Floor Statements

Mr. President, will Senator Sessions yield for a question?

Mr. President, earlier this morning I was in the Senate rotunda with Senator Sessions and Senator Levin from Michigan. As we stood in the Rotunda, in addition to paying honor to this great woman whose body lies in State in the Capitol Rotunda, we spoke just a bit about each of our recollections of what Rosa Parks meant to us and to our country.

I want to follow on the statement by Senator Sessions to say that as I was in the Rotunda this morning, I was thinking about what kind of courage it must have taken for this woman, a 42-year-old seamstress, getting on a bus at the end of the day, perhaps tired from working all day, understanding that there were then police dogs and fire hoses and clubs and beatings and a lot of trouble, a lot of trouble, I was thinking about the courage it would have had to take for that woman to have done what she did. Her actions of sitting in that seat on that bus and refusing to move to the back of the bus were simple, elegant, dignified but also enormously courageous. I think that is a lesson for all Americans.

I couldn't have been more pleased when the Congress, the House and the

Senate, did something that was unusual in the history of America. We took action to have the remains of Rosa Parks lie in State in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol Building, the first woman to be so honored in the history of the United States of America. I was enormously moved this morning, standing with my colleagues, Senator Sessions and Senator Levin. I know most of our colleagues visited the Rotunda this morning as well. But I did want to follow on his comments about this extraordinary woman who will live forever in the history of this great country of ours.

Mr. SESSIONS Mr. President, I thank the Senator for his eloquent comments. It was, indeed, a pleasure to be with Senator Levin--she was his constituent when she moved to Michigan--and hear some of his insights and hear him say that Michigan had bought the actual bus in which she rode on that day and has restored it and made it a museum.

So her life, indeed, continues to reverberate all over the country and, as Fred Gray said, the impact of her actions have spread worldwide. I thank the Senator for his comments and yield the floor.

Mr. President, there is much happening in Washington, DC, and in our country. Picking up the periodicals, Newsweek or Time magazine, or the morning paper for that matter, you see stories of scandal and stories of controversy and all kinds of interesting things with respect to politics and the economy and things that affect our daily lives. I wanted to talk for a moment, once again, about the issue of energy because, while we will deal with a lot of things--this week, for example, something called the reconciliation bill--most people will deal this week with the challenge of pulling up to the gas pump and putting perhaps 16 or 18 gallons of gas in their tank and trying to find $50 to pay for it. As the chill is in the air these days in our country, people will begin thinking about how they will pay for the increased cost of natural gas to heat their homes, particularly in our part of the country where that will increase by 60 percent over a year ago. They will wonder about how they will find the money to pay for that cost because heating your home is not a luxury. Heating your home is a necessity.

I have spoken previously about a woman named Sarah Swifthawk. She was a grandmother. She died in the United States of America--she froze to death. She was a member of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. This grandmother laid down to go to sleep on a cot in a home that had plastic where windows should have been. At, I believe, 30 or 35 degrees below zero that evening, others huddled together for body warmth in that family, but this grandmother was laying on a cot, and the next morning she was dead; frozen to death--in the United States of America, not a Third World country, in the United States of America.

I point that out only to say this issue of the cost of shelter, the cost of energy, the requirement that we find ways to keep people warm during cold temperatures can mean the difference between life and death. It did for Sarah Swifthawk.

Now the question is, in this month, October, and then November of the year 2005, what do we do about the prices and the cost of energy now for this winter? Perhaps it is not such a big problem for people who serve in this Chamber or in the House of Representatives. Perhaps they can easily pay the monthly heating bill. But there are many in this country who cannot. The question is, What do we do for them?

The oil companies will say: This is about the free market system and the price of oil, and therefore the price of gasoline and natural gas and home heating fuel, it is just a function of the free market system.

The price of oil is to the free market system like mud wrestling is to the performance arts. It has no relationship at all--none. Let me describe why. There are three things that happen with respect to the price of oil. No. 1, we have this planet in which a substantial portion of the oil reserves are under the sand halfway around the world.

So oil ministries from those countries get together around the table and decide how much they are going to produce and how much that production should impact prices.

Second, the largest oil companies--much larger and bigger and stronger because of blockbuster mergers--decide how they are going to use more raw muscle in the marketplace. And believe me, they have plenty, given the blockbuster mergers.

Third, the futures markets which are supposed to provide liquidity for trading of commodities--in this case, oil--have become orgies of speculation.

So you have these three issues that together tell us now that a barrel of oil is worth $60 or $65.

Let me tell you the results of all of that. The oil companies are filling up their treasuries, and the American consumers are emptying their bank accounts.

Let me give you some examples.

ExxonMobil last week said their profits were up 75 percent for the third quarter--$9.9 billion. Conoco-Phillips--by the way, ExxonMobil used to be two companies, Exxon and Mobil. Then they fell in love. That is economic talk, I guess, about mergers and acquisitions. And they get married. Now it is ExxonMobil.

Conoco-Phillips used to be Conoco and Phillips, two companies. Now it is one company. They too had some sort of financial romance and got married, Conoco-Phillips, profits up 89 percent, third quarter to third quarter.

Last year--I am not talking about this year's prices--the world's 10 biggest oil companies earned more than $100 billion on sales of over $1 trillion. This year, of course, it is going to be much higher than that. ExxonMobil last year had $25 billion net profit and spent almost $10 billion of it to buy back their stock.

BusinessWeek asked this question. This is not some liberal journal, this is BusinessWeek. They asked:

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

not a substitute for new oil.

Again, this is BusinessWeek. This isn't some politician, it is not some liberal publication someplace.

Oil has been over $20 a barrel almost continuously since

mid-1990's. That should have been ample incentive for oil

companies to open new fields, since projects are designed to

be profitable with prices in the low- or mid-teens.

Nevertheless, drilling has lagged. Far from raising money to

pursue opportunities, oil companies are paying down debt,

buying back shares, and hoarding cash--

And drilling for oil on Wall Street.

Sixty-six million homes in this country are heated mainly with natural gas and home heating oil. Their heating bills this winter are going up on average 48 percent. It is going be up over 60 percent for those in my region of the country who are heating with natural gas.

What have I proposed with respect to that? I proposed that if the oil companies are not using this additional cash--unprecedented amounts of cash in the history of corporate America--to explore for more oil or build more refineries--and oh, by the way, they are the ones that have been closing refineries. I know it is fashionable during political discussions to talk about, It is the environmentalists' fault or Calvin Coolidge's fault or somebody else's fault that we don't have enough refinery capacity. It is the energy companies that have themselves shut down refineries. When they have mergers, they shut down refineries.

If they are not using these unprecedented gains in corporate America to explore for more oil or build additional refineries, then I believe they ought to be recaptured with a windfall profits tax, the proceeds of which should be sent back to the American consumers in the form of a rebate.

I noticed last Friday that my colleague from New Hampshire, Senator Judd Gregg, indicated that he would support--he called it an excess profits tax. He would use the proceeds, at least from the press reports, of an excess profits tax for the purpose of providing additional low-income home heating fuel assistance, among other things. I believe we should provide additional low-income energy help for low- income citizens in this country. We are going

into a winter season. We don't have that adequately funded. Three times we have tried on the floor of the Senate, and three times we failed. We should try again--and we will. And this Senate one day will decide that perhaps keeping people warm in the winter is as important as providing millionaires tax cuts on their yearly tax bills.

Someone will say that is class warfare. I don't mean class warfare at all. I just make the point that the last two tax cuts have produced $32 million a year in tax reductions for people whose incomes are over $1 million a year, and more. Perhaps we should capture a part of that $32 million. Surely those who are earning $1 million-plus a year could give up just a little of the tax cuts they have received, and we could divert it to try to help those who are low-income folks going into winter trying to figure out how they will pay a 60-percent increase in natural gas bills to heat their homes, at a time, by the way, when the Exxon Corporation and others are showing the highest profits in their history.

The American people who struggle to pay these bills, take a look at these companies: ExxonMobil, Shell-BP, Chevron-Texaco, Conoco-Phillips.

By the way, Chevron-Texaco used to be two companies. There used to be Exxon, and then there was Mobil; then there was Chevron, then there was Texaco; then there was Conoco and then there was Phillips. They all got married. So now we have just a few companies--75-percent increase, 68- percent increase, 89-percent increase. I am talking about increase in profits.

At the same time this is going on, by the way, the American people are paying through the nose at the gas pumps, and we are setting them up to pay a dramatic increase to heat their homes this winter.

Once again, one group is filling their treasury, and the other group is emptying their bank accounts. Guess which is which. The oil companies are filling their treasuries, and average Americans are having to empty their bank accounts to pay the price.

Let me give you some numbers, if I might. In January of last year, the price of a barrel of oil was $34.50 a barrel. At that price, the oil companies had the highest profits in the history of the oil industry. Now it is almost $30 a barrel above that. That is about $7 billion more a month in profits.

The Shell report, which was received in my office about two months ago talked about their financial performance in 2004. This is last year, when prices averaged around $40 a barrel. The report says: We achieved the highest net income in our history, 48 percent higher than the year before, as a result of higher oil and natural gas prices. It goes on to say that these higher profits occurred even though the company produced less oil than the previous year. They produced less and saw a 50-percent increase in their profits. The same is true with other companies saying: We had higher profits, but we produced less.

As I indicated, my colleague, Senator Judd Gregg, has indicated publicly that he would support an excess--I call it a windfall profits tax. He would use it for the purpose of providing low-income energy assistance.

I personally believe that this money doesn't belong to the Government. I don't want to bring it in the Treasury. I want to capture some of that which they are not using to expand our energy supply and use it to give rebates to the consumers. They are, after all, the ones paying the price. Taking it from the consumers, putting it in the energy companies' treasuries, and then bringing it into the Government means you have taken money from the consumers to Government. I would just as soon provide a rebate back to the consumers.

I know that when we talk about this, the oil industry has an apoplectic seizure. They get all upset. I understand that. They are making more money than ever. I have been supportive of the energy industry. I hope we find substantial new reserves. While I don't support opening ANWR, I believe that is one of those pristine areas which was set aside, not to be opened first, but to be opened last, if ever. I do support opening up Lease 181 in the Gulf of Mexico. I hope we can do that. I would like to see us vote on opening that lease area. We have substantial proven reserves that exist there.

There are other things on which I do support the energy industry. People said: Well, if you think prices are too high, what about when they are too low? I was one of those who supported an $18 price and did support a proposal for an $18 price, including tax credits to get to that price for marginal wells. I have supported the energy industry in many areas, but I cannot support, I don't think the American people support, and I don't believe the Senate should support these kinds of excess windfall profits that far exceed anything that is reasonable and seeing these profits gathered at the expense of the American people often who can least afford it.

There are some who, as I said when I started, make the case, Well, this is just the market system at work. This isn't the market system. That is all nonsense. The market system is fine. I used to teach some economics at college. I was able to overcome that afterward. I understand free markets and the market system. The free market system needs a referee from time to time. Do you know that we pay one 7-foot, 2-inch basketball player the equivalent of 1,000 elementary school teachers? That is the market system. Does that make sense? Probably not; the market system. There is a judge on television, Judge Judy. It seems kind of out of sorts when I have been channel-surfing and I see her. I understand from a magazine article that she made $25 million in a year. I think the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court makes $190,000. Market system? Well, you know. You can take a look at the market system and see areas where there needs to be from time to time somebody who says: This isn't fair, it doesn't make any sense. The market system is not perfect. It is not the market system, however, that produces a $60- plus barrel of oil.

I mentioned before that there are three factors. I described OPEC ministers with substantial control over the supply of oil; the larger, more muscular oil companies made larger by mergers, exerting more muscle in the marketplace; and the futures market becoming a speculative bazaar, all of which then produce this remarkable price for energy. It has an impact on every single American. Some perhaps don't care. But the question is this: If we in this country are going to pay these prices for a barrel of oil and, therefore, gasoline and natural gas, if we are going to pay these prices, should they result in more exploration in a greater supply of energy with greater energy security for this country's future? Shouldn't they? That is not what is happening. What is happening--I described BusinessWeek--is these companies more and more are buying back their stock. They are hoarding the cash. They are drilling for oil on Wall Street where oil doesn't exist. That is not in the country's interest.

I take some hope from my colleague, Senator Judd Gregg's press statements last Friday. I take some hope from the statements by the Speaker of the House. He held a press conference suggesting that the oil companies should be investing more in exploration. His remedy was the equivalent of beating them over the head with a feather. But, nonetheless, he was speaking out about the need to produce more energy. It is the case even with the majority leader of the Senate talking about that. I think perhaps, if not seeing the light, at least there are people here who are feeling the heat from drivers, from people who are worried about heating their homes in the winter, who take a look at the price and say it is unfair. The question isn't whether it is unfair; the question is, What do we do about it? Apparently the Speaker of the House, the majority leader of the Senate, and our colleague from New Hampshire think it is unfair.

What do we do about it? We can sit around and mop our brow, we can grit our teeth, wring our hands, and we can fret. We do that petty well. I don't know of any body that does that better than the U.S. Senate. But that doesn't do much for those being hurt in this country.

What we ought to do, in my judgment, is employ and adopt a windfall profits tax, gather from that windfall profits tax the revenue that is being taken from consumers unfairly, and use it as a rebate back to consumers.

My proposal would be a windfall profits tax, the one I introduced with Senator Dodd and others; that is, if the energy companies are, in fact, sinking their profits back into the ground to explore for more oil and build additional refineries above ground, they wouldn't be paying an excess windfall profits tax. That is not what they are doing with their money. Don't take it from me; take it from their own financial reports because that is not what they are doing with their money. I believe they ought to be paying a 50-percent windfall tax for oil above $40 a barrel, and that excise tax ought to be redistributed to the American consumers who are the ones ultimately paying the bill. It ought to be distributed to them as a rebate for those consumers. We will have more to talk about this week on this subject.

I took some heart on Friday to hear a Member of the Senate from the other side of the political aisle has come to the same conclusion I have reached, and that is that these profits are far above that which is supportable or justifiable, profits far above that which would be created by a free market system; that the consumers are being treated unfairly. The Senate ought to do something about it. The question isn't whether we should do it. Of course we should. The question is, which method or which strategy do we employ? Do we decide this money grab goes to the Government--grab some of it and bring it here? Or do we decide this money comes from the consumer and ought to go back to the consumer in the form of the rebate?

I make a final point. We will again be confronted with this question of heating fuel assistance for low-income Americans. But it is not only low-income Americans who are being injured, who will be hurt by these prices. There are a lot of working families who just get by and who will look at this 60-percent increase in the cost to heat their home this winter in my part of the country and wonder how on Earth will they be able to do that.

