the Pain Relief Promotion Act, ordered reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on April 27, 2000. For the information of all Members of Congress, I offer the following section-by-section analysis of the legislation. I ask unanimous consent that the material be printed in the Record.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Washington (Mr. Gorton), the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Grams), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms), and the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Specter) are necessarily absent. I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) would vote ``yea.''

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Washington (Mr. Gorton), the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Grams), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms), and the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Specter) are necessarily absent. I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) would vote ``yea.''

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Washington (Mr. Gorton), the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Grams), and the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) are necessarily absent. I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) would vote ``yea.''

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Washington (Mr. Gorton), the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Grams), and the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms), are necessarily absent. I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from North Carolina (M. Helms) would vote ``yea.''

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Ashcroft), the Senator from Montana (Mr. Burns), the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Frist), the Senator from Washington (Mr. Gorton), the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Grams), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms), and the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Roth) are necessarily absent. I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from Washington (Mr. Gorton) and the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) would each vote ``yea.''

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Ashcroft), the Senator from Montana (Mr. Burns), the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Frist), the Senator from Washington (Mr. Gorton), the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Grams), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms), and the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Roth) are necessarily absent. I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from Washington (Mr. Gorton) and the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) would each vote ``yea.''

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Ashcroft), the Senator from Montana (Mr. Burns), the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Frist), the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Grams), and the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms) are necessarily absent. I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from Montana (Mr. Burns) would vote ``yea.''

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Ashcroft) the Senator from Montana (Mr. Burns), the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Frist), the Senator from Washington (Mr. Gorton), the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Grams), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Jeffords), and the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Roth) are necessarily absent. I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from Washington (Mr. Gorton) and the Senator from Montana (Mr. Burns) would each vote ``yea.''

