Floor Statements

Mr. President, early in 2007 I met with a distinguished group of American business leaders and retired military officers who had formed an organization called Securing America's Future Energy, SAFE, Coalition for the purpose of improving our country's energy security.

This organization was comprised of a high level group of business and retired military leaders led by Federal Express CEO Fred Smith, and retired Marine GEN P.X. Kelley. They understood that our country's continued dependence on foreign oil coming from troubled parts of the world holds our entire economy hostage to events that are outside of our control. They knew that our energy security relates to both economic security and our national security and they wanted to do something about it.

Their organization worked to develop a specific, aggressive plan that would reduce our dependence on foreign oil and reduce the intensity of oil use.

Specifically, the plan called for an increase in vehicle efficiency through more aggressive CAFE standards. It also called for additional energy production here at home, both renewable and fossil energy, a much greater emphasis on conservation, and new and innovative ways to make more efficient use of our energy.

Following our meeting I decided to take the lead in sponsoring legislation to implement the bulk of the SAFE Coalition's plan because I believed it was the best combination of approaches to begin solving our problem of excessive dependence on foreign oil.

By the end of 2007 I am pleased to say that a substantial portion of that legislation which was recommended by the SAFE Coalition is now law. For the first time in over 34 years, Congress finally increased CAFE standards that require a 10-mile-per-gallon increase over 10 years. It applies to both automobiles and trucks and does it in a way that does not penalize large vehicles. But it requires all vehicles to meet greater efficiency standards.

The Congress also included major new goals with respect to a robust renewable fuel standard of 36 billion gallons a year. All of those provisions were recommendations of the SAFE Coalition and recommendations in the legislation that I introduced in the Congress.

The recommendations on additional production of energy was advanced with the recent passage legislation to open a portion of the Gulf of Mexico, known as Lease 181, to additional production of oil and natural gas.

There is still more to be done to reduce our oil intensity and to allow us to become less dependent on foreign sources of oil. But I was proud to have been a member of the Energy Committee in the Senate that has advanced an energy bill with real and constructive solutions that will improve America's energy future.

And I was also pleased to work with Fred Smith, P.X. Kelley, and many other American leaders who wanted to do the right thing for this country and whose efforts as a part of the SAFE Coalition, I believe, had measurable and substantial impact on the progress that we made this year.

In a climate of so much partisanship, and at a time when it is so difficult to get things done, I am proud that all of us, working together, did something that represents a real investment in America's future.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Utah. My understanding is the Senator from Utah will speak and the Senator from Rhode Island will be recognized. We will reconvene at 2:15 following the caucus. So I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized at 2:15 for 30 minutes in morning business.

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

Mr. President, I believe I am by previous order to be recognized for 30 minutes. My colleague from Michigan has asked for 5 minutes to precede that. I will be happy to grant that by consent, if I will be recognized following her presentation.

Mr. President, as we near the end of this first session I want to talk about a couple of things. I think perhaps today is the last day, maybe tomorrow, I do not know for certain, but most of the business that required votes was completed last evening by about 11 o'clock.

I am happy to yield.

Mr. President, I appreciate the comments of the Senator from Virginia. He said something about a year ago that I have long remembered because it is something I have been concerned about. He was talking about the economy and about concentration in the economy. It relates to what I was describing about big companies and the media. Senator Webb talked about the fact that we have reached a point now where the average CEO in America makes 400 times what the average worker makes.

I was doing some writing the other night about this issue. I talked about hedge funds a few moments ago and their role in the subprime mortgage scandal. I was talking about what hedge fund managers are earning. From a recent Alpha Magazine report on compensation--the hedge fund manager who earned the most last year made $1.7 billion. James Simons did that. And $1.7 billion means he makes in 1 hour what the average worker makes in a year, but he makes it every hour. The point I am making about this is the skewed nature of this economic system of ours and what is happening in it.

My colleague will know that in recent days we have had a debate with President Bush about who the big spenders are and so on. The biggest spender by far has been President Bush. He has sent us budgets that represented the highest amount of spending and the biggest deficits we have had for a long time. When we tried to pay for some things, we said: Let's do certain things and pay for them. The President said: Not on your life. We will not allow you to pay for these things.

Here are the things we wanted to do to pay for some of those things, some things that were worthy--for example, extending incentives for renewable energy and so on. We said: Those people, including hedge fund managers, who are making a lot of money and are paying a 15-percent income tax rate, which is a lower rate than the receptionist in the office down the street is paid, they should be paying an income rate like all Americans. The President said: Not on your life.

We described in a picture what is happening. We said: We want to shut down tax scams that allow Wachovia to buy a sewer system in Germany, not because they have expertise in German sewers; they want to buy the assets of a German sewer system so they can write off hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes they would otherwise owe this country. The President said: No, you can't be doing that. That is a tax increase.

From David Evans, a really great reporter, I got a picture of this building, the Ugland House, some while ago. This is a 5-story white house in the Cayman Islands, home to 12,748 corporations. Are they there? No, it is a legal fiction. Lawyers have put them there legally so they can avoid paying U.S. taxes. The President doesn't want to shut those things down. He said: No, if you shut this sort of thing down, we call it a tax increase, even as the President is protecting these unbelievable opportunities for the wealthiest to avoid paying taxes, at a time when the debt is increasing dramatically.

Here is what the President has done since the year 2002. He sent us emergency requests, none of it paid for, and said: I want it all added to the Federal debt. In 2002, he said: I want $50 billion. In 2003: I want $76 billion. I don't want to pay for any of it. Add it right to the debt. I am sending soldiers to Iraq and Afghanistan. When they come back, they can pay for the debt. In 2004: I want $87 billion. In 2005: I want $82 billion. In 2006: I want $92 billion. It is all emergency money outside the budget, all added to the Federal debt. In 2007: I want $103 billion. And in 2008: I want $196 billion.

He has asked for over two-thirds of a trillion dollars and wanted to charge it all to future generations, and he has gotten by with it. Then he sits in the Oval Office and says: Well, I am the fiscal conservative. I do not think so. I grew up in a small town. I understood what a Republican was. They are an important part of this political system. The one thing you could count on from real Republicans is they believed you ought to balance budgets. It is what it was in my hometown. It is what it used to be in this Chamber.

Now, that new brand is: Let's spend money, and let's add it to the Federal debt. This is not some Democrat that is doing this; this is President George W. Bush asking for over two-thirds of a trillion dollars and asking that none of it be paid for. We will send soldiers to war, but we will not have the courage to ask the American people to help pay the bill.

In recent days and weeks, we have been treated to quite a sideshow of this administration describing their view of fiscal responsibility. They have said the Senate wants to spend $22 billion more than the President in this year on things such as health, education, taking care of sick kids, improving America's classrooms, energy--a whole series of things--weather assistance, home heating fuel in the winter. For all of these things, the President says no. He says: You want to spend more than I do here at home, so you are big spenders. You are $22 billion over my number. And, oh, by the way, I am $196 billion over your number. He says: I want that, and I don't want any of it paid for.

I think it is long past the time to start taking care of a few things at home, and I think there is a right and a wrong way to do it. It is time we pay for that which we spend, and there are plenty of ways to do it. If we have the richest people in the country paying 15 percent tax rates, I think they ought to pay what others pay.

As I said, the second richest man in the world, Warren Buffett, is a remarkable businessman and an interesting guy and somebody I have had the opportunity to know over the years. He said he did a little test in his office in Omaha, NE. I think he said there were 30 or 40 people who worked in that central office. He checked--with the cooperation of his employees--to find out what their effective tax rate was. Guess what. The lowest effective tax rate in his office was Warren Buffett's. And he said, to his credit: That is just wrong. Why should I pay a lower tax rate than the receptionist in my office? This is from the world's second richest man.

Very few in that stratosphere in income will take that position. Most of them are spending a lot of money to try to preserve what they have: a 15-percent tax rate. In many cases, the top hedge fund managers in this country are paying the 15-percent tax rate on massive earnings, and they have this President in the White House trying to do everything he can--and so far successfully--preventing those of us in the Congress who want to say to the wealthiest Americans: Pay the tax rate that the rest of us pay, that everybody else pays.

The point I wanted to make, very simply, is this: The President has made a big cause in recent weeks about being a fiscal conservative. There is nothing fiscally conservative about an administration that took a very large budget surplus and turned it into very large budget deficits. There is nothing conservative about protecting tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans. There is nothing conservative about proposing two-thirds of a trillion dollars of spending and wanting to add it to the Federal debt. That is not conservatism. That is reckless fiscal policy and one that ought to change.

One final point: The President, today, is signing an energy bill. We wrote an energy bill, and it is a good bill. It comes up short in two areas. We should have increased renewable energy provision in it that requires that all electricity produced in this country should be produced with 15 percent from renewable resources. That ought to be in the bill. It is not in the bill that passed.