I have described profits of the heads of the oil companies. Let me read total 2004 compensation for the chief executive officers: $33 million, $64 million, $4 million, $16 million, $8 million. These are salaries and compensation packages for the folks who run the companies that are charging these prices.

The people have a right to ask the question, how on Earth is this allowed? We will have more to talk about as we go along this week. I hope, finally, there might be some tipping point at which the Senate says we must address this issue.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

I ask unanimous consent on behalf of Senator Baucus that the following Finance Committee fellows and interns be allowed floor privileges during the consideration of the reconciliation bill: Ray Campbell, Jorlie Cruz, David Hain, Richard Litsey, and David Schwartz.

If the Senator will yield, I ask unanimous consent to be recognized following the presentation by the Senator from South Dakota in morning business for such time as I may consume.

Mr. President, I was a member of the conference that the Senator from South Dakota just described. I, too, refused to sign the conference report this week. I think when Senator Johnson uses the term ``outrage,'' it is a very appropriate word to describe what happened in that conference. That conference recessed at the call of the Chair. We never reconvened. And behind closed doors with some secret deal, the majority party decided to hear the siren call of the big packing houses and others, and they extended by 2 years the effective date of the time when the American people would finally figure out, by labels, where the meat they were eating would come from.

The reason I think this meat labeling is important, we label everything. We label T-shirts, shoes, shirts. Name it, we label it. Go to the grocery store, see what is labeled. Everything on the shelf is labeled. But then pick up a piece of meat and figure out if we know where it came from.

I held up a piece of steak on the Senate floor one day and said: I defy anyone to tell me where this came from. Then I read a report from an inspector who went to a plant in Mexico, inspected the plant--this is a plant shipping meat to this country. He said there were carcasses hanging in unrefrigerated rooms, with feces smeared on the carcasses, all ready to be thrown in the hopper to be cut up and the meat sent to American consumers. That is what he found, one inspection. By the way, they closed that plant. Then it changed its name, changed its ownership, reopened, and has never again been inspected.

That is why when one asks the question, How do you like your steak, the answer ought to be, I like my steak from places where it is healthy meat. We do not know where the healthy meat comes from unless we see a label to be able to determine where that meat comes from. That is why the Senator from South Dakota and I and others have fought so aggressively to get this meat-labeling law in place. It is now the law of the land. We have people making secret deals behind closed doors to try to shut it down, to prevent it from ever being implemented. That is what happened this week. That is why I refused to sign the conference report as well. I appreciate the effort of the Senator from South Dakota. There are about half a dozen of us who would not sign the conference report because this was an arrogant approach to make a secret deal behind closed doors that injures the consumers of this country. We should not put up with it.

I do not think there is any question but that is the case. We do not have labeling of this meat; other countries do. So we have a homogenization of all kinds of meat that comes into this country, gets mixed here and there and everywhere.

The Senator from South Dakota said something very important. Our farmers and ranchers in this country raise beef, meat. We raise a healthy supply of meat. We inspect it. We have the healthiest supply of meat anywhere in the world. I think the lack of having country-of- origin labeling on the meat that is sold in this country hurts all of us. It hurts our consumers as they consume. It also hurts us in our ability to get into foreign markets, as my colleague has just described.

Once again, the big interests get the attention around here behind closed doors, outside of the view of the public. So we come out with legislation now

that says, well, not only is there a law that requires country-of- origin labeling, we will not allow that law to take effect. It has been in place for some while. We will extend for 2 years the excuse to allow the Department of Agriculture not to put it in effect. It is, as the Senator has used the term, an outrage. It is the wrong way for this Congress to legislate.

I thank the Senator from South Dakota for yielding.

Mr. President, today in The Washington Post, the question in the business section is: How Big Is $9.9 Billion?

That happens to be the single quarter profit for ExxonMobil Oil Company. Pretty fortunate for this company to have a $9.9 billion quarterly profit. That profit comes from people who are driving up to the gas pump, putting gasoline in their car; from people who are going to be heating their homes with home heating fuel, natural gas, and propane this winter.

So we have this spectacle of one industry with record profits, the highest in the history of the world. This is the largest profit of any corporation ever. The gain is here and the pain is elsewhere.

What does all of this mean? Well, I come from a State that is 10 times the size of Massachusetts in land mass. We have 642,000 people spread out in 10 Massachusettses. We are a Northern State, so it gets cold from time to time in the winter. We use home heating fuel and natural gas to heat our homes. Heating our homes is not a luxury; it is a necessity.

When we drive, we drive a fairly long ways. In fact, there is only one other State in which the per capita use of gasoline is higher than the State of North Dakota. It is Wyoming. We are fourth among all the States in all energy consumption, second in gasoline per capita.

I am told in New York City that if someone decides to take a vacation to go see some distant relative in Bayonne, NJ, 50 miles away, they plan it for some months. They put an emergency kit in their trunk. They put blankets in their car. They probably get their car serviced. They get the gasoline all topped off. They get all ready to go 50 miles to New Jersey to see their relatives. Why is it such a big deal? Because they do not travel very much, that is why. In our part of the country, we travel a lot. We drive a lot. It is not unusual to drive 100 or 200 miles to get a part for a combine or a tractor and then drive another 100 or 200 miles back. That is not a big deal.

In terms of pain, the pain in States such as North Dakota and, yes, Wyoming and other States in our area of the country is very significant related to these prices. This is not a pain that is spread evenly.

We have the highest amounts in history in the corporate treasuries of the oil companies, and then we have a huge pain for American consumers who are paying at the gas pump and are going to pay for home heating fuel.

I would like to put up a couple of charts to show what is happening: oil company profits. Let me make a point. I come from a State that produces oil. I do not wish the oil industry bad news. I support a number of things the oil industry does. I have supported an $18 floor on marginal wells, using tax credits to bring the oil up to $18 when necessary. I support opening up Lease 181 in the Gulf of Mexico for additional production. I support a number of things that the energy industry and the oil industry want.

When I see what is happening with the oil industry at the moment, I know that a year ago last January, the price of a barrel of oil was $34.50 a barrel. Now it is almost $30 above that. At $34.50 a barrel, they were making the highest profits they had ever made. Now it is $30 a barrel above that. What are the consequences of those increased prices? The consequences are enormous for American consumers. BP, one of the world's largest companies, 34 percent profit in the third quarter; ConocoPhillips, 89 percent profit increase in the quarter; ExxonMobil, 75 percent profit increase in the quarter, $9.9 billion just for the one corporation.

The question might be asked, What is happening to this profit? Well, this is BusinessWeek. This is hardly some silly liberal rag. BusinessWeek says, Why isn't big oil drilling more?

It says:

Rather than developing new fields, oil giants have

preferred to buy rivals--``drilling for oil on Wall Street.''

Do my colleagues want to know where a lot of these profits are going, the record profits above last year? Buying back stock, hoarding cash, and drilling for oil on Wall Street. I have news for them. There is no oil on Wall Street. They are going to drill a dry hole on Wall Street.

The point of the BusinessWeek article is to point out that much of these profits are used to go buy others, to merge with others. We have now seen these huge, blockbuster mergers. We now have bigger oil companies than we have ever seen.

There are three things that affect the price of oil. I know we have a lot of free market advocates in Congress. I think the free market is wonderful. I do not think it is perfect. A 7-foot, 2-inch basketball player gets paid the same amount as 1,000 elementary school teachers? That is the marketplace, I guess. A short stop gets paid $250 million. Judge Judy, that woman on television--I do not watch her much. Once in a great while, I tune in cruising the trials and she seems a little crabby to me, but Judge Judy makes 10 times, 20 times, or 30 times the amount of money that the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court makes. I guess that is the market system. I believe in the market system. The free market system makes a lot of sense, but there is no free market in oil at the moment.

There are three things happening with oil. One, there are the OPEC ministers sitting around a table because they were fortunate to find that on this little planet of ours, a substantial amount of the reserves of oil, the first, second and third largest reserves, exist under the sands of the Middle East. OPEC ministers sit around a table and decide quantity and price to the extent they can--especially quantity--and then the major oil companies, made larger and more muscular by blockbuster mergers, decide to use their raw muscle in the marketplace. Third and finally, the futures market, which is designed to provide liquidity for trading, has become a grand bazaar for speculation, an orgy of speculation. Those are the three elements that now give us a price of oil of over $60 a barrel.

Sixty-six million U.S. homes are heated mainly with natural gas, and their heating bills this winter are going to be 48 percent on average; 60 percent in my part of the country--60 percent increase to heat one's home this winter at a time when the largest enterprises that sell the oil are filling their bank accounts and drilling for oil on Wall Street. Sound fair? It does not to me.

I have proposed a windfall profits tax, the proceeds of which would be rebated back to the consumers. This is not your mother's or father's windfall profits tax. We had one once before. It did not work very well. That was to bring money into the Federal Government. I do not propose that.

Last year, the average cost of a barrel of oil was $40. In January, it was $34.50. The average cost the entire year was $40, and the energy industry, the oil companies, had the highest profits in their history. I propose that above that level of $40 a barrel represents windfall or excess profits.

I propose further that the oil companies have two choices: If they decide to use all of that excess or windfall profit to invest back into the ground to explore for more oil or to build refineries above ground, then they would not pay a windfall profits tax. If they choose not to do that, if they choose to drill for oil on Wall Street, if they choose to buy back their stock and hoard cash, then they would pay a 50- percent excise tax on those windfall profits, the entire proceeds of which would be sent back to the American consumers.

Some say, if that would happen, the oil companies would simply drill less or explore for oil much less aggressively. No. In fact, the most significant incentive to get them to explore for more energy would be to avoid paying a 50-percent excise tax called the windfall profits tax that I have proposed. It

would be the single most aggressive incentive to say, sink that money back into the ground, expand America's supply of energy.

It is interesting that we use one-fourth of the oil that is produced every day. Eighty-four million barrels of oil a day are produced in the world. We use 21 million barrels of oil a day in our country. This little spot on this globe called the United States of America uses one- fourth of all oil that is produced every day. Sixty percent of that which we produce comes in from other countries. We are hopelessly addicted to foreign oil, and it is dangerous for our country. That is a longer term other significant issue we have to deal with. We cannot continue to be addicted to oil that comes from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and elsewhere. We simply cannot do that. That is why we as a country need to establish goals toward energy independence.

John Kenneth Galbraith said: In the long run, we are all dead.

Those people who say, Well, in the long term, it is going to work out, in the long run, we are all dead. In the short term, we have a responsibility moving into this winter to try to find a way to deal with this dichotomy of the oil companies filling their treasuries and the consumers trying to figure out, How do I pay the bill? How do I pay a 60-percent increase in natural gas prices in the northern Great Plains? How do I pay $50 to put 16 or 18 gallons in my gas tank? I think this Congress has a responsibility to address this.

As I said before, yes, I support the oil industry in a number of ways. I have described them. I can describe others. I support the free market system. But I think this system is broken and I think what you have is significant pain for the American consumers, significant gain for the largest oil companies, and I think it is unfair.

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

Mr. President, my understanding is we are on the appropriations bill. I will speak for 5 minutes or so on a subject unrelated to the bill.

Mr. President, there has been a lot of information around this town about a New York Times reporter named Judith Miller. She has been central to a case that Mr. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor, is looking into. There is a lot of anticipation here about what or what might not happen with respect to charges that might be filed. It has to do with the disclosure of a covert CIA agent and who might have disclosed her name and why. Judith Miller was a reporter for the New York Times and Judith Miller spent some 80-plus days in jail because she decided not to testify about that subject before a grand jury when requested by the special prosecutor. She was subsequently released and did testify.

I share the common interest in what has happened, what did the special prosecutor find, were there people in Washington, DC, who were ``outing,'' as it were, a covert agent of the CIA, and if so, did they lie about it, did they obstruct justice. I don't know the answer and I don't pretend to know the answer to any of that. As one colleague suggested on television this weekend, these are not ``technical'' issues. There is no such thing as technical perjury. In any event, this is very important. But that is now why I am here now.

The reason I come to the Senate for a moment to mention Judith Miller is she wrote something in her own hand that appeared in the New York Times in recent days describing her situation. She said something that was of interest to me and alerted my curiosity. I have since made a number of calls related to that.

Judith Miller was embedded in a military unit and she said the following in her piece:

The Pentagon had given me clearance to see secret

information as a part of my assignment ``embedded'' with a

special military unit hunting for unconventional weapons [or

weapons of mass destruction.]

We all understand in the Senate what it means to see secret or top secret material. We frequently are provided briefings by the CIA, by the Defense Department, by other intelligence units, briefings that are classified as either ``secret,'' or ``top secret.'' We understand what that means. We understand, for example, if a member of our staff is to be made available to have those clearances, clearances come only when there is a background check and people are evaluated for receiving a clearance to possess secret or top secret information.

So I had a question when I read this article from a New York Times reporter embedded with a military unit:

The Pentagon had given me clearance to see secret

information . . .

My question is, What kind of clearance would that be, that a reporter, traveling with a military unit in Iraq, searching for weapons of mass destruction, what kind of clearance would that reporter have to see classified or secret information?

I called the Pentagon to find out what kind of clearance would exist, perhaps not just with respect to this reporter. My interest would be on a broader basis. We had many reporters embedded with military units in Iraq during the invasion and during the subsequent activities, looking for weapons of mass destruction.

Based on what I can learn from the Pentagon--although it was not all that clear from the response I received--based on what I could learn from the Pentagon, it seems there was no ``secret'' or ``top secret'' clearance given this reporter.

Now, last evening I talked to a soldier in Germany, a man who was a part of the unit in which this reporter was embedded. He was very willing and interested in talking about the entire experience. The fellow from Germany, who is a sergeant in that special unit Judith Miller was embedded in, spoke at some length about what happened there. I told him of the quote Judith Miller had in the New York Times. He said he would have understood that she would have likely seen secret or even top secret information. The way the reporter is embedded in that circumstance, they have access to a substantial amount of information, could not help but have access. So the question I asked the Pentagon is, on what basis would a reporter have access to these clearances to receive secret or top secret information?

Further, it is my understanding, at least from the sergeant whom I spoke with in Germany last evening, all that was transmitted from this reporter, embedded with a military unit, was approved by the colonel involved in that military unit and material was not to be published without the colonel's approval. Well, of course, that is the censoring of the material. It is also the case as reported not only by the sergeant in the conversation I had last evening but also in previous publications, that this reporter, Judith Miller, described often her acquaintance with Donald Rumsfeld and Mr. Feith and others in the Pentagon at high levels, including generals. And she expressed freely her either agreement or disagreement with the military activities of the unit she was in, and talked about complaining back to Rumsfeld, and so on and so forth.