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Montana (Mr. Burns), the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo), the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Grams), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain) are necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Grams), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Helms), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain) are necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I want to comment on the Agriculture conference report that just passed overwhelmingly today in the Senate. It already passed the House and it will be going to the President to be signed. In my opinion, there are a couple of provisions in this bill that really should not have been included and are serious mistakes that may come back to haunt Congress or will require Congress to change their actions. One of them deals with private contracts. I happen to believe very strongly in private contracts. I came from the business sector, the private sector. When Congress interferes in private contracts, it ought to have a good reason. It ought to know what it is doing. Frankly, it should hardly ever do so. In this case, we put some language in this bill that I venture to say very few of our colleagues--maybe only a couple--even know it exists or what its ramifications will be. There is language in the Agriculture conference report that doesn't deal with Agriculture but deals with reimportation of drugs. Yes, we debated reimportation language on the Senate floor, but we didn't debate this contracting issue. Senator Jeffords offered an amendment dealing with reimportation of drugs. However, the amendment offered by Senator Jeffords contained some serious flaws, which led me to oppose the amendment. For example, the original Senate language included a provision that would have established two separate standards for drugs that were sold in the United States. One standard, which is current law, with regard to drugs that are manufactured and sold in the U.S. And a separate, and in my opinion, inferior standard for drugs that are imported or reimported into the U.S. Fortunately, the conference agreement corrected the flaws of the original Jeffords language and will require that all drugs, including those imported by businesses other than the manufacturer, must fully comply with Section 505 of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. This means that every importer must ensure that all safety standards which are included in a new drug approval application (NDA) are fully met for every drug which is imported into the U.S. Additionally, the conference agreement retained Senator Cochran's amendment that perfected and improved the Jeffords amendment to require that the Secretary ensure that if drugs are imported, U.S. safety standards will be used to ensure that these drugs pose no risk to the public health and that consumers will benefit from any potential savings prior to this law going into effect. I supported the Cochran amendment and I am pleased that this bill included that language. However, in conference, new language was added that was not in either the House bill or the Senate bill. It wasn't in any of the language adopted on the Senate floor. This language states: No manufacturer of covered products--[prescription drugs]--may enter into a contract or agreement that includes a provision to prevent the sale or distribution of covered products under this subsection. What does that mean? Well, it means that this Congress could either abrogate or direct contracts which don't meet this new federal test. I think that is a serious problem. This could make it illegal for a patent holder to insert a clause into a private licensing agreement with a foreign distributor that prevents a foreign distributor from reselling that product for any reason. This proposal could prohibit any private agreement that limits or restricts the sale of drugs, including quantities, territories, resale conditions, or other normal terms of commerce. I think this Congress is inappropriately intruding into commerce in ways that we don't have any idea what we are doing, what the ramifications may be and may in fact be unconsitutional. But that's not all. Additionally, the language we have adopted would direct the U.S. Government to sanction companies that structure their business relationships with foreign distributors in a manner inconsistent with the legislation. A lot of these businesses have been doing business with people to resell their drugs, and we are going to say they are not doing it right so we can fine them. We may in fact require them to sell to anybody. Can they resell in any way they want to? Not according to this language. So a manufacturer can lose total control of its products and this may at some point result in a number of counterfeit drugs and other safety problems. How is this type of provision consistent with the basic concept of private property and freedom to contract? It is not. It really makes no sense. Have we had any hearings on this? No. If you restrict this kind of contract for pharmaceutical companies, why in the world can't you do it for any other contract? So somebody says, wait a minute; this just deals with pharmaceutical products. Frankly, if Congress can insert itself into contracting language, are we going to do the same thing on contracts between auto dealers or other private business. There is a little bill floating around that would try to do that. We can do it on other contracts where maybe we deem we have superior wisdom to all the business groups out there or anybody who has a contract, that we know better. What does this language mean? What is its impact? We are going to go and give the authority to fine somebody if they don't comply. Wow. This is in an appropriations bill. It didn't come through the Judiciary Committee or a committee composed of people who work on contracts or work on judicial issues. We are setting up that kind of a program, and I am embarrassed for us to do that. This type of legislating sets a horrible precedent for other businesses as well. It is not appropriate for this Congress to force American manufacturers to sell their products to consumers that they do not want to sell to under contract terms that the federal government approves. This type of requirement is unfair and lacks common sense. I predict it will raise serious constitutional questions as well and may interfere with the exercise of intellectual property rights. It is unfortunate that this language was included in this bill. I think this is a serious mistake. It is somewhat similar to another mistake, in my opinion, included in this bill, which is title X, the continued dumping and subsidies offset. It is a brand new provision. It is a provision inserted in the Agriculture conference. It deals with subsidies and with dumping. Those are trade issues, trade sanctions, usually handled in the Ways and Means Committee in the House and the Finance Committee in the Senate. This didn't go through either. I will tell my colleagues this provision could not pass the Finance Committee. It could not pass the Ways and Means Committee. This runs directly contrary, frankly, to free trade and the idea of trying to expand trade. This says if you have a dumping complaint, and if you happen to win, the benefits go back directly to that company, directly to the individuals involved. So there is a reward and incentive that if you file a dumping complaint and win, you will receive benefits. This encourages lawsuits on dumping because you can win the ``lottery.'' Here they come. It doesn't make sense. It is probably not WTO consistent. This says ``consistent with the rights under the World Trade Organization.'' I venture to say that it is not consistent with WTO rights in any way, shape, or form. It will probably be thrown out by the courts. Why are we doing this? I am on the Finance Committee, and did we have a hearing on this? No, we did not. Did the Ways and Means Committee have a hearing on this? I don't believe so. But all of a sudden, it is inserted into a conference report which is not amendable. Some colleagues say they don't like this process. I don't like this process either. I think it is bad legislation. I think it can come back to haunt us, and we could be talking about hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars from this provision alone. Again, how many colleagues are even aware that this is in the bill? We have committees of jurisdiction, such as the Judiciary Committee, that should be dealing with contracts and they should have handled this contracting issue. My guess is that they would have scrubbed it and done a better job. The Finance Committee, which deals with trade, would totally reject this idea of rewarding people if they file successful dumping lawsuits. Mr. President, it is with regret that I say there are other aspects of this Agriculture appropriations bill, which has grown substantially, that bother this Senator. We would end up passing a bill that increases budget authority over the President by 22 percent in outlays and 24 percent in budget authority. That bothers me. It bothers me when we see growth in the discretionary portion of this bill to that extent--to be growing at 24 percent I don't think is affordable or responsible. I could go on. Also, there are expansions of entitlements. I remember earlier this year when we passed emergency assistance, and we busted that. We busted it big time. I understand there are a lot of problems. We had a drought as bad as anybody. Texas suffered from a drought and so did we. This is fiscally irresponsible, in my opinion. And because of the provision dealing with dumping and the abrogation of contracts, or the changing of contracts, and the total cost of this bill, regretfully, this Senator had to vote against the Agriculture conference report. I see my colleague from Alabama is here. I am prepared to wrap up. How long does he wish to speak?

Mr. NICKLES. I will give the Senator from Alabama the pleasure of closing the Senate then. I yield the floor.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I didn't hear total disagreement. I think I heard my colleague say he agreed with me that the administration should have vetoed the U.N. resolution that strongly condemned Israel and was silent about Palestinian violence. We agree. I think he also said he agreed with me that we should be very assertive in trying to find those people responsible for the Khobar Towers, for that bombing that was so damaging, that killed 19 Americans, wounded a couple hundred others. We haven't had success. He is critical of the Saudi Government. So am I. The point being, our language and our rhetoric in some cases has exceeded our results. When we had two American embassies that were bombed, what did we do? We lobbed a few cruise missiles. We don't know if those hit the people who were directly responsible or not. The point is, if you are going to hold people accountable, you want to hold the people who are directly accountable for committing the crime against American citizens who killed American citizens, and we haven't done that in the two latest cases of terrorism. Frankly, if you don't hold them accountable, I think that sends a bad signal. I would agree with my colleague from New Jersey, we should certainly hold people accountable for the U.S.S. Cole. Likewise we should hold people accountable on Khobar Towers and on American embassies, and that hasn't happened yet. That was my point.