Second, we ought to have had the extenders, extending the production tax credit and other incentives for the renewables and other sources of energy in order to make sure we are going to continue to push on renewable energy incentives.

But having said that--we did not get that because of the President and his supporters--having said that, here is what we did get: We got an energy bill that, for the first time in 32 years, requires Detroit and the auto companies to make automobiles that have better gas mileage, 10 miles to the gallon in 10 years, beginning in the year 2011. That is a significant change. I am proud to have been a part of causing that change. I was the principal author of a legislative initiative supported by SAFE, Securing America's Future Energy. That called for the increase in reformed CAFE standards. It called for a substantial increase in renewable fuels, which we have done by a 36- billion-gallon renewable fuels standard to be achieved by 2022.

We have a title that is very good dealing with conservation and efficiency of virtually everything we use in this country today. We get up in the morning, we turn on a switch, and then we turn on a key. We see light, and we start the car. We don't think much about energy, but it is central to our lives.

We are so unbelievably dependent on foreign sources of energy. Sixty percent of the oil we use comes from outside our country, much of it from troubled parts of our world. We have to change that.

I am proud of the bill we have passed in this Congress. It is a significant accomplishment. We need to come back next year, and do the renewable energy piece, saying every kilowatt of electricity produced in the country should have 15 percent renewable. We can take energy right from the wind, and we can extend America's energy supply with renewable energy.

I think while there are a lot of reasons we did not make as much headway as we would have liked in this Congress--we are, after all, only 51-49 in the Senate and about the same percentage in the U.S. House and a President who has a veto pen. Despite all of that, for the first time in nine years we increased the minimum wage. Those folks working at the bottom of the economic ladder--the ones who work two jobs, sometimes three jobs. I believe in 60 percent of the cases, it is a woman trying to make ends meet, often trying to raise a family--for the first time in 9 years, we increased the minimum wage to say to them: You matter as well. You are at the bottom of the ladder, but there are ways we can help you. And an increase to the minimum wage is a significant accomplishment.

We passed a reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, and that was significant. We increased Pell grants and student loans. We did some important things in Congress. We passed an energy bill at the end.

Would we have wished we could have done more? Sure. But the fact is, with this President in the White House, we were not able to get all the things we wanted to get done. But we will. The future is about change. The agenda that we care so much about is about change, about pivoting and beginning to take care of things in this country that have long been neglected.

Having said all of that, I feel optimistic. I like what we have done. I know this is a time that is very frustrating for the American people for a lot of reasons: the war in Iraq, the subprime loan scandal, the massive scandal of waste, fraud, and abuse in contracting for the war in Iraq and Hurricane Katrina, the most significant waste, fraud, and abuse in the history of this country.

I know why people are upset. They are upset about jobs going overseas, trade policies that, in my judgment, are bankrupt in terms of standing up for this country's interests. But the fact is, all of those things are things we can change. Step by step, we can make these changes. That is why I feel optimistic.

Mr. President, with that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Yes, cellulosic ethanol projects are consistent with the intent of title XVII of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and would clearly be within the scope of technologies that would be eligible for a loan guarantee from the Department of Energy.

Yes, I believe that loan guarantees for development of advanced battery technologies would also fit into the scope of manufacturing technologies contemplated by the language in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2008 and should be consistent with the intent of title XVII of the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

Mr. President, are we in morning business at this time?

Amendment No. 3695, as Modified

Mr. President, how much time remains before the vote?

Mr. President, let me understand, we are debating my amendment, and I have 2 minutes left on my amendment?

I understand. About energy?

Mr. President, let me take the time that remains on our side, at least.

We have a 9:15 vote, and the vote is a vote on determining whether we are going to continue to do business the way we have always done business on these issues or whether we are going to vote for some change here and some reform.

This amendment is very simple. It provides some payment limitations with respect to the farm bill. It says those people who have never farmed and are never going to farm, living on land that has not produced a crop for 20 years, should not be getting farm program payments. But they are today, and they will under the bill that is here on the floor of the Senate.

I support the bill on the floor of the Senate, but I want to improve it by amending it with these payment limitations. My colleague, Senator Grassley, joins me. My colleague, Senator Nelson from Nebraska, joins me, and others.

This issue is some payment limitations. We are supposed to provide a farm program that helps family farmers during tough periods. This farm program has become a set of golden arches for some of the biggest corporate farms in this country. Millions of dollars are being sucked out of this farm program in large payments for large corporate agrifactories. That is No. 1.

No. 2, as I have indicated, we have farm program payments going to people who have never farmed and never will farm. Mr. President, in the last 5 years, $1.3 billion went from this country's Treasury in farm program payments to people who are not farming. Think of that: $1.3 billion.

Do you think there might have been a better use for that? Do you think maybe if we recovered that $1.3 billion we could provide a better safety net for family farmers when they run into a tough patch or a tough spell? In my judgment, the answer is yes, we could do much better.

Mr. President, let me ask my colleague from New Mexico if he is intending to use the remaining time.

Mr. President, I virtually said what I intended to say. If my colleague from New Mexico wishes to speak about the Energy bill, there has been a lot of work on an energy bill which is very important. There has not been much debate or discussion about it. I do not object to continuing that discussion.

But I do want to say this 9:15 vote is very important. It is about change and reform. It is about doing the right thing for family farmers. I hope the Dorgan-Grassley-Nelson amendment will be supported and that we will finally say to the American people: Yes, we are about change. We are about reform. We are about doing things right.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, I rise with my colleague from Iowa, Senator Grassley, and others who will be here to discuss the Dorgan- Grassley-Ben Nelson, et al, amendment we put together to this bill. Let me make a couple points. First of all, I don't think there is anybody in this Chamber who can claim they have a stronger record for farm programs than I do, having been in Congress a good long while. Family farms are very important to me. I believe it is an important element of this country's economy and culture to have the yard lights dotting the landscape of America, people living on the land trying to raise a family, raise a crop, and produce some livestock. That is very important. I have spent a lot of time supporting family farming in this country.

The legislation brought to us by the Agriculture Committee is a good bill. I applaud my colleagues, Senator Harkin and Senator Chambliss, and my colleague, Senator Conrad, for his work, and so many others. This is a good piece of legislation. It improves slightly the safety net so when there is trouble and tough times, family farmers understand there is a safety net. It provides a disaster title for the first time in a long time, so when there is a natural weather disaster or natural disaster hitting family farmers, they can rely on this disaster title.

There are a lot of provisions that are good in this bill, including some improvement with respect to the issue of payment limits. They eliminated the three-entity rule. That is a step forward. I appreciate that. I like what has been done, and I want to improve it because there are a couple things that can be done that should improve it, in my judgment. These deal with the issue of payment limits.

Let me start with this proposition: Does anybody in this Chamber believe and want to stand up and say: Do you know what we ought to do with the farm program? Let's give farm program benefits to people who don't farm. Does anybody want to stand up and say, yes, that is our policy, that makes a lot of sense? Let's provide farm program checks to people who don't farm.

It is happening today. It will happen under this bill unless we make this correction. My colleague from Iowa and my colleague from Georgia missed all the applause I was giving them. They have done a great job. I have applauded this bill coming out of the committee. I said I want to improve it because this committee didn't finish the work on payment limitations.

Two things: No. 1, we ought to limit farm program payments to those who are farming. We ought not be sending farm program checks in the mail to people who never farmed and will never farm. Yet that is happening and will continue to happen. No. 2, there ought to be some reasonable limit on payments.

My colleagues, Senator Grassley and Senator Nelson from Nebraska and others, have joined me in saying that limit ought to be $250,000 per farm. That is a reasonable limit, a very reasonable limit.

Let me describe how it works. We still have some holes we need to patch. The Houston Chronicle described it--cowboy starter kids they called it. We have a situation in which if land had certain base acres for a crop, you didn't have to raise that crop or produce that crop. You didn't have to plant the crop at all in order to get a check. Down in Texas, they have what are called cowboy starter kits. You can have 20 acres of land or maybe 10 acres of land that were used to produce rice 20 years ago and divide it up--have a house on an acre, run a horse on the other 8 or over 10, hay it once a year, and you get a farm program payment, despite the fact you have never farmed and never will farm and that land hasn't produced a rice crop for 20 years.

Is that reasonable? I don't think it is reasonable. It will give rise to the kind of stories we have heard repeatedly, stories that describe who is getting the benefits of the farm program payments we thought were supposed to be going to help family farmers through tough times. Then we have someone with a cowboy starter kit on 10 or 20 acres who gets a payment who has never farmed and never will farm on land that isn't producing a crop.

The proposal Senator Grassley and I offer today says let's not do that. Let's say, if you get a payment, you have to be farming, No. 1. And No. 2, there ought to be a limit. I normally wouldn't use a name such as this, but I am doing it because this was in the San Francisco Chronicle. This was a story in the San Francisco Chronicle, and it shows payments. This is California. We could do this for a lot of areas. This shows payments to 20 individuals and farm businesses, among the top 20 finishers from 2003 to 2005. Constance Bowles from, San Francisco, $1.21 million; George Bowles, same family, $1.190 million. That is $2.3 million to these folks.