I don't know the voracity of all of that. All I am reporting is what I was told by someone in that unit. That is, perhaps, for another discussion. I intend to visit about this a bit more fully tomorrow.

The first question I have is not just with respect to Judith Miller, but generally under what conditions were reporters approved to be embedded with military units and given opportunity to see secret or top secret material? Did they have security clearances or not? The Pentagon says not. This reporter said she did. If they had clearances, what kinds of clearances were they? The Pentagon said they have nondisclosure forms. How can you give a nondisclosure form to a reporter and then show them secret or top secret material? Take a look at the law, which I will read tomorrow in the Senate. That is not what is allowed.

The classification of material that is secret or top secret dealing with intelligence or military operations is not a classification that is done lightly. It is not a classification that can be overcome by someone in the Pentagon who says, Okay, put on a military shirt or a pair of military trousers and go embed yourself with that unit, and, by the way, you sign a form that says ``nondisclosure.'' That is not the way we decide how to disperse information that is considered secret or top secret.

Those who are in our Senate community, on our staffs and so on, those who are permitted to see classified secret and top secret material, must have a clearance. That clearance must come after an investigation to determine whether that person is qualified to have classified information. I am asking the Pentagon, did they provide a clearance? The short answer says no, they did not. The writer says they did. The Pentagon says a ``nondisclosure form.'' What on Earth is that? How many nondisclosure forms exist when they are embedding men and women in the news media with military units engaged in activities that often are secret and top secret?

I will be asking the inspector general at the Pentagon to take a look at this to evaluate for the Congress. All Members should understand this. What are the circumstances by which a reporter describes her access to see secret information because she had a ``clearance'' from the Pentagon when the Pentagon said she did not have a clearance? We understand what secret clearances are around here. All of us understand that. We deal with that classification every day. What are the circumstances by which a reporter is allowed to see secret or top secret information because they have a clearance, when the Pentagon says no such clearance exists?

If, in fact, it is not a clearance and the reporter has simply misspoken, if it is instead a nondisclosure form, then I would like to see the provision in law by which the Pentagon has decided to provide nondisclosure releases to journalists who join military units whose units then censor the material that comes from the journalist. And is there

in any way any implied quid pro quo, saying: Give me a clearance, embed me, let me see secret material; and by the way, I won't report on the things that are secret and you can review all things I write and take out the things you do not like?

I do not know the circumstance. What I have read in recent days raised questions for me beyond what has been raised in recent days which is the issue of the special prosecutor and his potential action before the grand jury expires. I don't know about all of that. I am as interested as others about what may or may not happen.

I am a member of the Subcommittee on Defense Appropriations. We spend a fair amount of time evaluating weapons programs and other issues that are secret and top secret. But I don't understand this, a self- description by a New York Times reporter about her clearance to see secret information as part of being embedded with the military unit.

Mr. President, I will have more to say about this tomorrow. In the meantime, I intend to try to find additional answers. They have not been forthcoming in the last couple of days. But I think all of the Congress, all of the Senate, should be asking these questions as well.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, my colleague, Senator Landrieu from Louisiana, will be on the floor shortly. We want to talk about something that has occurred in the last week. A week ago today, I chaired a hearing of the Policy Committee. The hearing was on the subject of the reconstruction in the Gulf States in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. We have held many previous hearings on reconstruction in Iraq. As you know, this Congress has literally spent tens of billions of dollars on reconstruction projects in Iraq, and the waste, fraud, and abuse there is mind-boggling. There is massive money going out the door to contractors, in many cases with large no-bid contracts, and the taxpayers are getting bilked. I will not go into the lengthy stories about it now.

We decided to hold a hearing with respect to contracting in the gulf because this Congress has already approved $60 billion for reconstruction, and we have heard tales and stories that are similar to those we hear with respect to reconstruction in Iraq.

At last Monday's hearing, we heard from a local New Orleans company. The owner of the company and his job foreman originally were hired to provide 75 qualified electricians to work on a project they had begun at the Belle Chase Naval Air Station in Louisiana. The project they were hired for was with Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton. This company was hired to provide 75 qualified electricians.

Very soon after they started, these qualified Louisiana electricians, many of whom were victimized by the hurricanes and who very much appreciated these jobs, were replaced by others. They were replaced by workers who were not of the same training in electrical skills. In many cases, Bob Knight, the general manager of the New Orleans company that suffered this fate, described the replacement workers as follows:

Almost all of their workers were from out of State, and

most didn't speak English. Few seemed to me to be qualified

electricians. According to the Halliburton subcontractor,

they were being paid [a fraction of the] prevailing hourly

wage, with no benefits. At that time they were living in

small tents on the base.

Here is a photograph of the circumstances of how they were living. This is, of course, a little rough shed with 2 by 4s to frame up some beds. I am guessing most of these are undocumented workers brought in to take the jobs that had belonged to the folks in Louisiana who desperately need these jobs. But because the President said there is no requirement to pay what Davis-Bacon wages, no requirement to pay the prevailing wage in this region, the result is unscrupulous contractors who bring in workers who will work for dirt cheap wages with no benefits and many hours and put them up in circumstances such as this.

And, oh, by the way, some of them were told they could go to work on a crew such as this and get a fraction of what they would have to pay others who are skilled, and they can get free meals at the Red Cross. Unbelievable, isn't it? Here is what is happening to jobs that are supposed to belong to the folks in Louisiana and presumably also Mississippi. People who got hit hard by the hurricane, who lost everything, in many cases, expected perhaps to get an opportunity to get back on their feet with a good job that pays all right as skilled electricians. They put together 75 of them and are told by the contractor: This job is going to last; it is going to be an opportunity for you. And just like that, somebody else is brought in because the President said they do not have to pay prevailing wages.

Guess what. Here is the circumstance, here are the people with the jobs. Most do not speak English. Most were brought, many of them undocumented.

Last Thursday or Friday, following the hearing that I held, there was a raid at this military installation by what is normally called the INS. It is now I guess the ICE, as it has been subsumed into this behemoth organization called Homeland Security.

At any rate, the immigration folks raided, and we are told by people on the ground that they found somewhere around 150 undocumented workers. The immigration folks now say they found 10 that they know of, but they play a little game with us because the more questions we ask, the less information we get from them.

It is pretty clear to me, based on eyewitness accounts on the ground, that they went in after the hearing we did and found undocumented workers on that military installation who had taken the jobs, we believe, from the folks in Louisiana who had been victimized by these hurricanes, the jobs they were working at.

Here is the Washington Post. This was last week after the hearing:

Among the electricians who lost their jobs was Sam Smith,

whose house in the Ninth Ward was destroyed after Katrina

slammed into the Louisiana coast. Smith, 55, returned to the

city because of the promise of $22-an-hour wages, and

guaranteed work for at least a year at the naval base.

By the way, he was a skilled electrician with all the certifications.

He was quickly disappointed, however, and lost his job

within three weeks. ``You would think that the federal

government should be making sure that people who are trying

to restart their lives and are trying to put their city back

together again are out there working,'' Smith said. ``But

that's not the case.''

The New York Times:

The acrid smell inside trailer No. 2 is tough to take for

any length of time. The linoleum floor is filthy and bare,

aside from a few soiled blankets hammed in the corners.

Dishes caked with leftover food are piled high in the sink,

attracting flies. Two portable fans are the only things

stirring the air. But six men are living here. They sleep on

that floor. They swat away those flies and dodge the roaches

at night. They traveled all the way from Guatemala.

They are promised good pay, three meals a day and place to

stay, and some contractors make good on this. But the

Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance, an advocacy group,

says many do not.

So it is, without the prospect of paying prevailing wages, the jobs are going to these kinds of folks.

They get $8 an hour and labor 11 hours a day, six days a

week. Subcontractors pulled them together for Belfor USA, an

American subsidiary of a multibillion-dollar international

company specializing in restoration after disasters. Before

New Orleans, they had separately held construction, farm or

factory jobs from Texas to North Carolina, they said.

The point is, there are other stories about workers, workers from elsewhere willing to take substandard wages to help the reconstruction of Louisiana and Mississippi.

We passed $60 billion out of this Chamber in reconstruction money and, guess what. What we now understand is reconstruction is going to others, not the folks from Louisiana, not the people who have a skilled certification as an electrician who lost their homes and who need the job. No, this is about companies that decide to bring in these folks and put them in these conditions--squalid conditions--and pay them a fraction of what should be paid for those jobs.

By the way, the foreman on the job who testified Monday--and my colleague from Louisiana was at that hearing--the foreman said these folks were not qualified. They were just not qualified. By the way, they were putting up 900 tents in metal frames in which our troops will live. And we have electricians not qualified wiring those tents for electricity? What on earth is going on?

It is the same old thing. They are paying a fraction of what they should pay and getting rid of the Louisiana

workers so they can bring in these workers from Guatemala and elsewhere. You saw the stories: Undocumented workers, INS or ICE, they call it, the immigration folks, make a raid on the base.

My colleague from Louisiana will expand on that further, I am sure. They make a raid on the base, and we are told by people who were there that they found many--we heard 150 people. Now they will say there are only 10. At this point, they do not know, they cannot know, they will not tell us. It is the same old tap dance by a big Federal bureaucracy that does not want to get caught.

They ought to do their job, come clean, and tell us what they found on that base. I think I know what they found. I think what they found were contractors bringing in undocumented workers, paying them pennies on the dollar, taking jobs away from the folks in Louisiana. That is what I think they found.

I wonder if there is any Member of the Senate, just one, who wants to stand up and say: Yes, that is what we meant, we meant to shove $60 billion out the door of this Chamber and hope that some contractor would bring in some undocumented workers--and fire some Louisiana folks--to do the work in Louisiana. If there is one Senator willing to stand up and say that, they are not thinking very much. There is not one person in this Chamber who will agree that is what they meant, not in their worst moment.

I take no pleasure in pointing this out. In my judgment, this is a corruption of the process. We know what needs to be done. We know how to do it. There is a right way and a wrong way to do things, and what is happening is we are seeing the wrong way implemented in the reconstruction down in the gulf coast.

My colleague from the State of Louisiana participated in those hearings. I know she has been in touch with the contractors and knows what is happening with respect to that Naval air station as well, but I thank her for the work she has done. I can only imagine if it were my State or some other State of a Senator in this Chamber facing this, we would demand that those for whom those jobs were intended would have those jobs, not that they be fired so we could bring in undocumented workers and pay them pennies on the dollar. That is unbelievable incompetence, and we need to see it stopped right now.

So let me thank my colleague from Louisiana.

Of course. I would be happy to yield.

I was not aware of the number. I know this is devastating, the most significant natural disaster with the greatest consequence in terms of human misery, loss of jobs, loss of homes. It is unbelievable.

I realize that a lot of undocumented workers are just decent people who are trying to make a living. I don't mean to disparage them. My intention is to say, however, there are rules, and there is a right way and a wrong way to do things. We did not spend $60 billion out of this Chamber to give jobs to undocumented workers. We spent that amount of money to help the folks from Louisiana get back on their feet with good jobs for reconstruction, and the same for the folks from Mississippi.

I intend to work with the Senator from Louisiana and others to put a stop to what is going on, to redirect that money. We want reconstruction to move and move quickly, but we want those jobs to go to the victims, those folks who have suffered through all of this as well. We want those workers to be paid good wages. Davis-Bacon ought to be restored. The President ought to stand up today and say: I made a mistake by repealing Davis-Bacon. This Government has a responsibility to pay prevailing wages so we have good wages that pay well and decent jobs for those folks.

I again thank the Senator from Louisiana. I know she wants to make some comments about this as well.

I yield the floor.

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

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

Mr. President, my colleagues, Senators Alexander and Bingaman, have been to the floor to describe a publication that has now been provided to all 100 Senators. It is by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine, entitled ``Rising Above the Gathering Storm, Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future.'' They have spoken about this report with justifiable pride. They did instigate some of the best scientific minds to ask and answer the question: Are we losing our scientific edge and what would it mean if we did and what do we do to get it back?

Part of this country's long-term opportunity and the opportunity to create a middle class in a country with an economy unlike any other in the world has been technology, science, knowledge, and education. The question is: Are we losing our edge? The answer in this report is: Yes, we are. Then it describes a number of ways to put together an approach that would deal with that. While I think this is very helpful, it is the first chapter of a rather lengthy book, the book about what is happening in our country. It reminds me of the movie ``How Stella Got Her Groove Back.'' Has America lost its groove?

This country has done so much. This is the country that split the atom, spliced genes. We have been inventive. We have invented everything: Plastics, the silicon chip, radar. We cured smallpox, polio. We invented the telephone, the computer, television. We built airplanes, learned how to fly them. We built rockets and walked on the moon. Particularly in the last 100 years, America has been extraordinary in what it has done. It is standing on one another's shoulders, looking over the horizon and building and inventing and creating. Has America lost its groove? That is not the title of my remarks, but that was the question that was asked. The answer is in the covers of a lengthy report saying, among other things, we have to change our education system. We have to educate more engineers. It says that the Chinese and the folks from India are educating far more engineers than we are, and that is going to have an impact. We need greater teaching of science in our schools. I don't disagree with any of that. This is a significant contribution to a debate that we should have about new public policy.

But none of this means anything unless we also talk about the conditions under which we are exporting America's jobs and, yes, exporting good jobs, scientific jobs, technical jobs to other countries. If you triple the number of engineers educated in America and then discover that in the country of India you can hire five engineers for every engineer you pay in this country--and we continue to see an exodus of jobs out of this country to two countries, India and China--of what value has been tripling the number of engineers in America?

That brings me to the central point of what I wanted to talk about briefly today, or perhaps not so briefly because it is Friday. Nobody seems to be crowding people here on the floor. What I want to talk about is the issue of international trade and a trade policy that perhaps much more than the issue of losing the edge in science and technology, is injuring this country and pulling the foundation out from under the future of all the kids now in college and high school.

Let me describe some of this with some charts. This is our trade deficit. As you can see, this is a sea of red ink. Year after year we see our trade deficit grows worse and worse. It is now at about $700- plus billion a year. That means for every single day, 7 days a week, every single day we buy $2 billion more in goods from other countries than we sell. That means, at the end of the year, we have a trade deficit. This year we expect a trade deficit of about $750 billion. Add to that the roughly $550 billion in fiscal policy budget deficits--that is the amount that the Federal debt increased in the last year--and you are talking about a Federal indebtedness of $1.2 trillion. You would think that people would have an apoplectic seizure about that, understanding its consequences. But we just snore through it all, having pleasant dreams and a soft, little sleep. Nobody seems to care much. You would at least think that those people who are self-defined conservatives, wearing flinty gray suits and steel rim glasses and having the banker impetus that conservatives used to have, would say: This has to stop. A country can't run a $1.2 trillion indebtedness and expect to have a better future. But there is dead silence.