Mr. NICKLES. But it is interesting, the second statement says it: Condemns acts of violence, especially the excessive use of force against Palestinians, resulting in injury and loss of human life. No. 3, it: Calls upon Israel, the occupying Power, to abide scrupulously by its legal obligations. . . . It does not say for the Palestinians and it does not say for Mr. Arafat to abide by its obligations, and it does not talk about the Palestinians and their use of force. I heard my colleague from New Jersey talk about the fact that Palestinians had a couple of Israelis who were murdered. So my point is that the President of the United States should have urged our representative at the United Nations to veto this, use our veto in the Security Council to veto this very unbalanced, very biased, very anti-Israel resolution. And they did not do it. I think that was a mistake. Now we see more violence. This recent attack on the U.S.S. Cole on October 12 killed 17 and wounded dozens. I think many of us were shocked by that. I heard some of the statements by the Secretary of State, by the Secretary of Defense, by the President: Boy, we're going to hold those people, those terrorists, those cowards who committed this cowardly deed and killed innocent U.S. soldiers, accountable. Well, Mr. President, I have heard those words before. In many cases in past history, those words have been a lot stronger than our deeds. That bothers this Senator. I look back at some of the terrorist activity that has happened in the Middle East over the last few years directed at the U.S. citizens and soldiers, and I am thinking: Wait a minute, I have heard those exact same words: We are going to hold these people accountable. And I look at what has happened. In 1993, we had President Bush--at that time he was former President Bush. He traveled to Kuwait in April of 1993. He was there April 14 through 16. The Kuwaiti Government captured a van loaded with 180 pounds of explosives. This was an attempt to assassinate former President Bush. This administration launched 23 cruise missiles to show they were really upset about that, most of which hit in the sand; some may have hit the targets, or at least they are saying that--but a pretty mild response. Again, was it directly targeted at those people who were directly responsible, or was it the United States kicking up and showing, well, we are a little peeved about this? Did we hold those people directly responsible who tried to assassinate President Bush? The answer is no. Did we capture those people who were directly involved in that? I believe the answer is no. If the intelligence community knows more about this than I do, I would be happy for them to inform this Senator. But I do not believe the individuals who were directly involved in that terrorist activity were held accountable, that they were tried, that they were punished for that action. What about the bombing of Khobar Towers? This happened June 25, 1996 as a result of a car bomb. The destruction looked very similar to the bombing in Oklahoma City, another car bomb that blew up the Federal building in Oklahoma City and killed 168 people. The car bomb outside the Khobar Towers killed 19 Americans, and it wounded 364. I remember the President, I remember the Secretary of Defense, I remember the Secretary of State say: We will not stop until these cowards are brought to justice. How many people have been brought to justice from the Khobar Towers bombing of 1996? The answer is, no one. The answer is, one person has been arrested. He is now in a Saudi jail--one person. A lot more than one person was responsible for the Khobar Towers bombing, a lot more than one person. What has been the result? Have we held people accountable? No. That was the most massive terrorist attack against military personnel, certainly since the bombing in Lebanon. What did we do? Well, basically nothing. Basically nothing. What about the bombings of the Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania? That was August 7, 1998. Bombs exploded at the U.S. Embassies in both Kenya and Tanzania, killed 252 people, including 12 Americans. Again, we heard this President, this Secretary of State, this Secretary of Defense say: We will hold them accountable. What did we do? Once again, we lobbed some cruise missiles, and we hit, I guess, a terrorist camp in Afghanistan. I guess the principal terrorist we were aiming at was not there. Maybe some people were killed. Maybe those people were directly involved in the bombing; maybe they weren't. That is not very targeted, in my opinion. We also bombed a pharmaceutical plant that we may be making significant payments on because people determined maybe it wasn't directly involved. I don't know. My point is, this administration has made very strong statements that we are going to hold people accountable for attacking U.S. facilities, U.S. soldiers. We did it again with the U.S.S. Cole. Frankly, we haven't done it. Our country hasn't done it. Maybe we lobbed some cruise missiles and maybe we directly or indirectly hit some people who might have been responsible, but it is a little questionable. I think it almost sends a signal of weakness, if we don't hold people accountable. I think the rhetoric has been good. I think the language has been good. I don't think the results have been good. I think if there is a U.N. resolution that is biased and anti-Israel, it should be vetoed. I certainly believe we should find out those people who are responsible for the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, and we should hold them accountable. We should find the people who are responsible for the bombing of the Khobar Towers, and we should hold them accountable. They should pay a penalty, a price, and, frankly, that has not happened. I see my colleague wanting to speak.