As I indicated, this is a San Francisco Chronicle story and is an example of what is happening to undermine this farm program. Let me read from the San Francisco Chronicle:

A prominent San Francisco patron of the arts, Constance

Bowles--heiress of an early California cattle baron, widow of

a former director of UC Berkeley's Bancroft library--was the

largest recipient of federal cotton subsidies in the state of

California between 2003 and 2005, collecting more than $1.2

million, according to the latest available data.

Bowles, 88, of San Francisco, collected the $1.2 million in

mostly cotton payments through her family's 6,000-acre farm,

the Bowles Farming Co., in Los Banos [California]. She could

not be reached for comment.

Another family member, George ``Corky'' Bowles, who died in

2005, collected $1.19 million over the same period. George

Bowles once ran the farm but lived on . . . Telegraph Hill. A

collector of rare books and 18th century English porcelain,

he served as a director of the San Francisco Opera and

trustee of the Fine Arts Museum.

The farm is now run by Phillip Bowles, who also lives in

San Francisco. He told KGO television that he's no fan of

subsidies, but if the big cotton growers in Texas get them,

so should he. Many of these businesses are getting 20 to 30,

sometimes 40 percent of their gross revenues directly from

the government, Phillip Bowles told KGO. I don't have a good

explanation for that. Somebody else might, but it beats me.

Well, if we want this sort of thing to continue, then let's not pass this amendment. This is a very simple amendment Senator Grassley and I offer, which says, A, you ought to be a farmer if you are going to get a farm program payment. That is, you ought to have some active involvement in the farm. Our definition doesn't require you to live out there, but it requires you to have some active involvement. That is No. 1.

That is so reasonable that I guess I would like somebody to stand up and say, you know what, we don't think the farm program is just for farmers. We give educational loans here in this country. We appropriate money for them. We won't let you get an education loan if you are not going to go to college. There are subsidized home loans. You don't get a home loan unless you are going to buy a home. We are going to give assistance in the form of farm program paychecks, or checks to people who don't farm? That doesn't make any sense at all.

Now, some will say, well, we have corrected all that. No, they haven't. They haven't. Let me explain why. They intended to, or they wanted to correct it. There was going to be an amendment passed that would correct it, but it was not offered and not voted on. But one of my colleagues said, we have a $200,000 limitation on payments and Senators Grassley and Dorgan are saying $250,000. Well, that is a little too clever. The payment limitation means you still get the loan deficiency payment under the commodity loans--you still get unlimited payments for all of the production, for the largest farm in America, you get a price support in the form of an LDP under every single bushel of product you produce. It doesn't matter how big you are. You can farm in four States, if you want to, but you are going to get a support price under everything you produce.

Does that make any sense to anybody? You have a payment limitation without a limit? That is not a payment limitation. That is unlimited payments in the LDP for the biggest farms in America, for every single thing they produce.

Senator Grassley and I offer a very simple proposition, and that proposition is a $250,000 payment limit and

that you have to be involved in farming in order to get it.

Now I showed this San Francisco article. This is California, but I could show this for many States. But when one operation gets over $35 million in 5 years, I say that is farming the farm program. When 75 percent of all payments go to 10 percent of the farmers receiving commodity subsidies, you know what is happening. Much of that is going to the biggest farmers, the biggest corporate farms in the country, big agrifactories, and it is producing the revenue by which they buy out the land and bid against family properties for their property right next door. It is happening all over the country.

If one believes that is what we should do, then God bless you, you should not vote for this amendment of ours. But I believe this country has benefitted by the network of family producers out in the country. Some say, well, that is hopelessly old fashioned. You don't understand that in our part of the country we have people who have millions and millions of dollars of revenue and they are important to the economy as well. If you want to farm two or three counties, you ought to be able to do that. I just don't think the Federal Government has the responsibility to be your banker.

I believe, and when I came here I believed it and I still believe it, that a farm program ought to be a safety net that says to family farms, when you run into trouble, you have a safety net--a bridge over troubled times. We want to do that because farming is different. But providing a safety net for families is very different than providing a set of golden arches for the biggest corporate agrifactories in this country.

I don't need four reasons or three reasons or even two reasons, just give me one good reason we ought to collect taxes from hard-working Americans and say we are going to transfer that money to some corporate agrifactory that gets $30 million in 5 years. Give me one good reason to do that. I don't think it exists.

Let me end where I began. I am a strong supporter of family farming, a strong supporter of agriculture. I like what this committee has done. I appreciate very much the work of Senator Harkin and Senator Chambliss. I want to improve this bill.

Let me conclude with something a rancher and a farmer just west of Bismarck, ND wrote once. He is a guy who is a terrific writer and he asked the question--and I have asked it before on the floor of the Senate, and it describes why I support family farming and why this amendment is necessary--What is it worth? What is it worth for a kid to know how to weld a seam? What is it worth for a kid to know how to teach a calf to suck milk from a bucket? What is it worth for a kid to know how to grease a combine? What is it worth for a kid to know how to butcher a hog? What is it worth for a kid to know how to plow a field? What is it worth for a kid to know how build a lean-to? What is it worth for a kid to know how to pour cement?

You know something, farm kids know all of those things, and the only university in America where they teach it is on the family farm. Fortunately, in World War II, we sent millions of them from American farms all across the world. They could fix anything. What is it worth to have all that knowledge? You learn that on family farms across this country. That is why family farming is so important. I say, today let's stand up for a good safety net for family farmers. Let's not ruin the farm program. And we will, as sure as I am standing here, ruin the farm program and ruin the opportunity to enact a good farm program in the future, unless we do what we know is necessary.

We have a farm program that is designed to be a safety net and to help family farmers through tough times, but we cannot do that by pretending this circumstance doesn't exist, whereby in the current farm program we give farm program benefits to people who have never farmed and never will, and we provide farm program benefits to the tune of millions of dollars to the biggest corporate agrifactories in this country. That is not what I came to Congress to do.

I hope we can stand up today on behalf of family farmers and say you matter, and we are going to manifest that in the vote on this amendment.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

How much time remains on the two sides?

Mr. President, my intention would be to use some time and then perhaps yield to my colleague from Georgia, and then I would prefer that we be able to close since it is our amendment, and then we would be done with the time. If that would be satisfactory to my colleague from Georgia, the ranking member, I would proceed on that basis.

Mr. President, let me begin, as a couple of my colleagues have--more specifically, my colleague from Arkansas--I have great respect for Senator Lincoln, Senator Pryor, Senator Chambliss, and others here who may disagree with Senator Grassley and myself. I very much respect their position and do not in any way denigrate a position or a philosophy or a policy choice they have made. I do think, however, this is a real choice and an important choice, and I come at it from a different perspective. I believe very strongly if we do not do the right thing, one day we won't be talking about a farm program because there won't be a farm program.

The fact is most people in this country don't farm. Only a small percentage of people live out in the country, out on the farm, under a yard light, trying to raise a family, trying to raise a crop against all the odds. They put a seed in and in the spring they hope it grows and they hope it doesn't rain too much, they hope it rains enough; they hope it doesn't hail; they hope crop disease doesn't come; and they hope that at the end of the summer, perhaps during the harvest season, they get in and harvest that land and they have a crop that comes out of the ground. Then they hope if they were lucky enough to get through all of that and get a crop and drive it to the country elevator, that they might get a decent price for it. They live on hope. The only way people living on a farm in the country can exist is living on hope. They are eternal optimists, believing that if they put a crop in in the spring, that putting that seed into that soil is going to somehow sprout into something bigger, and that at the end of the growing season, they have an opportunity to make a decent living. That is what it is about--because farmers live on hope--but because, in most cases, when international wild price swings occur and the bottom falls out of the grain market, if we don't have a safety net across those price valleys, so those family farmers get economic leverage, the opportunity to make it from one side to the other, they get wiped out. The same is true when a natural disaster comes along.

There are some big enterprises that have the economic strength to get through it. Perhaps when price declines, when disasters hit, they can get through it, but the family farmer doesn't. They get washed away, completely washed away. Then you have the auction sale. You have the yard sale, the auction sale, and that family farmer is gone. It goes on all across this country.

This country decided to do something very important. It decided to say it matters that when you fly across this country tonight, that you are able to look down and see people populating the prairies, populating the rural areas with yard lights and family farms. Look down sometime and see where they all live. Fewer and fewer of them live out in the country. There are fewer and fewer neighbors. But we are trying and struggling mightily to say to family farmers, when you are out there trying to run a family farm and raise a family and raise a crop, if you run into trouble, if you run into a tough patch, we want to help you. That is what this safety net is about.