The only people who talk about this portion of the deficit are Fritz Hollings--he sat here. He is gone. Fritz left--I have been out here. Senator Byrd has from time to time. Otherwise, there is vast silence.

I want to talk through some of this. I want to tell you about the trade deficit with China because this is almost one-third of our deficit. It is unbelievable what has happened with respect to our bilateral trade relationship with China. I want to also talk to you about China and trade agreements because I think it is at the root of where we are headed. Automobile trade with China is interesting. ``Here Come the Really Cheap Cars,'' says Time magazine.

Chinese pirate companies have long been accused of

illegally copying easy stuff such as shoe polish and digital

movies. Now General Motors says a Chinese firm knocked off an

entire vehicle--and Americans could soon start buying its

cars.

Let me tell you a story about Chinese cars. We have this giant trade deficit with China. We have massive numbers of jobs, this giant sucking sound of American jobs rushing to China, to Bangladesh and Indonesia and Mexico but especially China. We negotiate a trade deal with China. This gets to the root of my contention that our trade negotiators are basically incompetent. I don't say that lightly. I say it because it is true. Let me describe the bilateral automobile provisions of trade with China that our country negotiated. We negotiated a bilateral deal and we said: By the way, with respect to the sale and movement of automobiles between China and the United States, here is what we will agree to. We will agree that after a phase-in, any U.S. cars that are sold in China, you can impose a 25-percent tariff on the cars we want to sell in China. And the United States, we will impose a 2.5-percent tariff on Chinese cars you want to move here.

Our negotiators said to a country with which we have a huge trade deficit: You can impose a tariff that is 10 times higher on American cars we want to sell in China than on Chinese cars they want to sell in America.

Why on Earth would someone agree to that? It is fundamentally unsound. It doesn't make any sense. China has nearly 1.4 billion people. They have 20 million automobiles on the roads. By the year 2020, they will have 120 million cars on the road. That means in the next 15 years, they will add 100 million cars. I can talk about the consequences for oil and energy issues with respect to that, but here is a market with 1.4 billion people for 100 million additional

cars in the next 15 years. It is a country with which we have a large deficit. Our country has said to them: By the way, you charge a tariff that is 10 times higher on U.S. cars we try to sell in China than we will charge on Chinese cars to the United States.

Whoever negotiated that is incompetent and ought to be thrown out of Government immediately. But we can't figure out who did that, so that is what stands.

Here is what is happening on the other side. In China, there is a company called Chery. That is one letter away from Chevy. The Chery company is producing a car called the QQ. The QQ is a car that General Motors says is a rip-off of the production designs, right down to the details, of a car that General Motors was building. So General Motors says the Chinese company has stolen the production design blueprints for a car they now call the QQ.

What are the Chinese about to do? They are about to ramp up a significant automobile export industry, presumably including the QQ, which General Motors says was stolen from them, and we will see Chinese cars on the streets of this country coming in with tariffs one-tenth the rate of the tariffs if we were to try to sell U.S. cars in China-- not that there is a big market for U.S. cars in China because China isn't interested in buying too much in terms of American products.

Here is what is happening with respect to bilateral automobile trade with China. It is unbelievably inept for this country to allow this to happen. We should not negotiate trade agreements with countries with which we have a huge deficit and say: Here is another big advantage to sucking jobs out of our country and putting those jobs in China. That makes no sense at all.

The report I referenced a bit ago is a report that talks about science and technology. But it doesn't include the other discussions about the conditions of production around the world. The production, for example, in countries such as Bangladesh and others in which children are employed, in some cases in slavelike conditions, locked behind factory doors, working 14 hours a day, 7 days a week. Those are the conditions of production in some areas that U.S. workers are told to compete against. And to the U.S. workers: If you can't compete, you are going to get fired.

Let me describe some examples of that. I have described this at great length because it is such a perfect one, but there are many others. This is Huffy bicycles. Again, I guess repetition is important. Huffy bicycles, they are not made here anymore. They were made by folks from Ohio. They all got fired. They got fired because they were making $11 an hour making Huffy bicycles, $11 an hour plus benefits. But that was way too much money, according to the company. So these are all now made in China. You can buy them at Wal-Mart and Sears and Kmart. But they are not American bikes. They are Chinese bikes. As an aside, the company Huffy has declared bankruptcy so that the people who used to work for Huffy will not get their pensions that were guaranteed by Huffy, and now the American taxpayer, through the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, will be picking up that cost.

Here is what happened to Huffy. These people that made Huffy bicycles were making an honest living, enjoyed their work, did a good job, by all accounts. But now they were replaced. They were fired. The new employees make 33 cents an hour producing these bicycles in China. They work 7 days a week, and they work 12 to 14 hours a day. That is how your Huffy bike is produced. The folks who worked in Ohio are having to find other things to do because they made way too much money, $11 an hour.

We built this country believing that the middle class ought to be able to rise up and get educated and find a good job and be paid well. Now we are told that is a disadvantage. If you are paid well, the company says: Employing you is a huge disadvantage to us. We would sooner employ somebody whom we can pay 33 cents an hour. So we have Huffy bicycles. People say: That is manufacturing. We are going to lose those jobs because it is going to go to people in Bangladesh or China or other areas.

This is a Palm pilot. The last note on that Palm pilot was from a wonderful young woman who did everything you should do. She was an African-American woman who got advanced degrees and did everything one should do. She went into the job market and found a job in Silicon Valley in technology working on the Palm Pilot. But her last job dealing with the Palm Pilot was to train the person from India who was going to take her job. That is right. They brought the replacement over, and then they sent her to India to train the replacement.

Here is what she said on her Palm Pilot on her last day of work, this woman who did a good job, advanced college degrees, did everything you should do. The last message was: ``My job's gone to India.'' Why? Because they could hire folks there for a fraction of the cost. It is about driving down wages. It is about profit, and it is about not caring about American workers.

The message is, if you are making $11 an hour building bicycles or you are working at Palm pilot, you are making too much. You should be paid Chinese wages. Or wages in India or Sri Lanka or Bangladesh.

Samsonite. Most of us have packed for trips with Samsonite. They sent 1,000 U.S. workers packing. Those jobs went to Mexico. Then when Mexican labor got too expensive, they sent those jobs to China and to Vietnam.

We have all seen the Maytag repairman on television waiting for something to do. Apparently he waited too long: 1,600 Maytag U.S. jobs gone to Mexico and then Korea.

Fruit of the Loom. We all have seen these television commercials when they get three guys to dress up--kind of goofy guys dressed up like red grapes, green grapes, and even an apple. Fruit of the Loom guys, 3,200 jobs gone.

I know on the day it happened, it was in the Washington Post that they were shutting down all their factories. I said it is one thing to lose your shirt, but Fruit of the Loom is gone, now we've lost our shorts.

The list, of course, is an endless list. The example I have used before is Fig Newton cookies. That was an all-American cookie. Now, if you want Mexican food, go to Monterey, Mexico, because that is where they make Fig Newton cookies.

Etch-a-Sketch? We have all played Etch-a-Sketch. Wal-Mart decided that Etch-a-Sketch had to be sold for under $10, $9.99. Therefore the Etch-a-Sketch company had to move to China to hire Chinese workers in order to keep Etch-a-Sketch at $9.99. All those workers lost their jobs. The list is almost endless. They don't make one pair of Levis in America. What is more American than a pair of Levis, except they don't make one pair of Levis in America. Gone; they are all gone.

We have all these people sitting around in this Chamber who voted for all these trade agreements--NAFTA, CAFTA, SHAFTA. We have all these acronyms for trade agreements. We have people who voted for all of them. Why? Because they think it is free trade and free trade is what leads to prosperity in our country.

The question is, when you have the examples I have used with respect to trade deficits, one wonders how anyone can take a look at this and continue down the same road. If this is what this trade philosophy buys us, how can we continue it? Who will have the jobs in this country? Where will the jobs exist that produce a middle class and sustain a middle class with people coming out of college and high school expecting to find decent jobs when those jobs are being moved elsewhere at a record pace?

If they say to you, No, this is about producing factory products, pencils and erasers, it is not true. We are now seeing medical technology jobs going elsewhere. We are seeing engineering jobs go elsewhere. We are seeing technology jobs going elsewhere.

IBM, Big Blue, General Motors. General Motors had a meeting that was little reported, but it was a meeting that was held in Detroit. It was on April 7, 2005. A man named Beau Anderson, who is the top purchasing agent for General Motors, called together all the top suppliers to General Motors. He told 380 executives from those suppliers that General Motors has to cut costs and you ought to consider building your car parts in China.

The effect of that, of course, is General Motors saying to their suppliers:

We want your jobs to go to China. Why? To save money and cut costs. It was interesting that 2 months after that, General Motors announced a plan to cut 25,000 jobs. At the same time, they move out their biggest selling brand on television and wave the American Flag and say: This is an American revolution. No, it is not an American revolution, not if you are telling all your suppliers to move American jobs to China. That is not an American revolution.

Or what about Big Blue, IBM, a good American company? These are all good companies. It is just that the culture has changed. I wonder if they say the Pledge of Allegiance in the boardroom because their fealty is to the stockholders and profits and not so much caring about American jobs.

IBM officials Harry Newman and Tom Lynch were in the process of laying off 13,000 U.S. workers and also some workers in Europe and hiring 14,000 workers at the same time in India. Here is an excerpt of the presentation the two IBM officials made. They said:

The good news is, we have not been cited in the press for a

lot of what we are doing here. A couple of years ago, we went

to Mexico with our PC--

That is personal computer--

business as a cheap source of labor. Now Mexico doesn't look

as cheap as some other markets.

And then they say to the managers how to break the news to the IBM employees who will be laid off:

Don't be transparent regarding the purpose or the intent.

The terms ``onshore'' and ``offshore'' should never be used.

In other words, they wanted to get rid of these American employees but did not want to talk straight to them. And, oh, yes, the last thing they said in their memo to IBM employees is: Workers should be told as they are laid off, so they can hire these engineers in India, that this action in no way is a comment on the excellent work they have done over the years.

Really? I thought if you did good work, if you contributed to the company's interests that you probably would not be someone who is fired or lose your job. In 2003, the Washington Post reported that more than one-half of all Fortune 500 companies were outsourcing software development overseas. One-half of the Fortune 500 companies are now moving software development jobs overseas.

Let me talk for a moment about the reason that many companies are finding it advantageous to pole-vault from the United States to other countries and employ these workers. You can employ workers without the restrictions you have in our country. If you want to open a manufacturing plant in China or Bangladesh, for example, you do not have to worry about these things that are a nuisance here, such as the minimum wage. There is no minimum wage, or at least not any that is adhered to. You don't have to worry about worker safety. You don't have to worry about working in a safe work plant, about dumping chemicals into the air or water, and, by the way, you sure don't have to worry about somebody joining a labor union. You can fire them or, better yet, jail them, according to the Chinese authorities.

I can offer some examples of the names of people who are now sitting in Chinese jails. What was their transgression? Trying to organize workers to decide they should not have to work 7 days a week, 12, 14 hours a day for 30, 40, and 50 cents an hour. They tried to organize those workers and now they find themselves in Chinese prisons.

We have been through all of that in this country. This is not something that is new to us. We, for a century, worked through these issues. Most people won't know of James Fyler. James Fyler, I once said, died of acute lead poisoning. I should not have done that. He was shot 54 times. James Fyler was shot 54 times. You know what he was doing? He was leading a labor strike in 1914 of coal miners objecting to working conditions, compensation, and hours. It is not just James Fyler who lost his life. Children working in the silk mills in Patterson, NJ, what was their demand? Eleven-hour days and 6-day workweeks. That is what they wanted. They wanted a 6-day workweek with 11 hours a day. That is what the kids wanted in Patterson, NJ.

In 1877, 10 coal miners were hanged in Pennsylvania. In 1903, Mary Harris Jones led a strike to demand a 55-hour workweek. In 1911, a fire at the Triangle Shirt Waste Company killed 147 people--women and mostly young girls locked in a 10-story building in sweatshop conditions. So we have been through all of this. In 1932, five U.S. autoworkers were beaten to death in Dearborn, MI, by Michigan police and goons when they went on a hunger march against Ford Motor.

We have been through all of this. Our country decided that in America we want to have child labor laws, we want to have fair wages, we believe that workers contribute to a company, we believe people ought to have a right to organize, and we believe workers ought to have the right to work in a safe workplace. We have been through it all. And now the way to avoid all of that is to fire your American workers and move the jobs to China or some other country.

In fact, unbelievably--and I will not name all the names today, although I should; I am writing a book at the moment and I will name all the names in the book--unbelievably, this Senate supports a tax provision that rewards companies that shut down their American manufacturing plants and move jobs overseas. We voted on that, I believe, four times on amendments I offered. I have lost all four of the amendments. On all four occasions, this Senate has expressed itself by saying, We believe it is appropriate to provide tax incentives to American companies that shut down their American plants, get rid of their American workers, and move the jobs overseas. That is unbelievable to me, but it is true, and all the names of the folks who voted that way--they know who they are--we will vote on it again, and we will continue to pay for it, we will reward it.

The question is what kind of a country is going to exist here 5 and 10 years from now as this line of dramatic increases in red ink continues.

One of the interesting characters I have met in my life is Warren Buffett, the second richest man in the world. He lives in Omaha, NE. He is as plain as an old shoe. I am sure he doesn't mind me saying that. He is the second richest man in the world, and you wouldn't know it. I don't know how you act as the second richest man in the world. Whatever it is, he doesn't act it. He is an interesting, provocative thinker.

What does he say about all this? Warren Buffett is one of the few major business figures in this country who says this is nuts; this is dangerous. He said we are heading toward a sharecropper society in this country in which other countries own the assets of America because every single day $2 billion goes to some other country. We buy $2 billion more from those countries than we sell to those countries. They hold American assets with which they can buy American stocks and bonds, and they can buy American real estate.

We are selling America piece by piece, and Warren Buffett is the only business leader I am aware of who speaks out on this subject, I am sure at some displeasure of other business leaders in this country.

I know some will listen to all of this and say it is the same old anticorporation rant. I want corporations to do well. I recognize big isn't always bad and small isn't always beautiful. You are not going to build a 757 airplane in a garage someplace in a small town. We need economies of scale. We do need larger enterprises for that. But I also believe there ought to be some courage to stand up for the economic interests of this country and, once it is decided the gate is open for companies to decide anywhere in the world they want to hire workers for pennies on the hour and get rid of their American workers, we ought to understand the consequences of that for our country.