Now this safety net has grown into a set of golden arches for some. Some of the biggest corporate agrifactories in the country suck millions of dollars out of this program. Some of them are farming the farm program--millions and millions of dollars. Is that what we believe this safety net should be about? Is it, really? Does anyone here believe that those who have never farmed and are never going to farm should receive a farm program payment? Is there anybody who believes that? Because that is what is going to happen. It is what is happening now.

According to some pretty good research that has been done on who receives and would receive the payments under the current system, there are what they call ``down south cowboy starter kits.'' I described that before. It is somebody who subdivides some land that used to produce a crop and still gets a direct payment on a crop that is not produced anymore. So they subdivide it and build a house on part of it and run a horse on another and hay it once a year, and lo and behold, someone who has never farmed and never will, living on ground that has not produced a crop for 20 years, is going to go to the mailbox some day and open up an envelope from the Federal Government and it is going to say: Congratulations. You get a farm program payment. That is exactly what happens today, and it is what is going to happen with this bill.

I support the farm bill that came out of this committee, but I want to improve it because there is a glaring hole. The hole is that under this bill, non-farmers could get farm program payments, and the hole that is there is an unlimited opportunity to get loan deficiency payments on the LDP or the marketing loan portion. My colleague will say: Well, we have a $200,000 cap on farm program payments. But that is not true; they don't have a $200,000 cap. They have a $200,000 cap on the direct payment and the countercyclical payment, but the third piece, the marketing loan and the loan deficiency payment, is unlimited--no cap at all. The biggest farm in the country, on every single bushel of commodity they produce, will get a price protection in the form of a safety net from the American taxpayer. I don't think that adds up.

I described a few moments ago a wonderful--apparently a wonderful woman in San Francisco, a patron of the arts. I had a picture I decided not to use because I don't think it is fair to her, but she was in the San Francisco Chronicle; they did run a picture of her. Her name is Constance Bowles. She was the largest recipient of farm program funds in San Francisco. She received $1.2 million, her husband received $1.1 million. Another fellow still runs the 6,000 acres. He is receiving money. He says: Well, I don't know why I am getting this money, but if they are--if cotton and rice folks in Texas are going to get it, then I think I ought to get it as well. I don't know. Do people think this is what we ought to be doing? Do you think this represents a safety net? It doesn't look like it to me. It looks like a glaring loophole.

The committee made some improvements. I said that when I started. The three-entity rule is gone. That was something that was abusive, and that is gone. I think that is progress. But I am telling my colleagues more needs to be done, because if we pass this bill as is, people who have never farmed and never will, will still receive farm program payments. For land that hasn't produced a crop for 20 years, they will still be able to get farm program payments. In my judgment, that is not reform.

I believe when we read stories--and we will--when we read stories that operations--the big corporate agrifactory gets $35 million in 5 years, I think a lot of the American people reasonably will ask the question: What does this have to do with the safety net to help family farmers through tough times? Again, if we are for change and reform in a constructive way that says let's do the right thing, then we will pass the amendment I have offered with Senator Grassley, Senator Ben Nelson from Nebraska, and others, because we think it is the right thing to do.

Someone said during this debate: This will injure the safety net. No, no. Exactly the opposite. This is the one thing we can do that will preserve and strengthen the safety net. If we don't do this, we won't have a safety net at some point in the years ahead. It will all be gone because the American people will say: If you can't do it right, we are not going to let you do it at all. That is why I believe this is important.

I yield the floor.

How much time remains?

Madam President, to suggest that perhaps we believe that farmers were getting too much money, nothing could be further from the truth. A whole lot of farmers are not getting enough help when they need it. The reason is because we don't have enough money in the farm program to provide a decent safety net. We have money leaking out the back door in the form of millions of dollars of payments to big corporate agrifactories. I have some examples. We have all heard these and read about them.

Constance Bowles, a prominent San Francisco art collector, from 2003 to 2005 received $1.2 million. Her husband received an equivalent amount during that period. Mark Burkett, a bonafide farmer, received payments for corn, wheat, cotton, peanuts, and sorghum from 2003 to 2005 totaling $1.8 million. Tommy Dildine collected $1.04 million. By the way, his wife Betty received exactly the same amount down to the penny. That is just over $2 million for that couple. I could go on.

Is this a safety net helping family farmers? I don't think so. There is nothing, as I indicated previously, in this legislation that stops some of the practices I described earlier.

My colleague said this issue of cowboy starter kits--I am tired hearing about cowboy starter kits. The USDA can shut that down. Yes, they can, but they won't. Why wouldn't we shut down a loophole that says somebody

who has never farmed and never will farm and living on land that hasn't produced a crop for 20 years ought to open the mailbox and get a check from the Federal Government, a farm program payment? Why wouldn't we close that loophole? Why? Because this bill doesn't go far enough and won't close it and those who are opposing us on the floor of the Senate today don't want it closed.

There are a lot of reasons to support family farming. Some say it is hopelessly old-fashioned, that farming has gone a different direction; it is mechanized, it is big, these are big operators farming from California to Maine. I believe it is not hopelessly old-fashioned to think we can keep families on the farm putting in a crop and contributing more than a crop, but contributing to building communities. They are the economic blood vessels that flow into our rural communities in our country.

There is a songwriter, a farmer, a rancher from North Dakota named Chuck Suchy. He sings a song about ``Saturday Night at the Bohemian Hall,'' where all the neighbors, all the farmers in the region gather and talk about the weather, they talk about their crops, and they talk about their families. It is an unusual culture and one that is important to this country. Some say that is yesterday, it is certainly not tomorrow. I, for one, hope we can construct a farm bill that is about tomorrow and that says to family farmers living on the land: We care about you. You are out there alone trying to make it against the odds. So we have a safety net. But some of my colleagues believe that safety net should be a set of golden arches, providing millions to the biggest agrifactories in this country. That is not what the farm program was designed to do.

When we do a program here, it doesn't mean it has to be perverted. We don't need snow removal in Hawaii, we don't need beachfront restoration in North Dakota, and we don't need to pervert a farm program by allowing millions of dollars--and, by the way, since the year 2000, $1.3 billion has been spent by this Federal Government in crop subsidies to people who are not farming--$1.3 billion. What might that have done in the form of health care for children who don't have health care or strengthening education so that when kids walk through a classroom door, we can believe they are walking into one of the best classrooms in the world? What might that have done in a whole range of areas where we could have improved life? What might that have done had that money gone in to strengthening the farm program itself or providing a disaster provision 2, 3 years ago for a farm program that doesn't have it?

Madam President, how much remains on my time?

Again, I know some think it is hopelessly old-fashioned to talk about family farms. I don't. I know some farms have been very successful and they have grown, and I don't mean at all they should be penalized. That is not my intention. We only have a certain amount of money, and we ought to provide the best safety net and farm program we can up to a certain amount of production because that is the money we have. But we ought not dissipate our energy, strength, and money on people who are not farming and they go to their mailbox and open a check, and they get a farm program payment even if they don't farm. That does not make sense to me.

Let me tell a story about a young man named Waylon. I was invited to the White House to the East Room some while ago when they brought in some youngsters who were heroes and the President presented these youngsters with medals. One of them was a North Dakotan. Twelve-year- old Waylon was on the farm with his brother and sister. His parents went to a neighbor farm for a moment to see the neighbors. It was winter, and in North Dakota in the winter, the stock pond was frozen. They were playing on the ice. This 12-year-old boy and his brother and sister were playing on the stock pond ice and his sister fell through the ice. It cracked and she fell through the ice and was drowning.

Waylon, age 12, sent his brother to go 1 mile to fetch his parents. His 6-year-old brother went off to fetch the parents. Waylon, age 12, meanwhile lay on his belly with his winter clothes on and cowboy boots toward the edge of the hole on the ice where his sister was drowning.

Some while later, about 20 minutes later, his parents came rushing into the yard, driving into the yard. What they saw was a 12-year-old boy in this area where the ice had broken who couldn't swim, who broke into that ice trying to find his sister who was drowning. What his parents saw was a young 12-year-old boy with his sister's head in the crook of his arm. He was treading water as fast as he could tread still 20 minutes later.

He was given a medal for heroism at the White House along with some other boys. I asked young Waylon: How did you do that? He said I watched ``GI Joe'' and I learned safety tips. He said: I kicked as hard as I could. He kicked so hard that his cowboy boots came off. On that day, a 12-year-old boy who couldn't swim reached out his hand for his sister who was drowning.

That same type of love, that kind of commitment, that outreach of a hand, not just from that 12-year-old boy, but from a country to farmers all across this country to say, let us help you when you are in trouble--that is the instinct of this country and why we created a safety net in the first place, to reach out our hands to say we want to help, you are not alone when prices collapse, when disease comes, when it hails, when it rains, when it rains too much, when it doesn't rain enough. This country has said we want to help because we believe family farmers are important to this country. We want people on Saturday night to come to the Bohemian Hall and swap stories about the weather, the crops, and their neighbors. We want that. The way you get that, it seems to me, is to preserve a safety net. We will not preserve a safety net for family farmers by deciding we ought to give millions and millions of dollars to the biggest agrifactories in this country that are farming the farm program.