The solution is not to train triple or quadruple the number of engineers in our country. While I would think that is probably a useful thing, that does not solve our problem. Having trained engineers who are unemployed is relatively worthless. What we need are trade agreements that stand up for our country's economic interests and, regrettably, those trade agreements at this point don't exist.

I wish to point out that nobody wants to talk about these issues, least of all the Labor Department. This is

from the Associated Press. It says, ``Labor Department Withholds Trade Reports.'' And just before we voted on the Central American free trade agreement, the Department of Labor, we discover, had kept secret for more than a year Government-commissioned studies that supported those of us who were opponents of this new trade deal. It talks about the fact that in the Central American countries there are just horrible labor conditions.

I wanted to show you a picture that shows the face of Central American labor. This is a young--I believe this boy is 11 years old in the sugarcane field in Honduras in this particular case. That is the face of labor in Central America.

The report in question was kept secret by the Department of Labor for a year. Why? Because they didn't want those of us in the Chamber who opposed the Central American free trade agreement to have that information.

If you wonder what the face of unfair trade looks like, this is an example. These are teenage girls whose hands are bound by ropes. I believe this is in Bangladesh. These pictures were taken by a journalist who was there. These young girls raised some objections to the working conditions in their factory in Bangladesh. The working conditions were unbelievable: 12- to 14-hour days, 7 days a week. And so they decided to protest. These are young kids who are held virtually captive. By the way, the product of their work comes to the United States and Europe for sale.

But let me show you the rest of the photographs that have been taken in Bangladesh. Here is a young woman shot in the stomach, part of the same group. Here are the pictures by the same photographer of the beatings.

What is this all about? It is about young kids, kids as young as 10 and 12 years old being put in factories in intolerable conditions working 12, 14 hours a day, 7 days a week without a break saying, Wait a second, this is killing us. And what is the result? The result is a trained police force comes in and decides to beat them mercilessly.

That picture is self-explanatory. That man is dead, shot dead because he believed that those labor conditions were intolerable and believed people ought to have a right to some self-determination.

We talk a lot about freedom these days. What about the freedom for these kids in Bangladesh? What about some knowledge by American consumers about the conditions of production for all these cheap products? It is something nobody wants to talk much about, but it is something one of these days this Congress and this country are going to have to deal with.

This economy is not doing well. Most of us know that. Oh, there was a spurt of some income-tax receipts and the spurt of those income-tax receipts recently was caused by a perverse business decision by this Congress, and those who voted for that will know of that as well. That decision was, let's decide for all those companies that have moved their jobs overseas and that are making money overseas move to America at some point and repatriate their profit and pay taxes, let's decide for them that we will give them a 5\1/4\-percent tax rate. Nobody else in the country has that. Nobody. But for those who moved their jobs overseas and they repatriate their income, we will let them pay 5\1/4\ rather than 35 percent.

What about my Uncle Harold? Why shouldn't he pay 5\1/4\ percent? Why shouldn't the rest of the people pay 5\1/4\ percent income tax? No, that wasn't good enough for all Americans, just the big interests that moved their jobs overseas.

I didn't support it. I thought it was outrageous, unbelievable to do this, but this Congress did it. It is pretty accommodating to big economic interests, and so we had votes and I voted against it; many voted for it. And so we have had a repatriation of income and had some small increase in income tax because of that. That is temporary. So now people say, Well, the deficit is less this year than last year. This year is still the third highest deficit in the history of this country. And it is going higher. It was less this year because of this perversion of rewarding companies that moved their jobs overseas. In fact, the Federal debt increased in the last year by over a half a trillion dollars. The trade debt increased, or will increase, this year by over $700 billion. That is $1.2 trillion in total indebtedness. We are way off track, just way off track.

Is there alarm or concern about it? No, not really I guess. We get hit with a hurricane. Well, the payment for that is very much like the war in Iraq. We get a budget from the President at the start of the year and it says, OK, we are in Iraq, we have 140,000 American troops in Iraq, it is costing a great deal of money, it is costing about $5 to $6 billion a month in Iraq and Afghanistan and guess what, my budget requests zero funding for it. Zero. This wouldn't pass eighth grade arithmetic.

So now every year the President sends us a budget with zero funding. So OK, we pass a budget because we understand later on the President will come back to this Chamber and say, oh, by the way, there is another expenditure to be approved outside the budget for emergency funding. It can add to the debt and nobody should care about that. And so then we get an emergency funding request for $50 billion, $40 billion, $70 billion, and that is the way it goes. No one is willing to stare truth in the face. But we are in significant trouble here, headed toward a result that is not a good result for this country.

The question for all of us is, When will we be straight? When will this Congress and this President be straight with the American people? Being straight with the American people means to get the fiscal house in order and to solve this trade mess. If we don't, we are burdening our kids with massive amounts of debt, unparalleled in the history of this country.

Is there evidence that the President is interested in this? No. Very little, very little at all. Is there evidence that Congress wants to deal with this?

Well, it is interesting. You go back to the year 2001 when the expectation was there had been a turnaround, things were looking better, not necessarily with respect to trade but with respect to the budget, we were going to have surpluses and all of a sudden the prediction was surpluses for 10 straight years and the President said to the Congress: You know what the predictions are for 10 straight years. Let's provide really big tax cuts. Some of us said: You know, maybe that is not the conservative way. Maybe we should be conservative. What if something happens? What if the surpluses don't materialize? The expectation of surpluses for 10 years, what if they are not there? What if something happens? Oh, don't worry, be happy, let's have big tax cuts.

And so those who got the biggest tax cuts were those with the biggest income. If you were a millionaire, I am telling you, in 2001 you should have had a lot of celebrating to do because you got the largest tax cuts you had ever seen.

So we had tax cuts and then all of a sudden we have a recession. Then we have a war in Afghanistan. We have the terrorist attack of 9/11, a war in Afghanistan, a war in Iraq. Then we have the proposed surpluses turning to big deficits, following which we have massive natural disasters. Now we have continuing costs of $5 to $6 billion a month in Iraq and Afghanistan and we have been hit with Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita. The President says we can deal with all that.

If we just took back the tax cuts for those with over $1 million a year in income, just that, and should probably do it this afternoon, if we just took back the tax cuts, the tax cuts given to those with a million a year or more of income, we would raise about $32 billion a year.

Use that to reduce the deficit. I am for that. Is that picking on millionaires? No. They have the highest growth in income in the last decade. They didn't need a tax cut, especially a tax cut that we have charged and added to the debt because the surplus didn't exist.

But, Mr. President, we cannot possibly begin to put this country back on track unless we address both issues of the fiscal policy that is dangerously off track and a trade policy that is not only incompetent and ``fundamentally dumb'' with people chanting on street corners about free trade when the evidence is all around us that has abysmally failed. If we don't address these things, we don't have much of an economic future.

There is not a Republican or Democratic way to address them. There is a

right and a wrong way to address them. And you can't start until the country has the will, until the Congress and the President have the will and exhibit the leadership to address them.

McCullough spoke about John Adams in that book ``John Adams'' as they were trying to put this new country together. Adams is traveling a lot, especially in Europe, and he writes to Abigail. And that is why we know a lot about John Adams. Back then he would say to Abigail as he was traveling: From where will the leadership come? Where will the leadership come from to help form this new country of ours? Where will the leadership emerge?

Then in a later letter he would sort of say lamentingly, there is really only us to provide the leadership. There is just us. There is me; there is George Washington; there is Thomas Jefferson; there is Ben Franklin; there is Mason; there is Madison. Well, in the rearview mirror of history they were only a few of some of the great talent in human history who framed quite a remarkable country and a Constitution that says ``we the people.''

But every generation of Americans has to ask the same question: From where will the leadership come? Who will emerge as the leaders to help put this on track? That is especially the case now. Who will emerge as the leaders to begin standing up for the economic interests of this country and to say that we can't continue these kinds of trade deficits, we can't continue shipping good American jobs overseas because people who make $11 an hour are paid too much? Where will the middle class in America be? Will we have a middle class if $11 an hour is the wage that is too high? Are we going to be willing to stand up for the economic interests for our country? Are our trade policies designed to raise other countries or push our country down? The answer to that, quite clearly, is push down wages and opportunities.

You read every day in your local newspapers about what is happening to pensions and benefits for workers across this country and, for that matter, wages.

If I might close with just the Palm Pilot message from the young woman from Silicon Valley. I think it says it all. I mean you lose your job in this country. You go to school; you get an education; you go to work for a technology company; you build Palm Pilots, help design them; and the last message on this young woman's Palm Pilot was ``My job's gone to India.'' Guess what. She trained her successor as well. That is what the company required her to do at her last job. So the next time people say it is only about manufacturing jobs and it is really advantageous for us if we can find someone to make shoes and shirts and pants and clothes and trinkets and trousers in China or Bangladesh because it is cheaper for us to go to a big box retailer and pay that money, when they say that, understand it is not just about those jobs. Yes, it is jobs, but it is about jobs going to India and somebody who made Palm Pilots. It is about engineers going to India. It is about a massive loss of American jobs, 3 million in the last 4 years, and much, much more to come, given the trade agreements we have had and given the trade agreements that are now being negotiated.

I have one last point. Right now Ambassador Portman is negotiating a new trade deal in a place called Doha. I am assuming they are negotiating in Doha because they can't do it in New York or Paris or London or places such as that; the streets would be full of demonstrators because people are fed up with these kinds of agreements. So they are negotiating in Doha behind closed doors in secret and our negotiator has, in my judgment, just put a cherry on top of whipped cream on the sundae here in terms of incompetency. He said everything is on the table.

That means for everybody who is unfairly dumping in our country, we are willing to trade it away; it is on the table as they trade away our antidumping laws. That is the protection we are supposed to have in trade law against those who would commit unfair trade practices against us. We are willing to trade that away, the antidumping and the counterveiling duties. It is all on the table.

This is unbelievable to me. This country needs a spine, a backbone, and a willingness to stand up for its own economic interests, and this has now been the case for some long while.

Mr. President, I will again offer amendments dealing with trade. I will offer the amendment which has been defeated now four times that rewards tax breaks, companies that ship American jobs overseas and hope, perhaps, that if not enough see the light perhaps more will feel the heat. One day perhaps there will be a majority who will step forward to stop this insidious practice to provide tax breaks for companies that ship American jobs overseas. If we can't take the first baby step, there is little hope to keep good jobs in this county.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

The ACTING PRESIDENT PRO TEMPORE. The Senator from Ohio.

Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Inouye, I ask unanimous consent that Susan Ball, an intern in his office, be granted the privileges of the floor during consideration of the Labor-Health and Human Services bill and any votes thereon.

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

Mr. President, I take the floor to withdraw an amendment, but I will not withdraw it for the moment. I will say a few words and then ask that the amendment be withdrawn. I do not need consent to do that as sponsor of the amendment because the yeas and nays have not yet been ordered.

If there were a high school or college student listening, I think it would be a good lesson for them, particularly if they are interested in political science, to understand where we are at this moment from a parliamentary standpoint and why I am withdrawing the amendment I offered yesterday.

Incidentally, this will not be the last my colleagues see of this amendment. We have had it on the floor before. It has been passed by the Senate before, as a matter of fact, dropped in conference. We will not have an opportunity to vote on it now because of the parliamentary circumstances.

So let me describe what it is. First of all, the amendment is germane and relevant to this appropriations bill. I have the right and did offer an amendment yesterday that prohibits the expenditure of funds in this appropriations bill by an organization called OFAC, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, which is a relatively small Federal office deep in the bowels of the catacombs of the Treasury Department. The job of the Office of Foreign Assets Control is to try to track down and intercept the money that supports terrorism, to go find the money that supports Osama bin Laden, to go find the money that supports terrorism.

Well, the Office of Foreign Assets Control does more than that now. In fact, my understanding is they have more people in the Office of Foreign Assets Control tracking Americans who travel to Cuba to take a vacation than they do tracking the money that goes to support terrorism for Osama bin Laden's network.

So let me describe what they do because, as you know, in this country's zeal to punish Fidel Castro--we are going to slap around Fidel Castro; we don't like him; it is a communist country; he is a communist leader; we don't like him; he sticks his finger in our eye repeatedly--we have slapped an embargo for 40 years on Cuba. We also decided if American people travel to Cuba, they shall be fined. So we have restricted the freedom of the American people to travel in order to slap around Fidel Castro.

If you get on a plane today someplace and travel to Cuba, and you do not have a license, here is what is going to happen to you. By the way, you won't be able to get a license because they are offered down at the Office of Foreign Asset Control and over at the State Department, and if you apply for a license to travel to Cuba, they will say no.

But I will give you an example. Kurt Foster went to Cuba. He was under suspicion of having taken a vacation in Cuba. And be darned if he didn't take a vacation in Cuba. He didn't know it was illegal. But he got back to this country and, boy, they tracked him down.

Those folks at the Office of Foreign Assets Control, they have that magnifying glass and the cap with brims on both sides, and they scour around to figure out if there is an American who has gone to Cuba.

They found this guy, Kurt Foster. All right. He purchased an airline ticket to Cuba and failed to declare Cuba as a country visited, and they fined him $7,500. Then he used a credit card while in Cuba, and they fined him $1,000. Then he paid for lodging, food, and drinks while in Cuba--he spent $175 there--and they fined him $10,000 for that. Then he brought back a box of cigars and 27 other Cuban goods at $10 each, and that was a $520 fine.

So Mr. Kurt Foster was fined $19,020 by our U.S. Government. Why? What was the transgression? He visited Cuba. God forbid this man should visit Cuba. But Kurt Foster, that is a man without a face.

Let me just put a face on this issue, as I did yesterday. This is a picture of Joni Scott. I met Joni Scott. She came to my office. She is a wonderful young woman, a missionary, someone with great zeal in her faith.

She went to Cuba to distribute free Bibles on the streets of Havana, Cuba. This wonderful young American woman wanted to distribute free Bibles in Cuba. She did not know you had to have a license. She came back. Our Government tracked her down. They are going to slap a big fine on her for distributing free Bibles in Cuba. That is Joni Scott.

Here is Mrs. Slote. I have also met Mrs. Slote. As you can see, she is about 76, 77 years old in this picture. She is a senior Olympian. She is wearing a bicycling outfit because she likes to bicycle. Joan Slote actually answered an advertisement in a Canadian cycling magazine. So she joined a Canadian cycling group on a tour of Cuba on bicycles. She didn't know it was illegal for an American to travel to Cuba. She came back. Her son had brain cancer, was dying, and she was attending to her son.