When we give $1.3 billion in farm program payments to people who are not farming--let me say that again--when we send checks to the mailboxes of people who are not farming to the tune of $1.3 billion and call it a safety net in a farm program, I am saying it is a perversion of what we ought to do as a government to help family farmers in the future.

This ought not be a difficult choice. The committee made some improvements in this bill; yes, they did. But without this amendment, we will still have people who are not farming now and have never farmed in the past and will never farm in the future living on land that has not produced a crop for 20 years, and they are going to continue to get farm program payments. If you don't believe that is wrong, then vote against this amendment.

Senator Grassley and I believe there is a much better way. We don't do it by suggesting anybody at all should ever be penalized. We just believe we should use the resources we have to provide the best safety net we can to those family farms out there struggling to try to make ends meet during tough times. That is why we have a farm program. It is why we designed a safety net. It has not worked as well as any of us would have liked.

I would like to improve the safety net, but we can't improve the safety net if we are using this precious money to send it to Telegraph Hill in San Francisco to somebody who gets $2.4 million with her husband, a patron of the arts, who gets money from the farm program and whose brother now runs the farm and says: I don't know why we get this money, but if they get it down in Texas, we ought to get it here in San Francisco.

I am telling you, the American people expect more from us. Let me finish by saying this again. I deeply respect my colleagues who disagree with me. I respect my colleagues who have spoken in support of their bill and against this amendment. But I say to them, if they are for constructive change, if they are for reform that the American people understand makes sense, then they have to support this amendment and believe let's at least do the right thing.

This is a good bill that came out of the committee, but it needs to have this hole plugged. To have a bill come out of the committee and have loan deficiency payments or the marketing

loan be totally unlimited for the biggest farm in America for everything they ever will produce, that is wrong. It is a hole big enough to drive a truck through. If we can fix that, I say we have done a good day's work and done something very important for family farmers in the future.

One of my colleagues says, if we do this, he won't vote for the bill. I am going to vote for the bill one way or the other because this bill is an advancement in public policy. But Senator Grassley has said it well, my colleague Ben Nelson and others believe as I do that we should do this, we should have done this 6 years ago. And by the way, we had 66 Senators vote for this approach the last time we wrote a farm bill, and it got dropped in conference. My hope is we will at least have 60 votes tomorrow in support of change, constructive reform that the American people want. If you went to a cafe anyplace in this country, set this out and said: What do you think we should do? I tell you it will be 99 percent saying fix this, fix this, do this in support of the American taxpayers, and do this in support of family farmers.

Mr. President, if it will be permissible, I ask unanimous consent to modify an amendment. I have cleared this with Senator Chambliss and Senator Harkin. I ask for the regular order on my amendment No. 3695 for the purpose of modifying it.

The modification is at the desk. I ask the amendment be so modified.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I assumed we were going to go off morning business and onto the calendar. I was going to speak for 20 minutes, so I will speak in line of appearance on the floor for 20 minutes at whatever appropriate time that is.

Mr. President, what is happening in the Senate is going to give frustration a new meaning. I cannot begin to explain how unbelievably frustrating it is for people elected to come to this body, they say the greatest deliberative body, to be at parade rest day after day after day, unable to move because of two simple words uttered almost routinely every day by the minority: I object. I object to everything. I object. I object.

Mark Twain once was asked if he would engage in a debate. And he said: Of course, as long as I can take the negative side.

They said: We have not told you what the subject is.

He said: That does not matter. The negative side will take no preparation.

It takes no preparation to say ``I object,'' to take the negative side of everything. Yet that is what has happened. We have people posing as a set of human brake pads, determined to stop everything in the Senate. Maybe that would make not much difference if there were not things that were so urgent and in need of being done.

I sat here for a while this afternoon and saw something quite stunning. My colleague stood up and said, on the appropriations bill that passed the Senate by a wide margin, over 80 votes on transportation-housing and so on, she wanted to bring the conference report up to the Senate. There was an objection by the Republican leader of the Senate: I object.

Then, immediately afterwards, Senator Cornyn from Texas stood up and said: I do not understand what all of the problem is, the way the majority is running this place, why do we not get appropriations bills to the floor of the Senate?

This was immediately after his side had already objected to bringing an appropriations bill to the floor of the Senate. It is as if they think no one is watching. These are illusionists who provide no illusion. Nobody is watching, they think. This is all done in broad daylight. They say: We object to bringing appropriations bills to the floor of the Senate. Then they stand up and seek recognition and ask: Why are you not bringing appropriations bills to the floor of the Senate? Do they believe people do not watch and listen and understand?

It is absolutely beyond me. Now, let me describe this ``I object'' strategy. I object to appropriations bills, they say. Do you know this year we even had to file a cloture petition to shut off a filibuster on a motion to proceed to the appropriations bill that would fund homeland security needs.

We are in this process of waging a war on terrorism to protect our country, and we cannot bring a bill to the floor earlier this year on homeland security appropriations to fund the programs without having a filibuster by the other side on a motion to proceed, not even on the bill, but a motion to proceed to the bill. That describes what the other side has done all year long.

Now, in December, they come to the floor and they say: Well, where are the appropriations bills? Well, I will tell you where they are; you objected to all of them. You took all the action necessary to try to prohibit us from moving these appropriations bills. That is the case.

Alternative minimum tax, they call it AMT. It is a fancy way of describing an alternative tax system that recalculates your tax. It is going to affect millions more Americans. We should fix that. Why have we not fixed that today? Because the other side has objected. The Republican leader has objected. That is why we have not fixed it.

The farm bill. Why have we not finished the farm bill? Because the Republicans have objected. We wanted to come out here and finish it. We have made unanimous consent requests. We have an offer in front of them now with the amendments and so on, but they continue to object.

I have said often, if farmers behaved the way this Congress--and especially the minority--behaves, they would not have a crop to plant because they would not get time. They would not have a crop to harvest if they got it planted because they would not have time. They would object. They would not milk the cows when the cows were fresh. I mean they would not have a crop or cows. You cannot put all these things off, nor should the Senate put them off.

An energy bill. Well we tried to go to conference on an energy bill. There was an objection on the Republican side. So now we are hoping to try to be able to consider an energy bill that comes from the House. I hope we can round up the votes for it. But we never got to conference because of an objection on the Republican side.

Now my colleague, as I listened this afternoon, said the proposal on the alternative minimum tax by the Democrats was more taxes on the American people, a substitution of taxes and to accommodate the growth of Government.

Let me take both those proposals. This issue of the growth of Government is fascinating to me because this President has proposed more spending than any President in the history of this country, by far. We have in front of this body right now a proposal by this President for $196 billion, none of it paid for, to support the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now, $196 billion, that is $16 billion a month, $4 billion a week, all of it added to the Federal debt, none of it paid for. We have someone over there stand up and say we are the big spenders, we are the ones who want to spend money, after the President has asked for $196 billion in additional spending that he wants.

He said that $22 billion we wanted to invest in this country was too much money. We were $22 billion apart, with respect to the President's budget and our bipartisan approach on the appropriations committee. He said: No, that is too much money, that $22 billion to invest in our country's roads and bridges and health care and energy. That is too much money to invest in our country, but I want $196 billion, none of it paid for, all of it outside the budget, for my priorities, the President said.

It is interesting to me that even as we are told by my colleague from Texas and others that this is growth in spending and that somehow the profligate spenders are on this side of the aisle, and I must say I have held now 12 hearings on the issue of waste, fraud, and abuse in the countries of Iraq and Afghanistan in the prosecution of these wars. Waste, fraud, and abuse by contractors, a massive amount of money shoveled out the door by this administration to contractors.

Let me tell you what the result has been: A blind eye. No one seems to care. You want some nails? I know where there are 50,000 pounds of nails lying in the sand. You know where it is? In the country of Iraq, 50,000 pounds of nails lying in the sands of Iraq in a pile.

You know why? Because the contractor ordered the wrong size. But it did not matter, throw them away, reorder. It is a cost-plus contract. The American taxpayers are picking up the tab. Do you want to see waste, fraud, and abuse? This is a hand towel provided to American soldiers.

I ask unanimous consent to show the item on the floor of the Senate.

This was provided to American soldiers by the subsidiary of Halliburton Corporation. They ordered hand towels under their contract for the American soldiers. Well, guess what. The guy who ordered these was the order manager sitting in Kuwait. His name was Henry Bunting. He came and testified before my hearing. He said: I ordered these towels, but I ordered white towels, plain white towels. My supervisor said: You cannot do that. You need for our name, Kellogg, Brown and Root, the subsidiary of Halliburton, to be embroidered on the towel.

He said: Well, that is going to triple the cost. He was told: It does not matter. It is a cost-plus contract. The American taxpayer pays for this. Katy bar the door. Spend whatever you like. The American taxpayer will pay for it. Two hundred and twenty million dollars to a contractor to rehabilitate health clinics in Iraq. The $220 million is gone. The contractor has it all, and there are 20 health clinics built.

And a physician goes to the Health Minister and says: I want to see these 220 health clinics the American taxpayer paid for; the Health Minister of Iraq said: Well, those, you have to understand, are ``imaginary'' clinics.

Seven thousand six hundred dollars a month to rent an SUV, $45 a case for a case of Coca-Cola, $85,000 trucks that have a flat tire and they are left beside the road to be torched in Iraq because they cannot fix a flat tire.

American taxpayer is going to pay for all of that. It is a cost-plus contract. You have a truck with a plugged fuel pump, do not worry, leave it behind. Yeah, it will get torched, but the American taxpayer pays for that. So when I hear somebody talking about profligate spending, I say to them this: We have had four votes on the floor of the Senate to set up a Truman Committee of the type Harry Truman led dedicated to root out waste, fraud, and abuse.

Four times we lost that vote. I am proud to tell you every Member of the Senate on this side of the Senate voted with me, but four times we have lost because there are some who talk a lot about spending but do not care how much is spent.

This is the greatest waste, fraud, and abuse that has occurred in the history of this country with this profligate contracting. I have only described the tip of the iceberg. I could spend an hour out here telling you stories about the way the American taxpayer has been fleeced by the massive amount of money that is shoveled out the door and the $196 billion the President now wants; a substantial portion of it will also go to corporations and still no one is watching the store. Still no one is watching the store. In Iraq itself, $8.9 billion is missing. Think of that. I daresay no one is looking for it.

Growth in government has a pretty hollow sound, it seems to me. The growth of spending, the waste, fraud, and abuse that is occurring under the nose of this administration, an administration that seems unconcerned, is the most significant waste, fraud, and abuse in the history of this country. We need to stop it. I will offer again the issue of a Truman commission to set up a special committee to investigate this and put an end to it.

On the question of who pays taxes, my colleague says: This is fixing the alternative minimum tax, but you are charging some others additional taxes. Let me remind my colleague who is going to pay additional taxes. The person who ran a hedge fund last year and made $1.7 billion was the highest paid person in this country that we know. If you are adding that up, if someone asked: What is your monthly salary, that person would have to say, it is about $145 million a month. Some would ask: What do you earn in a day. About $4.5 million a day. That is a pretty big salary.

Do you know something more interesting about that? The people earning at that level are paying an income tax rate in most cases of 15 percent. Think of that. There are no Americans going to work this morning working in ordinary jobs who are paying 15 percent income tax. I guarantee they are paying much more.

One of the richest men in the world, Warren Buffett from Omaha, said in his offices they got permission from his employees to figure out what happened with respect to the percentage of taxes paid by the employees. It turns out in that office, the lowest tax rate paid in his office is paid by the second richest man in the world, Warren Buffett. He said that is an outrage.

He said: I pay a lower percent of taxes from my income than my receptionist does. That is an outrage. Some want to correct that. I do.

My colleague from Texas would say: You are going to hurt people engaged in capital accumulation. Well, it seems to me the issue is one of fairness. Why is it that one group of people who makes hundreds of millions gets to pay a 15-percent tax rate. But a whole lot of other people who work hard all day, take a shower at night because their labor is important, come home with a meager paycheck and haven't made much progress with their salary in recent years, they look at their tax bill and are paying 25, 30, 35 percent, plus their Social Security taxes.

When my colleague talks about the growth of government, I say: Look in the mirror. When my colleague talks about taxes, I say: Look in the mirror and ask yourself whether you want a fair tax system.

More important than that, I want to talk for a moment about priorities. When we are told that $196 billion ought to be made available, none of it paid for, for the President's priorities, and we don't have enough money for things at home, I ask a question about this young lady. Her name is Ta'shon Rain Littlelight. She is a beautiful young Indian girl from the Crow Reservation in Montana. Ta'shon was 5 years old. Ta'shon died.

I held a hearing in Montana with Senator Tester on the Crow Reservation. This little girl's grandmother came to the hearing and held up this picture. She said Ta'shon died a very painful death, was in pain month after month. The kind of health care that should have been available to diagnose an illness which later became terminal was not available to this little girl. So she lived a painful last 3 months with a terminal illness and never got the health care she should have received. Not enough money for that, just not enough. Yes, this 5-year- old girl died. Not enough money for Indian health to deal with her.

I have shown my colleagues a picture of a little girl named Avis Littlewind. She was 14. She is dead as well. She took her own life. She lay in bed 90 days in a fetal position, missing school, 90 days, and somehow it didn't raise alarms anywhere. She took her own life. No mental health treatment, no mental health treatment available on that reservation for that young lady.

I have shown my colleagues a picture of a woman brought into an emergency room--a Native American woman, as well. She had an 8-by-10 piece of paper attached to her thigh by a piece of masking tape, being transported on a hospital gurney from the ambulance to the hospital with a piece of paper attached by masking tape to her thigh that said to the hospital: If you accept this patient, understand that the contract health care money is gone for the year. You accept this patient on your own dime and at your own risk, this patient with a heart attack.

We don't have enough money for our domestic needs. The President says: No, I want $196 billion for my priorities. I have just described the massive waste, fraud, and abuse with respect to the priorities of contracting in Iraq. I care about Indian health care for a lot of reasons. I chair the Indian Affairs Committee. We have struggled desperately to try to get the money we need for Indian health. That money is not available. Why? Because investment at home is not the priority. The fact is, these issues are life or death for a little girl like Ta'shon Rain Littlelight. This Congress can do something about it.

One hundred years from now, we will all be dead. But historians can understand who we were. They can look at what this country decided to do, what kind of decisions this Senate made by what we spent our money on. What did we think was important? Someone once asked the question, if you were charged with the task of writing an obituary for someone you had never met, and the only information you had was the check register from that person's checkbook, what could you write about that person? What you could write about that person is what you knew that person to value based on what they spent their money on. What did they invest in, contribute to? What was important to them? What was their value system?

The same will be true when historians evaluate what was important to us, what our value system was. So we have this dispute these days with President Bush and those on the other side of the aisle who are loyally supportive of the President's priorities at this point. I am not suggesting that we shouldn't work together. In fact, all of us have reached out to say: Let's find a way to reach compromise. But on issue after issue after issue--the alternative minimum tax, the Energy bill, the farm bill, appropriations bills--we have had great difficulty getting anything other than a cold shoulder from the White House. Democracy works and this system of government works only with compromise. It is the only way it can work.

The majority leader was here today once again seeking an opportunity to have unanimous consent requests

agreed to or negotiated. The farm bill is an awfully good example. We have now sent to the other side a list of things that we hope perhaps they might agree to. And if they don't agree to that, to give us a list back. Let's find a way to have common lists of amendments to bring the farm bill to the floor and finish it. That is a reasonable thing to do. Yet we can't get that done, can't get the first baby step in the right direction. All we get is hot air, a lot of rhetoric, discussion such as I heard this afternoon that somehow the majority is a group of profligate spenders, and the majority wants to increase taxes. What a bunch of nonsense. It is completely at odds with the facts. It is as if they believe that there are not cameras here and this isn't being recorded.

I was thinking, as I was sitting here, about a story I heard when I was a kid of Joseph Montgolfier from rural France. The story was in 1783. He was sitting in a big, overstuffed chair looking at his fireplace in his country home. And as he watched the fireplace he saw sparks and smoke go up the chimney. As he contemplated the smoke and the sparks, he thought: There is something taking the smoke and sparks up the chimney. That must be some sort of energy. And so several months later he was in a meadow in rural France with burlap bags he had dampened and straw he was burning and he fashioned the first balloon. And it was the first recorded evidence of powered flight. He discovered that hot air rises and used hot air to lift a balloon.

I was thinking about hot air today because I listened to what is supposed to somehow pass for informed debate, and it is nothing but hot air. Why don't you pass the appropriations bills. OK. Let's try one. I object, he says.

I don't understand that at all. Don't ask us to pass bills you are going to object to, if you are going to continue to stall and object. If you want us to pass legislation, appropriations, energy, AMT, if you want us to pass legislation, come to the floor this afternoon. Let's work together and work out a process by which we pass legislation that advances this country's interests. It is not as if we don't have significant challenges and significant interests. We do.

No one in this Chamber can suggest somehow that with the price of oil bobbing at around $90 to $100 a barrel that we don't have serious challenges and a need to pass an energy bill. The House of Representatives is doing an energy bill. We did one in the Senate prior to this. We tried to go to conference, and there was objection. So we couldn't even get to conference. But we will, I think and I hope, have the Energy bill the House is going to pass and then send over to the Senate next week. There is an urgent need to have conservation, efficiency, and renewable energy, as well as continue to use fossil fuels without injuring the environment. We can do all of those things, and should, but we will need some cooperation. We are not asking for the Moon. We are just saying this country faces obvious challenges.