In the meantime, our sleuths down at the Treasury Department tracked her down. They were going to slap a $10,000 fine on her, but she didn't get it because she was not home. She was attending to her son who was dying of brain cancer.

So then, the next effort by the U.S. Government was to attach her Social Security. They were going to take her Social Security away. Why? Because she bicycled in Cuba.

These folks in this picture are disabled marathoners, folks in wheelchairs, folks with lost limbs. They are people with the kind of spirit that is in the Special Olympics, who are disabled marathoners. Their big deal was going to be done in Havana, Cuba, the international event. They raised the money. They trained. They looked forward, with great hope, to go to this international event. Guess what. This country denied the opportunity for them to travel to their international event. Why? Because it was in Cuba.

I have no brief for the Castro government. That is not my purpose.

This man, as shown in this picture, by the way, is a Cuban. He came to this country legally. He is an American citizen. He joined the Marines. He went to Iraq and is a hero. This man has a Bronze Star for serving this country. Both his sons are still in Cuba. One of them was desperately ill. He came back from fighting in Iraq, where he earned a Bronze Star because of his heroism. Then he wanted to visit his sick son in Cuba, and his Government said: You don't have the freedom to do that. You can't see your son.

That is what his Government said. You fought for freedom in Iraq, but you don't have the freedom here to travel to Cuba to see your son.

I offered a bipartisan amendment yesterday for myself, Senators Craig, Baucus, and Enzi, two Democrats, two Republicans. That amendment has passed the Senate previously. The amendment simply said: No funds may be used in this appropriations bill to enforce the travel limitations on the American people traveling to Cuba. Once again, what we have done is, we have decided to restrict the freedom of the American people in order to slap around Fidel Castro--not much of a bargain in a democracy.

Senator Murray is from the State of Washington. I know a man from the State of Washington who, after his father was cremated, took his father's ashes to Cuba because his father wanted his ashes dispersed on the grass in the church where he had ministered in Cuba before coming to this country. When his father died, his compliant son did what he was requested to do. He went to Cuba to distribute his father's ashes.

Our Government--God bless those folks in OFAC with those tiny little glasses and that magnifying glass tracking American citizens--tracked him down and levied a fine for taking his father's ashes to Cuba.

Now I offer the amendment. The Senate has previously agreed to the amendment. Sufficient votes exist in the Senate to agree to the amendment. Yesterday a colleague, following the rules of the Senate, came and offered a second-degree amendment. What is the second-degree? It is about abortion. So the reason I say this is an interesting lesson for people involved in political science is, we now have an amendment that deals with the issue of the freedom of the American people to travel to Cuba second-degreed with an amendment dealing with abortion.

My colleague Senator Ensign offered this second-degree amendment, the Child Custody Protection Act, related to the transportation of minors and circumvention of certain laws relating to abortion. It is an interesting lesson in how our system works around here.

We will offer this again. One of my colleagues was intending to offer a second-degree so we wouldn't have this mischief, but that second- degree didn't get offered. So the result is, another colleague comes over and offers an abortion amendment on a very simple, germane, and relevant amendment dealing with the subject of travel to Cuba.

One of the things that makes the American people a little less than ecstatic about the way we work here is things that ought not use any brainpower at all, such as deciding to penalize Americans, taking away the freedom of the American people to travel because we don't like the Cuban government. We don't do that with China. China is a communist government. We say the best way to move people toward better human rights and democracy is through trade and travel. So we encourage people to go to China. Vietnam is a Communist country. We do the same-- engagement, trade, and travel. But we say with respect to Cuba, what we have to do is restrict the freedom of the American people. That is unbelievably ignorant as a public policy.

We will change it one day, and there are sufficient votes in the Senate to change it. But because there is now a second-degree amendment dealing with abortion attached to the amendment, I will withdraw the amendment this afternoon and simply tell my colleague who offered this that he will have delayed this a bit. But inevitably, I and my colleagues will come to the floor. We will have a sufficient opportunity to prohibit this kind of legitimate but certainly strange mischief with a second-degree amendment on abortion attached to a Cuba travel amendment. It is going to happen. We are going to vote on this and we will, as we have in the past, vote to eliminate the restriction of the American people's right to travel.

I know why this is happening. This is all about politics. It is about politics in Florida and politics in New Jersey and perhaps a couple other areas, but mostly Florida and New Jersey. It is reaching out to those people who block the vote because the tougher you sound on Cuba, the better for them. So the President, about 3 years ago, decided to tighten it up even further, shut it down. Family vacations, family opportunities to interact, to send money home, he has tightened it all down.

Incidentally, there is an amendment that was passed that is now law offered by myself and then-Senator John Ashcroft. Talk about odd fellows; Senator Ashcroft and I together offered an amendment that became law that finally opened up a bit the ability of our country to sell food into Cuba. We had been unable to even move food into Cuba. Senator Ashcroft and I offered the amendment. It is now law. We can do that. The administration is now trying to shut that down. I fixed that in this subcommittee at the subcommittee level. I have a provision in this bill that shuts down the administration's opportunity to play mischief with the opportunity for our farmers to sell food into Cuba. It is immoral to use food as a weapon. We know that. This isn't rocket science.

I wanted to explain as I withdraw this amendment for the moment why I am forced to withdraw it: because the majority slaps an abortion amendment on an amendment dealing with the American people's right to travel. It is unbelievable. It is within the rules, but still unbelievable.

Those who have gained a few days respite on this will not apparently have to vote today when I withdraw the amendment, but they will vote. When they vote, the Senate will approve the underlying amendment that I, Senator Craig, Senator Enzi, and Senator Baucus have offered.

Amendment No. 2133, Withdrawn

With that, I withdraw the amendment No. 2133.

Mr. President, I am pleased to have worked with my colleague from Iowa. He offered a similar amendment to the one I offered some months ago. We have worked out a modification of that amendment. I believe it advances the right interest here.

Let me describe what this does. It deals with an independent counsel and the funding for an independent counsel and the report that should be published by that independent counsel. This independent counsel was for investigating former Secretary Cisneros where some money allegedly had been paid to someone else, lying to the FBI, et cetera. So an independent counsel was created. That was nearly 11 years ago. That independent counsel is still working, spending at the rate of about $2 million a year.

In 1995, the charge existed which caused the independent counsel to be created. In 1999, Mr. Cisneros pled guilty. In 2001, Mr. Cisneros was given a Presidential pardon. It is all gone, but the independent counsel is still working nearly 11 years later.

I previously offered an amendment that had passed the Senate but then died in conference that would just shut off the money. My colleague from Iowa has perhaps even a more thoughtful amendment, but it is one I fully support and am pleased to join him on today.

The reason I am is that the columnist, Mr. Novak, wrote that the purpose of the original amendment was to prevent a report from being filed. Mr. Novak is never in doubt but not always right. My interest was not in a report at all. The report, I understand, is with the three-judge panel. I think everybody ought to see the report.

This amendment says 60 days from enactment, the report must be made public with proper safeguards, as the Senator from Iowa has outlined in his amendment, and 45 days after that, the funding stops for the independent counsel.

It is the right thing to do. My colleague from Iowa is someone who looks out after the taxpayers' dollars on a range of issues, and I have joined him on many of them. I am pleased to stop the funding for an independent counsel that has been in business 11 years and seems to be able to do everything except stop spending money.

Let's get the report. The subject of the report pled guilty 6 years ago and was the recipient of a pardon 4 years ago. It is time to stop the funding. That is what the amendment does.

I am pleased to be a cosponsor with my colleague from the State of Iowa, Mr. Grassley.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am pleased to join the chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee as original sponsor of the Indian Child Protection and Family Violence Prevention Act Amendments of 2005. The primary goals of the Indian Child Protection and Family Violence Prevention Act of 1990, which the legislation we introduce today would reauthorize, were to reduce the incidence of child abuse, and mandate the reporting and tracking of child abuse in Indian Country.

The Indian Child Protection and Family Violence Prevention Act Amendments would provide additional safeguards for the privacy of information about a child; provide more involvement by the FBI and the Attorney General in documenting incidents of child abuse; direct a study to identify impediments to the reduction of child abuse in Indian Country, as well as require data collection and annual reporting to Congress on child abuse in Indian Country; and authorize the Indian Health Service to use telemedicine in connection with examinations of abused Indian children.

I particularly appreciate that this reauthorization legislation addresses a related issue about which I have deep concern--the epidemic of youth suicide in many reservation communities. Indian Country has higher rates of youth suicide, as well as of child abuse, than other American population groups. Often, children who attempt suicide have been abused by a family or community member. This bill would authorize professionals trained in behavioral health, including suicide prevention and treatment, to be included on the staff of regional Indian Child Resource and Family Services Centers.

Chairman McCain and I are committed to providing these additional protections for Native American children. I urge my colleagues to support passage of this reauthorization bill, along with adoption of provisions for child abuse prevention and child protective services that are contained in legislation also under consideration to reauthorize the Indian Health Care Improvement Act.

Mr. President, I am pleased to join the chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee as original sponsor of the Indian Child Protection and Family Violence Prevention Act Amendments of 2005. The primary goals of the Indian Child Protection and Family Violence Prevention Act of 1990, which the legislation we introduce today would reauthorize, were to reduce the incidence of child abuse, and mandate the reporting and tracking of child abuse in Indian Country.

The Indian Child Protection and Family Violence Prevention Act Amendments would provide additional safeguards for the privacy of information about a child; provide more involvement by the FBI and the Attorney General in documenting incidents of child abuse; direct a study to identify impediments to the reduction of child abuse in Indian Country, as well as require data collection and annual reporting to Congress on child abuse in Indian Country; and authorize the Indian Health Service to use telemedicine in connection with examinations of abused Indian children.

I particularly appreciate that this reauthorization legislation addresses a related issue about which I have deep concern--the epidemic of youth suicide in many reservation communities. Indian Country has higher rates of youth suicide, as well as of child abuse, than other American population groups. Often, children who attempt suicide have been abused by a family or community member. This bill would authorize professionals trained in behavioral health, including suicide prevention and treatment, to be included on the staff of regional Indian Child Resource and Family Services Centers.

Chairman McCain and I are committed to providing these additional protections for Native American children. I urge my colleagues to support passage of this reauthorization bill, along with adoption of provisions for child abuse prevention and child protective services that are contained in legislation also under consideration to reauthorize the Indian Health Care Improvement Act.

Mr. President, I intend to offer two amendments to this legislation. I take a moment now to offer the first of those amendments. While I do that, I thank my colleague from Missouri and my colleague from the State of Washington for their work on this piece of legislation. This is an appropriations subcommittee bill on which they have done an excellent job. I appreciate that.

I will offer an amendment at the completion of my comments. The amendment deals with the issue of contracting, particularly contracting in Iraq, and also now contracting in this country for reconstruction of the Gulf States that were hit so hard by Hurricane Katrina and then Rita. I will talk about the reason I am offering this and point out I have offered it previously, and I lost in the vote that was conducted in the Senate. However, I have previously indicated I do not intend to be discouraged by losing a vote. I will ask the Congress to reconsider by having another vote, and I will do it again following this if I am not successful.

Let me describe the circumstances that bring me to the conclusion we need a special committee of the type that Harry S. Truman led when he was a Senator. Incidentally, he was a Democrat Senator who had the Senate establish what was called the Truman Committee to investigate waste, fraud, and abuse in defense spending back in the middle of what became World War II, the middle of the Second World War. With a Democrat President, a Democrat Senator was doing investigative hearings about waste, fraud, and abuse with respect to spending in the area of defense. He uncovered billions and billions and billions of dollars of waste. Good for him. I am sure it was not pleasant for the White House because Senator Truman was a member of the party of the President at that point. Nonetheless, he did what he believed was important and right for this country. It was very important to have done.

These days we have something happening with respect to the country of Iraq. We have a war in Iraq. We also have reconstruction programs for the country of Iraq paid for by the American taxpayers. We have contracts that are sole-source, no-bid contracts given to some very large corporations. We have tales of horror about the waste of the taxpayers' money, and nobody seems to care very much.

We also now have similar tales with respect to contracting--again, no-bid, sole-source contracting--with respect to the reconstruction and the response to Hurricane Katrina and Rita.

Let me describe just a few of these, if I might. First, let me talk about contracting in Iraq. We have a substantial amount of contracting in Iraq, no-bid contracts, that are worth billions of dollars. I have held six or seven hearings on this subject. It ranges from the small, a fellow holding up a towel, a hand towel, because he worked for Halliburton Corporation, which was suppose to buy towels for our troops in Iraq. He holds up a hand towel and says: I was the purchasing agent and was supposed to buy towels for the troops. But the company wanted their logo imprinted on the towels, which nearly doubled the price.

So the American taxpayer paid twice the price, or nearly twice the price, for these towels because the company wanted the logo on the towel.

He said they were paying $7,500 a month lease on SUVs in Iraq; $85,000 brand new trucks were left by the side of the road because they had a flat tire and torched; $85,000 trucks discontinued to be used and left by the side of the road because they had a plugged fuel pump, and therefore torched. These purchasing agents were told it didn't matter, these are cost-plus contracts. It does not matter that money is wasted, they could spend what they wanted to spend. They were told the good old American taxpayer will pick up the tab.

We had a man named Rory in charge of food service, a supervisor at a food service area in Iraq. Rory described what his instructions were from Halliburton. His instructions were: If a government auditor comes by, you get out of there. You refuse to talk to a government auditor. If you talk to an auditor that comes by to try to evaluate what is going on, one of two things will happen to you. You will either be fired, or you will be moved to an area in Iraq that is under active hostile action. Those are your choices.

Rory decided to tell what was going on. He said they were feeding soldiers who did not exist. We have read the headlines, charging for 42,000 soldiers to be fed every day; 42,000 meals, three times a day. It turns out there are only 14,000 soldiers. A big error? Maybe. Rory says it was happening in his area, about 4,000 or 5,000 soldiers in his area. He said: By the way, we had expired food. The date stamp had long since expired, and we were told by the supervisors, it does not matter, just feed the food to the troops. Convoys come through in hostile action, with lead in the meat and lead in the food in the back of the truck, and they were told to separate out the lead from the food, and by the way, for the bullets, give them to the supervisors as souvenirs and feed the food to the troops.

That is on the record from a guy who worked there, came back to the country, and became a whistleblower. He says here is what is going on. We are being stolen blind.

Let me show a picture of another fellow who testified at a hearing I held. Incidentally, I am doing the hearings not because I enjoy holding hearings. We are holding hearings because there is no oversight in the Congress. My intention is not to embarrass anybody but to represent the taxpayer.