No one party can do it alone. We have a 51-49 majority. All we need is some cooperation. All we need is for people who continue to come day after day after day with a two-word vocabulary, ``I object,'' to see if they can't add a few words and say ``I accept.''

Let's work together. Let's join together to get things done. That is all we are asking. We only have a few days left in this session, probably a maximum of 12 or 13 days. I would hope all of us who are paid to work here and do the public's business would want to make those days productive on behalf of the country. We live in a great place. We should give thanks every day for this opportunity. Let's find a way to address these issues, invest in this country's priorities, pass an energy bill that we can be proud of that makes us less dependent on foreign oil, pass an AMT bill that is going to help avoid increased taxes for a lot of Americans who do not deserve to have an increased tax bill. We can do all of those things if we work together.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, December 5, 2007 at 9 a.m. in room 406 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in order to conduct a business meeting to consider the following items: amendment in the Nature of a Substitute, Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act of 2007,

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate in order to conduct a hearing entitled ``Reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act: Protecting Our Children and Our Communities'' on Wednesday, December 5, 2007 at 10 a.m. in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Witness list:

J. Robert Flores, Administrator, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC; Shay Bilchik, Founder and Director, Center for Juvenile Justice Reform, Georgetown University Public Policy Institute, Washington, DC; Deirdre Wilson Garton, Chair, Governor's Juvenile Justice Commission, Madison, WI; Ann Marie Ambrose, Director, Bureau of Child Welfare and Juvenile Justice Services, Harrisburg, PA; Richard Miranda, Chief, Tucson Police Department, Tucson, AZ.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate in order to conduct a hearing entitled ``The Looming Foreclosure Crisis: How To Help Families Save Their Homes'' on Wednesday, December 5, 2007 at 2:30 p.m. in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Witness list:

Nettie McGee, Chicago, IL; Mark Zandi, Chief Economist, Moody's Economy.com, Inc., West Chester, PA; Mortgage Industry Witness TBD; Professor Mark Scarberry, Resident Scholar, American Bankruptcy Institute, Washington, DC; The Honorable Jacqueline P. Cox, United States Bankruptcy Judge, United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Chicago, IL; The Honorable Thomas Bennett, United States Bankruptcy Judge, United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Alabama, Birmingham, AL; Henry J. Sommer, President, National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys, Philadelphia, PA.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for the Committee on Veterans' Affairs to be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, December 5, in order to conduct a hearing on the Nomination of James Peake to be Secretary of Veterans Affairs. The Committee will meet in room SDG-50 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, at 9:30 a.m.

select committee on intelligence

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on December 5, 2007 at 3 p.m. to hold a closed conference on the fiscal year 2008 Intelligence Authorization.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Special Committee on Aging be authorized to meet today, Wednesday, December 5, 2007 from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Dirksen 106 for the purpose of conducting a hearing concerning the elderly who have been displaced by war, poverty, and persecution abroad.

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

Mr. President, about 2 hours ago, the Commerce Committee of the Senate took some action on a bill I offered along with my colleague, Senator Lott from Mississippi. I wish to talk about the Media Ownership Act of 2007 for just a moment. I hope, perhaps, the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission may take note and watch what the Commerce Committee did.

This issue is very important. It has been around for a long time. It deals with media concentration. Some years ago--in 2003--the then- Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Michael Powell, rounded up two other votes and by a vote of three to two passed a new FCC rule allowing a relaxation of ownership limits for television and radio stations, and for newspapers, and here is what they concluded back then. It is almost unbelievable. They said it will be OK with them if, in the largest American cities, one company owned eight radio stations, three television stations, the newspaper, and the cable company--they would all be owned by the same company. They said that would be just dandy.

Well, the fact is, it was not fine with me, and I fought it. Senator Lott joined me back then. We offered a resolution of disapproval of the FCC rule and it passed the Senate. In the meantime, the Federal court of appeals stayed the rule, and so the rule never went into effect. But it was unbelievable to me that the Federal Communications Commission thought that what we really needed in this country was more concentration in the media.

Well, the idea is not dead. The current Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission came up recently with an idea of relaxing ownership rules, and he announced--in an op-ed piece in the New York Times and then in a press release he was going to propose a new set of rules that relax the ownership restrictions. So he said: We are going to announce the rule in November, and I am going to ask for a final FCC vote by December 18.

He says his proposed rule is a real compromise. It is going to allow the ownership of the newspaper and a television station in each of the 20 largest markets in our country. These top 20 markets, by the way, cover one-half of the population of America. He will relax the ban that exists on cross-ownership between newspapers and television stations.

Now, I do not know that anybody is lying awake at night in this country thinking about our most serious problems and deciding that one of the biggest problems in America is that newspapers are not allowed to buy television stations. We have a cross- ownership ban for good reason, in my judgment, but apparently the Chairman of the FCC has been lying awake thinking: We have to fix this. So he has come up with a rule that says: Well, let's let newspapers buy television stations.

We just passed a bill, S. 2332, over in the Commerce Committee that would stop what the FCC is doing and would not allow them to proceed with the December 18 date. It would require that the American public be allowed to weigh in on these issues. We say in our bill that passed unanimously in the Commerce Committee that you have to have a process that is fair to the American public. You cannot decide to announce, ``Here is my rule,'' in November, and then drive it through to a conclusion in December.

The Chairman says: Well, but we had six hearings around the country. We did this. We did that. None of those hearings would have given people an opportunity to comment on this rule because the rule did not exist when he held the hearings. He waited until the hearings were all done and then announced the rule and then has tried to jam this home by December 18. That is what the Chairman is trying to do. It is unfair, and it makes no sense.

With respect to concentration in the media, let me say this: I do not think it has served this country's interest to have the concentration in radio and television, and it certainly does not serve this country's interest to decide that we ought to allow the newspapers now to buy the television stations. I think that concentration is injurious to this democracy. We need the free flow of information.

It is interesting, most of what people will see, hear, and read in America today--Tuesday, December 4--will be controlled by about five or six major corporations with respect to television, the Internet, radio, and the newspapers. About five or six major corporations in this country have a substantial amount of control of what kind of information is available to the American people. And some believe there needs to be greater concentration?

We held a hearing recently in the Senate Commerce Committee, and the Parents Television Council, which is considered to be on the right side of the political spectrum, came and weighed in with opposition to the proposal by the Federal Communications Commission. The witness was from Los Angeles. He said: I have in my office in Los Angeles, CA basic advanced tier cable where I get 48 channels. But he said: That isn't 48 different voices. Then he went down the list of who controls those channels--Time Warner, etc. He just went down the list of the 4 or 5 or 6 big companies that control those 40-some channels.

So it goes back to what I have said for long time. When the FCC is trying to relax these ownership rules, they say: Well, you now have a lot more choices. You have more channels. You have more networks. You have more Internet sites. My response was: Yes, there are more voices from the same ventriloquist. Really, this country is not, in my judgment, served well by a Federal Communications Commission that is just hell bent on deciding: We need to have greater concentration in radio, television, or newspapers.

Now, take a look at what has happened with radio concentration. In one town in North Dakota--a town of about 40,000 or 50,000 people--one company

bought up all of the radio stations--all 6 of them. All six commercial stations were bought by one company from Texas. Does that make sense? It does not to me. The FCC said it was just fine. So what happens with respect to news-gathering in that town? Well, you end up with fewer newspeople because when one company owns all the stations, they just consolidate it all.

There is a real dispute about the story I'm about to tell you and I do not know that anybody has ever gotten to the bottom of it. I have seen so many different stories. Late at night--at 2 in the morning--a train came through Minot, ND, and with anhydrous ammonia cars, derailed, went off the tracks, split some anhydrous ammonia cars, and this deadly plume enveloped the city at 2 a.m. It caused a death, and caused many injuries. Many went to the hospital. It caused great fright among the population, not knowing what was happening. We discovered later it was a great danger to the population. Well, the emergency broadcast function somehow did not work. But notwithstanding the fact the system did not work, the townspeople could not get anybody to answer the telephone at the local radio station. All the commercial stations were owned by the same company from another State. One wonders, what if those stations were owned by individual operators who lived in town? Do you think they would be able to track somebody down? I think so.

Now, the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission is galloping off to relax media ownership rules because he thinks that is really what is necessary. I met with him today, and I said: What is really necessary--he knows this because Senator Lott and I have both told him--is to do first things first; one, do a proceeding on localism to find out: How has all of this concentration affected localism? That is, we provide free licenses to use the airwaves for television and radio, in exchange for which they are responsible to serve local interests.