This represents hundred-dollar bills wrapped in Saran Wrap. This fellow testified at a hearing I held. He said: In our area, we wrapped up hundred-dollar bills like this in Saran Wrap and told contractors-- this is contracting in Iraq--bring a bag because we pay in cash. If we owe you some money, bring a bag, we pay in cash. He said they actually played football in this office by passing back and forth these batches of hundred-dollar bills wrapped in Saran Wrap. He said it was like the Old West. Just bring a bag; if we owe you money, we fill it with cash.

When we hear these stories--and we pass emergency legislation for nearly $20 billion for reconstruction of Iraq; we spend $4 billion, $5 billion, or $6 billion a month now in Iraq and Afghanistan--we push a massive amount of money out there with some of it, a fair amount of it, going, particularly in the reconstruction, to no-bid contracts, to big companies, and then we hear stories such as, OK, here is the task: We will put air conditioning in this building. So the big company gets money for air conditioning, subcontracts it, the subcontractor contracts it, and when the work is all done you have ceiling fans--and we paid for air conditioners. Who cares? Who is watching over this massive amount of waste, fraud, and abuse? I will not go through it all, but it is unbelievable what is going on. Nobody seems to care.

What is happening with respect to reconstruction down in the gulf as a result of Hurricane Katrina and Rita? We hear people talking about $200 billion. This Congress has appropriated slightly more than $60 billion already. We have seen, once again, some of the same companies performing no-bid contracts in Iraq now with no-bid contracts in the gulf.

First, we start with waste, fraud, and abuse with FEMA, an organization that used to be something really special. I remember when my colleague, Fritz Hollings, sat in the chair behind me. Fritz Hollings, back in another era, said: We had two natural disasters down in our part of the country. The first disaster was a hurricane; the second disaster was FEMA.

But then FEMA changed. All of a sudden James Lee Witt came in from a background that was unusual. The guy had experience. He came from a background of disaster preparedness, disaster emergency services. And all of a sudden, FEMA became something very special.

I know that because my State had a community of 50,000 in the flood of 1997 in Grand Forks, ND, that required the evacuation of almost an entire city. It was a massive evacuation and flood response. Guess who was there at the lead. FEMA. Everybody there would say: What a remarkable organization. It worked. It knew what it was doing. It was sharp, on the ball, had plans, and it made things happen.

Now what has happened to FEMA? Let me describe it. I will not go into great length about FEMA because everybody knows some of the top positions of FEMA were filled with cronies who had no experience at all in disaster preparedness or emergency services and that then it was subsumed into the Homeland Security Department. I do not need to go into great length about that.

As shown in this picture, this is a truckdriver. We had a hearing the other day and he testified. This truckdriver, by the way, was contracted for by a company that was doing work for FEMA. He was asked to haul ice. You

can see all these trucks in the picture. There were hundreds of trucks where he was sitting. He was asked to haul ice to the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

He picked up a load of ice with his 18-wheeler in New York, and away he went. They said: We want you to go to Carthage, MO, so he drove his 18-wheel truck, with a refrigerated trailer, to Carthage, MO. He got there, and they said: Well, but now you need to go to Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. He said: Well, it would have been good to know that when I left New York. I would have saved about 700 miles. But that was the way it was, so he headed off with his truck to Maxwell Air Force Base, AL.

He got to Alabama with a load of ice, and was parked at the Air Force base with many others, hundreds of other trucks, we are told, that had food, blankets, clothing, ice--all the things the victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita were begging for on television. He was sitting there, watching the little television in his truck, hearing the victims of these hurricanes describing what their needs were--and the needs were in the back of these trucks.

He sat there 12 days--12 days--and he finally went up to them and said: What is going on? They said: We have changed our mind. We want you to drive your truck with ice to Idaho. He said: I didn't know there was a hurricane in Idaho, and I don't intend to haul this ice to Idaho. They said to him: You have a bad attitude. We are thinking of having the National Guard escort you off this base.

It cannot be funny because it is so unbelievably inept. But about 2 hours after they told him that, they said: OK, we have changed our mind; you won't go to Idaho. You haul this ice to Massachusetts. This is like that television program, ``Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?'' If I had a map, I would show you where these ice cubes went. To help the victims of the hurricane, directed apparently by FEMA and its contractor, they went from New York City, to Carthage, MO, to Maxwell Air Force Base, AL, to storage, now being paid for by the U.S. Government, in Massachusetts.

We paid $15,000 for this one truck to haul ice cubes between New York and Massachusetts--destined for victims of the hurricane. What unbelievable--unbelievable--ineptness by a Federal agency. This truckdriver could have run FEMA better than that.

When he testified, he said: It would have been easy. All they would have had to have is some sort of transportation system by which everybody calls in there and then you are directed. No such thing.

He finally said to them, as he sat 12 days on the base before they sent him to Massachusetts with his ice cubes: I'll tell you what I'll do; I will pay for the ice cubes in my truck. I will pay you $1,500. They said: What are you going to do with them? He said: I'm going to haul them to Biloxi, MS, and give them away to victims who want them. They said: Who is going to sign for them? He said: It shouldn't matter to you. Once I have paid for them, you're out of the picture. They said: We can't do that. You haul them up to Massachusetts. We are going to store them.

I told this story and somebody, the other day, said: Yeah. That's just one trucker. Oh, yeah, don't let the facts get in the way of good theories, right? This is one trucker, but he said there were hundreds of truckers in exactly the same situation.

This was chaotic bungling. And who gets paid for this? Well, I assume the contractor FEMA had who directed these truckers to haul ice cubes from New York to Massachusetts or, incidentally, a trucker who hauls ice cubes from Canada down to Maxwell Air Force Base and back to Canada. What unbelievable waste.

So now here is the second piece of all of this and why there needs to be investigations. This is a dormitory, by the way, as shown in this picture. It does not look much like a dormitory. It looks like a bunch of two-by-fours with blankets on top. This picture was taken last Saturday in Louisiana.

These people are not from Louisiana. These people were brought in to replace some people from Louisiana who had jobs--qualified electricians who had jobs--to begin doing some work under a contract. Those workers from Louisiana are displaced now by workers, most of whom, incidentally, are expected to be undocumented workers, who will come in and work for a fraction of the wage you would pay the people from Louisiana who need the jobs.

Why? Because Davis-Bacon is waived. What is Davis-Bacon? It is a foreign language to a lot of people, perhaps. The Davis-Bacon provision, in law for some long while, says when you are going to have the Federal Government come in and do contracting work, the Federal Government must pay the prevailing wage. The contractors who work for the Federal Government must pay the prevailing wage. They cannot try and ratchet up a contract for themselves by abusing their workers and deciding to pay them a tenth or a half of what they should be paid. You have to pay the prevailing wage.

Well, the minute that happened in this area, the people who had the jobs these people now have--the people, by the way, who were from Louisiana, skilled electricians, who needed the work in the shadow of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita--lost their jobs. The foreman who was on the jobsite with them was here and talked to me about it. They lost their jobs because they were replaced by these folks: largely undocumented workers willing to work for a fraction of the cost--not from Louisiana. The folks from Louisiana who had those jobs lost them with reconstruction. That is what is happening.

My point is this: There needs to be some investigation. I am not suggesting that it is an investigation to tarnish anybody. It is an investigation to evaluate what on Earth is wrong with the oversight for this waste and fraud and corruption that exists in these contracts.

In the newspaper this morning, in the Style section, there is a picture of a woman named Bunny Greenhouse, who was the highest ranking official in the Corps of Engineers in the U.S. Government working in the Pentagon. She lost her job. What a remarkable woman. She has three masters degrees.

As an aside, I did not know this, but the story says she comes from a dirt-poor background. Her parents were uneducated. Her sister became a professor. Her brother, incidentally, scored 27,000 points in the National Basketball Association, and was rated one of the 50 best basketball players to ever play the game--Elvin Hayes.

Bunny Greenhouse, this woman, rose to become the highest ranking civilian official in the Corps of Engineers. She just lost her job. Do you know why? All of her references, all of her evaluations were outstanding--outstanding. What a terrific person--until she started telling the ``old boys network'': You can't do what you are doing here. You can't give Halliburton big no-bid contracts and even have them sitting in on the meetings about the scope of the work. You cannot do that. It violates all of the rules and procedures. The minute she started interrupting the little playground that exists with these favorite no-bid contracts, all of a sudden she was persona non grata.

You can read the story in this morning's Washington Post. She has been here twice to talk to us on Capitol Hill. Not many seem to care about that. But it is a symptom of something much more than her; it is a symptom of a culture about corruption, about waste, and, yes, fraud. If you wonder whether that is justified, I will be happy to give you, and anyone in the Senate who wants, the written testimony of a good many witnesses who have testified on these very issues.

So my proposition is simple. My proposition is Congress should establish a type of Truman committee. I describe it as a Truman committee because we have done it before--a special committee that takes a hard look at all of this contracting that is going on and tries to shut down the waste, fraud, and abuse the taxpayers in this country should not have to be accepting and this Congress should not allow. This committee would not be necessary if we had aggressive oversight committees.

Let me say that the chairman from Missouri and the ranking member from the State of Washington--this is an appropriations committee. I just described the job they have done. They have done a great job. This amendment has nothing to do with them. They are good appropriators. I am proud of their work. This appropriations subcommittee, is awfully good, and I am

here to support the subcommittee work. So my amendment does not have anything to do with them.

But I would say this: Almost everyone who watches this Congress work understands there is virtually no oversight and no accountability after we do appropriate that money. The American taxpayers deserve better than that. We have had a previous vote, and we had more than a majority of the Members of the Senate say no, they do not want to have anything to do with a special committee to take a look at investigating this waste, fraud, and abuse. I hope others will change their mind. This is not about Democrats and Republicans; it is about protecting the American taxpayers. And it is about making sure we root out the waste, fraud, and abuse that exists in these sole-source contracts. What is happening is almost unbelievable to me. Yet this Senate seems nearly asleep on these issues.

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 2078 and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. President, let me make the point that this amendment differs from one we have considered previously in that the scope of the evaluation and investigation of expenditures and contracting would include not just with respect to Iraq but also the contracting and reconstruction in the gulf in relation to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita damages.

Mr. President, pursuant to rule V, I have offered proper notice to suspend the rules. My expectation would be we would have a vote on suspension of the rules. As the Senator knows, I referenced that in the Senate Journal last evening.

Mr. President, I, in fact, will agree to a time agreement at some point. I have no intention of extending debate. I do want to make some additional comments at some point when we set up a vote, but I understand there are others who wish to offer an amendment, so I will be happy to allow this to be set aside, after which I will consult with the Senator from Missouri and the Senator from Washington about a time for the vote.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be added as a cosponsor on the amendment offered by the Senator from Missouri.

Madam President, if the Senator will yield for a question, I think I heard those who object to the unanimous consent request of the Senator from Montana suggest that somehow he is trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist; that this can be handled in other ways. Could the Senator from Montana describe to me the circumstances of people who are affected? If this legislation is not made available on an emergency basis in human terms, isn't it a fact that we have people, particularly low-income people, who have lost everything?

Incidentally, I went to the Armory here in Washington DC and talked to those folks who have come here, left home with nothing to escape the ravages of the flood waters and are there with their children and the clothes on their back and nothing else.

What are the real consequences for people who are in that situation if the Senator's legislation is not adopted? We did this for 9/11 victims. We did it for a good reason, I assume. If we don't do it here, and now weeks have marched by with no action, what are the human consequences of our deciding not to do this?

If I might ask an additional question, this is about health care. Health care is not a luxury. When you or your kids are sick, particularly in the circumstances where you have been the victim of a significant disaster, you have been displaced and lost everything, health care ought not be a function of whether you have money in your billfold.

I ask the Senator from Montana, is it the case that your legislation will not break the bank? You have suggested other ways to pay for it. It is bipartisan. You are coming to talk about something that is an essential for people. This is not some luxury. We are talking about health care. When we talk about the five most important things for people here, there, or wherever, health care is right near the top. If you do not have health care, if you do not have your health, you do not have much.

The Senator from Montana has been here a number of times. My hope would be that our colleagues would not object and that the Grassley- Baucus proposal would be accepted and we would move on. This ought not be a point of contention at all. This ought to be easy for this Congress.

Madam President, reserving the right to object--I do not think I will object--but in order to expedite consideration of amendments on the floor, I was wanting to offer the remaining amendment I have, with very brief comments, so that at least I have offered the amendment on behalf of myself and Senator Craig. I was hoping to be able to do that following the remarks of the Senator from Washington, who I believe is going to comment on the legislation she is cosponsoring with Senator Reed. So if it would be acceptable to the chairman and ranking member, following the remarks of the Senator from Washington, if I would be recognized simply to lay the amendment down. I ask unanimous consent to do that.

Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk on behalf of myself, Senator Craig from Idaho, Senator Enzi from Wyoming, and Senator Baucus from Montana, and I ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. President, I offer this bipartisan amendment on behalf of myself, Senator Craig, Senator Enzi, and Senator Baucus. It is an amendment that has been considered previously, and considered successfully by the Senate, but it has not made it into law because of problems in conference committees. It deals with the issue of restricting the rights of the American people to travel to Cuba.

As you know, we now have a situation where the American people are not free to travel to Cuba. We are free to travel to China, a Communist country. We are free to travel to Vietnam, a Communist country. We are free to travel to North Korea, a Communist country. We are not free to travel to Cuba, however. The reason for that is Fidel Castro has been sticking his finger in America's eye for a long while. It is a Communist country, a government that causes a lot of problems for our country, and the decision was made some long while ago that we are going to somehow punish Fidel Castro by restricting the American people's right to travel to Cuba.

We also, for 40-some years now, have had an embargo with respect to the country of Cuba. For most of that time, we also prevented American farmers from selling food to the country of Cuba. I have always felt it is basically immoral to use food as a weapon and to prevent the selling of food to the Cubans. Canadians sell food to the Cubans. European farmers sell food to the Cubans. But we could not; that is, until then- Senator Ashcroft from Missouri and I offered an amendment on the floor of the Senate that opened, just a crack, that embargo so that we are now able to sell some food into the country of Cuba.

We have sold about $1 billion worth of food since that amendment of ours became law. Even now, the administration is trying to shut down that ability of farmers to sell food into Cuba, by dramatically changing the legal definition of the term ``payment of cash in advance'' that is in the law, something the Congressional Research Service believes is inappropriate for the administration to do. With this change of definition they are actually requiring the payment for the food products our farmers would sell into Cuba to be made before the food is even shipped. That is not the way commerce works, and yet they are doing that to try to shut down the ability of American farmers to sell food into Cuba.

Nonetheless, we have sold $1 billion worth of food to the Cubans. It is the right thing to do. Withholding food and medicine as a part of any embargo is the wrong thing to do. Fidel Castro has never missed breakfast, lunch, or dinner because of our embargo. He has eaten just fine, thank you. It is poor, sick, and hungry people who get hurt with these kinds of public policies.

I put in this appropriations bill at the subcommittee level a provision that trips the administration's attempt to inhibit farmers from selling into Cuba. So I fixed that problem. That is in the bill as it comes to the floor. We had kind of a contentious discussion about that in the subcommittee, but I won. And again, on a bipartisan basis, we stuck that in the bill. It says to this administration: You cannot be doing these things that we believe are not legal to impede the ability of American farmers to sell food into the Cuban marketplace.

We have not, however, dealt with the issue of restricting the American people's right to travel to Cuba. Are we hurting Fidel Castro by prohibiting Americans from traveling to Cuba? I do not think so. All that does is slap the American people around by restricting their right to travel.

Let me show you a couple of examples, if I might. This young woman in this picture was in my office. This young woman's name is Joni Scott, a wonderful young woman. She went to Cuba. She went to Cuba to distribute free Bibles on the streets of Cuban cities. Joni Scott went to distribute free Bibles in Cuba. Why? She is a person of great faith, with a missionary spirit, and she wanted to take that faith and talk about that faith with the people of Cuba.

Well, guess what happened to Joni Scott. The U.S. government says you can't distribute free Bibles to the people of Cuba. You have to get a license from the State Department to go to Cuba, and they are not going to give you a license. She did not know that, of course. She simply went to Cuba to distribute free Bibles. The U.S. government slapped her with a big fine. Do you know who did that? The folks who are being funded in the bill, OFAC, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, deep in the bowels of the Treasury Department.

The people in OFAC are supposed to be tracking the financing of terrorism. They are the folks who ought to be looking at the arteries that control the money that finances Osama bin Laden, for example, and other terrorist organizations. But guess what. Those folks down in OFAC, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, have been spending their time tracking down American citizens who are suspected of taking vacations in Cuba--American citizens under suspicion of taking vacations in Cuba.

Well, they tracked Joni Scott down and slapped a big fine on Joni Scott, an American citizen, for trying to distribute free Bibles in Cuba. Apparently, they are not even embarrassed about it.

This is a picture of Sergeant Lazo, U.S. Army National Guard. He won the Bronze Star for bravery in the country of Iraq, fighting for this country. His children are in Cuba. One of his kids was very ill. After he finished his tour of duty in Iraq and was back in this country, he wanted to go visit his sick son. This United States soldier, a hero, having fought and won a Bronze Star in Iraq for his country, was told by his country: You might have been fighting for freedom in Iraq, but you don't have the freedom as an American soldier--you don't have the freedom as an American citizen--to go visit your sick child in Cuba. Unbelievable.

We voted on that here on the floor of the Senate. The only way I could get that up for a vote was to require suspension of the rules, which takes 66 votes. I got 60 votes. It fell short. So this man has never been allowed to go to Cuba to visit his child.

There is an epilog to this. His children are going to come here for a brief visit. The Cuban Government has approved that. But the U.S. Government won't give him the freedom to travel to Cuba to visit his children.

I could talk about Joan Slote. Joan Slote answered an ad in a bicycling magazine to take a cycling trip to Cuba. Joan was 75 years old. She was a cyclist and she wanted to go on a bicycling tour with a Canadian bicycling group. She did. She came back and found out her son had brain cancer. She didn't get her mail on time and didn't see that the Federal Government was trying to fine her $10,000 for having traveled to Cuba to ride a bike. Because she was attending to her son, she didn't get the letter from the Treasury Department, so they decided they were going to try to slap an attachment on her Social Security check.

This is America? I don't think so. We should restrict the freedom of the American people because we want to slap around Fidel Castro? How about deciding we are not going to restrict the freedom of the American people. If you want to bring a different kind of government to Cuba, you do it through trade and travel. That is what we argue in regard to other countries. This administration and past administrations have said that the way to advance the interests toward democracy and greater human rights in Communist China is through trade and travel. The way to

advance the interests toward greater human rights and democracy in Communist Vietnam is through trade and travel. Cuba? No, we have to restrict the right of the American people to travel to Cuba. And if they do, track them down. There is a little agency, this arthritic agency in the Department of Treasury, called OFAC. They have more people in that agency tracking American citizens who are suspected of going to Cuba than they have searching for the financial links that are supporting Osama bin Laden's terrorism. Isn't that unbelievable? I have half a notion to offer an amendment to get rid of OFAC. We have all these acronyms around here. All I know is, these are people sitting someplace in the basement of the Treasury Department trying to figure out, through lists of names, whether somebody might have gone to Cuba. And God forbid they brought a cigar back. Let's double the fine.

In fact, even more Byzantine, last year OFAC sent people to airports around the country to train Border Patrol and Homeland Security agents on how to intercept Americans who were suspected of visiting Cuba. I looked through the list of what they recovered. The most ominous thing they recovered was carbon dioxide used to make seltzer water. They did pick up a couple cigars and some ordinary cold medicine. But they certainly took some resources away from Homeland Security that probably ought to have been looking at terrorist threats so they could track down Joni Scott who wants to deliver Bibles on the streets of a city in Cuba.

There was also the disabled sports team that participates in marathons using artificial legs and in wheelchairs. They planned to participate in the Havana Marathon and then distribute racing wheelchairs and handcycles to Cuba's disabled athletes. Except OFAC said that our team couldn't go. These disabled Americans were told, no, you can't go. That is unbelievable.

We will have a vote on this. The President will threaten a veto of the bill if it is in the bill, and we will have people around here scratching their heads and thumbing their suspenders and saying: How should I vote on this?

How about a simple vote that represents a little bit of common sense, just a smidgeon. Go to any cafe in America, have a cup of coffee and ask somebody, do you think it is a good idea that we ought to slap around the American people and go investigate them and chase them down and slap them with a $10,000 fine because they joined a Canadian bicycle tour of Cuba? Or do you think we ought to say to a veteran who earned the Bronze Star for heroism in Iraq that when you come back to this country, you have all the freedoms of an American except you don't have the freedom to travel to Cuba to see your sick son? We know what the answer is. If we have enough people around here with the courage to vote the right way, to use a smidgeon of common sense--I am not asking everybody to use all the common sense, just a smidgeon, this just requires a blink--to vote the right way, maybe we will get something done.

This isn't about Democrats or Republicans. It is about public policy that makes sense for this country. If something is happening that is basically ``dumb,'' we ought to fix it. This makes no sense. This policy is at odds with our entire foreign policy with respect to other Communist countries. Can you imagine today if I proposed having the Cuba policy with respect to China and Vietnam? We would say to those Americans, you can't travel to China. Why? Because we don't like the Chinese Government, so you can't go there. Does that make any sense? Do you think that would be in our best interest? Would that represent good foreign policy? The answer is no.

We have advocated that the best way to move these countries toward greater human rights and greater democracy is through trade and travel. It would be nice if the only voice Cubans are hearing would not be Fidel Castro but, in fact, Joni Scott or Joan Slote or a couple from Dubuque who might be vacationing in Havana. It would be nice if the Cuban people would hear those voices as well. They do not now because they are prohibited as a result of American law. It is a law I aim to change.

I offer this amendment with my colleagues, Senators Craig, Enzi, and Baucus--two Republicans, two Democrats. This is not about partisanship. It is about doing the right thing. My hope is this amendment will see a successful vote. I understand there will be some sumo wrestling between now and when we get a vote, because no one ever wants to have a vote on this. There will be all kinds of contortions going on to find a way to avoid having a vote on this. But it is perfectly germane and relevant. It is a restriction on funding. My expectation would be before the bill gets off the floor, we would have a vote on this. I hope a sufficient number of colleagues on both sides of the aisle will decide to vote for it and we can get this done finally.

I yield the floor.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

I am wondering if that wasn't under the old rules. The new rules have been tightened up dramatically by administration edict. Under the new rules, teams such as that in most cases would not be able to visit Cuba.

Mr. President, let me finally show the chart I mentioned. I have many others. OFAC, Office of Foreign Assets Control, down in the bowels of the Treasury Department, is supposed to be tracking terrorists. Here is what OFAC did. These are disabled marathoners. They trained and trained. In fact, as I understand it, these folks even had airline tickets, and they had everything all set. But were they allowed to go to the international meet in Havana? No. No, they were turned down by our country because you don't have the freedom to do that. To say that these folks were disappointed is an understatement. They might wonder about whether we have freedom in this country, when we don't have the freedom to travel to this Cuba. Why? Because we don't like its leaders.

Look, there are many countries that have leaders I am not particularly fond of. I don't want to restrict the right of the American people to travel there. In addition to Joni Scott and disabled athletes and so many others, the stories now are unbelievable. In the last 3 years, this has been laced up tight, even for folks with close relatives. I can tell you of people whose parents were dying, on their deathbed, 3 days away from dying, and their children in this country were not allowed to go see their mother or father in Cuba.

I won't put up the picture of the guy from the State of Washington whose father died, and his last wishes were that his ashes be dispersed on the grounds of the church he served as a pastor in Cuba. So a compliant son, after the death of his father, said: I want to do that. It was his last wish. He took his dad's ashes and went to Cuba and went to the church and distributed his father's ashes on the grounds of the church his father had ministered at for many years. Then this country's Government tracked him down and tried to slap a big fine on him for doing it. Unbelievable. We can do better than that. Our country doesn't deserve this sort of nonsense.

I appreciate the support of the Senator from Washington. As I indicated, this is bipartisan. It is not about Republicans or Democrats. It is about what is thoughtful and what is thoughtless. Let's choose the thoughtful approach for a change.

I understand my amendment has been ordered in a group of three amendments to be voted on. I will take 5 minutes to explain this amendment.

This amendment deals with the establishment of the creation of a committee in the Congress to investigate the waste, corruption, and abuse in contracting in Iraq and also contracting, in most cases, sole- source contracts, no-bid contracts, by companies that have gotten billions of dollars for reconstruction in Iraq, and now for reconstruction on the gulf coast.

Let me go through some headlines to explain my concerns. In 5 minutes I cannot do much more than headlines, but I have held seven hearings on this subject now in the Policy Committee. ``No-bid contracts win Katrina work.'' That is the most recent one. ``White House uses practices criticized in Iraq rebuilding for hurricane-related jobs.''

``Ex-Halliburton workers allege rampant waste.'' ``They say the firm makes no effort to control costs, overspending taxpayer money in its contract with the United States in Iraq and Kuwait.''

``Halliburton faces criminal investigation.'' ``Pentagon probing alleged overcharges for Iraq fuel.''

``Audit questions $1.4 billion in Halliburton bills.''

I mention Halliburton. It has nothing to do with the Vice President. Everyone says, Well, you are attacking the Vice President. He used to be president of Halliburton, yes, but this is long after he was involved in Halliburton. The fact is this is about contracting abuse.

Let me go through a couple of the specific examples: New $85,000 trucks paid for by the American taxpayers abandoned or torched by the side of the road in Iraq if they have a flat tire or a plugged fuel pump. A case of Coca-Cola, $45.

They had gasoline delivered for twice the price that the folks who used to do the work in the Defense Energy Support Center said that gasoline could have been delivered for. Halliburton charged for 42,000 meals served to soldiers every day, when they were serving 14,000 meals to soldiers. They missed it by 28,000--overcharging 28,000 meals a day.

There was the loss of $18.6 million worth of Government equipment in Iraq that Halliburton was given to manage. There is also the leasing of SUVs. Listen to this, the leasing of SUVs for $7,500 a month. They ordered 50,000 pounds of nails, and they came in the wrong size. They are laying in the sands of Iraq. It does not matter. The taxpayer picks up the cost. This is all cost-plus.

Do you want to buy some hand towels for the troops? The Halliburton buyer who was to order the hand towels was told by his superiors, ``You have to order hand towels with the company logo on them,'' which more than doubled the price. It does not matter. The taxpayer is picking up the tab for all of this. It is unbelievable waste, fraud, and abuse.

Let me show one additional chart. This fellow shown in this picture testified at one of our hearings. These are $100 bills, batched together with Saran Wrap. He said: We used to play football with them. He said it was like the Old West. This is in Iraq. He said: We told people, subcontractors and contractors, we pay by cash. Bring a bag. Bring a bag. Here is the cash.

Now, for Hurricane Katrina, no-bid contracts once again. By the way, the top civilian official at the Army Corps of Engineers said this: I can unequivocally state that the abuse related to contracts awarded to Halliburton represents the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have ever witnessed during the course of my professional career.

Do you know what happened to her? She lost her job. Why? For speaking out. You don't dare say these kinds of things.

I spoke this morning about contracting abuse with respect to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the contracts down in the Gulf of Mexico. I will not go into that again except to say this: When the Government and FEMA pay a truck driver $15,000 to haul ice cubes from New York to Massachusetts--yes, New York to Massachusetts--where they are now in storage, to provide relief to hurricane victims in Louisiana, somebody ought to have their head examined.

Oh, the truck did go from New York, to Missouri, by mistake. FEMA directed them to Missouri. Then they said: Oh, we want you to go to Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. He took those ice cubes to Alabama. He sat there for 12 days, with hundreds of other trucks with food and clothing and ice and other things for victims--he sat there for 12 days--and then they said: We want you to put this back in storage in Massachusetts. So the taxpayers paid this trucker--and there were hundreds of them--$15,000 for hauling ice for the relief of hurricane victims in Louisiana, hauling that ice from New York to Massachusetts. Once again, somebody ought to have their head examined.

My point is, I would like to see a congressional committee examine this. This amendment would create a special committee. I hope my colleagues will believe, as I do, this waste, fraud, and abuse is intolerable, and we ought to deal with it by investigative committee.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Amendment No. 2063, As Further Modified

The motion to suspend is my amendment. It deals with an underlying amendment that would establish an investigative committee to deal with waste, fraud, and abuse dealing both with the country of Iraq and the reconstruction in Iraq, as well as reconstruction in Louisiana, Mississippi, and in the gulf region following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

I will not recite all of the examples of substantial abuse from sole- source contracts, but it is dramatic. I believe very strongly, just as Harry Truman did back in the 1940s in uncovering substantial waste, fraud, and abuse in the Department of Defense at a time when a member of his own party occupied the White House, I believe this Congress deserves good, strong oversight. We will get that with a special committee looking into this massive waste, fraud, and abuse.

I would hope very much my colleagues would agree with me. If they believe we are spending too much, that there is waste, fraud, and abuse that we ought to get after, they ought to be voting for this amendment and vote to suspend the rules.