So do we know what they are doing? No. The Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission has admitted to me they do not know how many stations are using a service called voice-tracking. I will give you an example of voice tracking:

You are driving down the road on a bright Tuesday morning in Salt Lake City, UT, and you have the radio on and after the song ends, the disc jockey comes on and says, ``It is a great morning here in Salt Lake City. We have the Sun coming up over the mountains. We have a blue sky. We have a light 5-mile-an-hour wind. We are going to have a wonderful day, aren't we?''

It turns out the guy is broadcasting from a basement studio in Baltimore, MD, pretending he is in Salt Lake City, simply ripping information from the Internet to say: It is a bright, sunny day here in Salt Lake City. That is called voice tracking. Does that serve local interests? It sure does not. So how many stations do this? How prevalent is that practice? Don't know. Neither does the FCC.

How about starting a proceeding on localism to find out whether those who are using the public airwaves, free of charge--airwaves that belong to the American public, not the licensees--how about finding out how they are serving local interests? Or how about a proceeding dealing with public interest standards because there are public interest requirements for the holding of a license for television and radio broadcasting?

How about first things first? Why the rush to provide more concentration allowing cross-ownership of television stations with newspapers? The Chairman would say: Well, I am not trying to do more concentration in radio and television; I am trying to allow newspapers now to begin buying television stations. Why? Well, he said the newspapers are not doing very well. I said: When did it become the job of the Federal Communications Commission to be the bookkeeper for newspapers? My understanding about newspapers is they used to have a higher profit margin. Now it has dropped to 16 to 18 percent profit margins--pretty good profit compared to all other industries. All of a sudden, the FCC thinks the newspapers are having financial trouble and so they should relax the rules to allow cross-ownership? I just think it is wrong.

Senator Lott and I offered the Media Ownership Act of 2007 today in the Commerce Committee. That bill was agreed to unanimously.

My hope is that the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission is watching and listening because this Congress, on a bipartisan basis, says no to further relaxing the controls on cross-ownership. And this Congress, on a bipartisan basis, I feel, strongly believes we have too much concentration in the media. The Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission believes, apparently, we need more. He is just dead wrong.

My hope is that in the coming couple of weeks he will understand that it would not be the best course for the Federal Communications Commission. It would be wise for the Chairman to decide not to advance to a December 18 final vote on the rule he is proposing. It is not in the public interest. It is not doing what the FCC should do. My hope is he will instead open a public-interest proceeding and open a localism proceeding and finish them to their conclusion and do a good job on them. That would be a public service for this country.

Mr. President, I yield the floor and make a point of order that a quorum is not present.

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

Mr. President, this morning I had an opportunity, which I rarely have, to watch the entire press conference of President Bush at the White House. The press conference dealt largely with the subject of the National Intelligence Estimate that came out yesterday about the issue of a nuclear weapons program in Iran. The NIE that came out indicated that--to the surprise of certainly myself and many others-- the country of Iran abandoned its nuclear weapons program 4 years ago, in 2003. I was surprised, and many others were, because we have heard from this administration repeatedly about the threat posed by Iran's nuclear weapons program including some weeks ago when President Bush raised the specter of a ``World War III.''

Now we learn the nuclear weapons program they indicated Iran was involved in was discontinued 4 years ago. That comes from our National Intelligence Estimate, which is a cumulative assessment of all our intelligence agencies.

It raises, I think, some very important and troubling questions. The questions are not new questions, actually. It is: What did this administration know? What did they understand? What did they find out and when? The American people, and certainly this Congress, has been treated to a very generous conversation by the President and his administration about the specter of the nuclear weapons program in Iran and how it must be stopped. I don't disagree at all with the contention that the behavior of Ahmadinejad and of some of the terrorist elements in Iran and others is far outside the norm and is troublesome to this country. But that is not what I am talking about.

I am talking about the question of a nuclear weapons program and the relentless language by this administration about the nuclear weapons program that was being pursued by the country of Iran.

The intelligence community now says that is not the case and has not been the case since 2003. I wonder if the administration knew, if Mr. Hadley knew--I heard his briefing--did the President know about this new assessment when 5 or 6 weeks ago he was giving another of his speeches and raising the specter of World War III in connection with a presumed or alleged nuclear weapons program by the country of Iran. The American people certainly didn't know what the National Intelligence Estimate had disclosed to us. We are told the Intelligence Community came to this conclusion sometime

around this summer. Mr. Hadley originally said the intelligence folks alerted the White House and indicated that the President should back off a bit. He certainly did not back off.

The reason I raise these issues is because I remember back about 5 years ago going to a room in which top-secret briefings were offered to Members of Congress as a leadup to the war in Iraq. I remember directly the Vice President, the National Security Chief, now the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, I remember the discussion by the head of the CIA, I remember the top-secret material that was told us, which turns out not to have been accurate as a leadup to the Iraq war.

I remember when Secretary Powell, then-Secretary of State, went to the United Nations and made the case describing things we had previously been told about in many cases in top-secret briefings.

For example Powell talked about the danger of the mobile biological weapons labs that supposedly existed in the country of Iraq.

It turns out the mobile biological weapons labs did not exist. It turns out the mobile biological weapons laboratory story was from a fabricator from the country of Iraq, a former taxicab driver in Baghdad, as a matter of fact, someone who was telling this to the German intelligence community. And someone in the German intelligence community wondered whether this person was credible and expressed doubts about the person's credibility to the American intelligence service. They nicknamed this man ``Curve Ball.''

So from a single source, a man named Curve Ball who, among other things, used to drive a taxicab in Baghdad, the world is treated by Secretary Powell to a presentation at the United Nations saying Iraq has mobile biological weapons laboratories which are a danger to all of us. It turns out not to have been true, a fabrication based on a single source without credibility.

None of us were told that at the time, of course. The world wasn't told that. We were just told that Iraq had mobile biological weapons laboratories. We were told Iraq was buying aluminum tubes for the purpose of reconstituting their nuclear capability. The world was told that by Secretary Powell. It turns out that was false as well. And it also turns out that even as we were told that information, the administration knew there were others inside the administration who did not believe it, and yet that information was imparted to us as a set of facts that represented the danger coming from the country of Iraq.

We were told that Iraq was attempting to purchase yellowcake from Niger for the purpose of reconstituting a nuclear capability. We discovered only later that the documents on that were fraudulent. We discovered they were forgeries. Again, the information given the Congress was inaccurate.

Yellowcake from Niger, aluminum tubes, mobile biological weapons laboratories--not accurate, not true. It was presented to the Congress as fact, presented to the American people as fact prior to the Iraq war.

There has been a great deal of discussion and also concern in the country, in this Chamber, about whether this administration is preparing to do something with respect to the country of Iran, and that has been heightened by the language President Bush used recently, including language that said ``World War III'' in the context of the danger of a nuclear weapons program in the country of Iran. That statement was about 5 or 6 weeks ago.

We now know that the National Intelligence Estimate, representing all of the intelligence agencies in this country, has indicated that the nuclear weapons program of Iran that has been discussed so much by the administration was discontinued in 2003.

I think there are serious credibility questions. The President held a press conference today that seemed to suggest that, well, there is no real issue here. There is a very big issue, I say to the President, a very big issue. This country needs to take action internationally to develop strategies based on what we know to be the truth, not what someone alleges to be true. This country needs to have good information, information that is not fabricated by a man named Curve Ball who used to drive a taxicab. This country deserves better than that.

In my judgment, this country has been failed in many ways, some by the intelligence community, some by the administration, perhaps some by Congress. But we certainly deserve straight answers. We deserve the best intelligence that is available.

Look, the fact is we face a challenging and difficult world. One part of that world is the country of Iran. I do not by being here tonight suggest that Iran's behavior is not troublesome, or that they are not a danger in their neighborhood. They are. But I have always believed that the constructive approach to dealing with Iran and, yes, other circumstances around the world is through diplomacy and negotiation and aggressive diplomacy at that. This administration does not believe that is the right course. But I do believe that facing the world that we face, a very challenging world, a war against terrorism, this country will be protected by good intelligence, by an intelligence community that works.

I appreciate the fact that yesterday we were told finally that the Iranians are not at the moment engaging in a nuclear weapons program. They discontinued that in 2003. They say they have high reliability with respect to that conclusion. I appreciate the fact that we are getting that conclusion at this point. And if that is a valid conclusion, if that is the result of good intelligence--and I certainly hope our intelligence service has improved because they got it wrong about 5 years ago. We need to be well served by the best intelligence service we can be capable of producing.

I know today there are men and women risking their lives as members of our intelligence community. My thoughts are with them. I want the best they can give us. And if yesterday's National Intelligence Estimate gives us opportunities to better understand what is happening in that region, then that advances our knowledge.

I will say this: I think this Congress and this administration need to have some straight talk about credibility because there are serious credibility issues with respect to this issue that at this point have not been answered at all, certainly were not answered in the President's news conference today.

The safety of this country hinges on our ability to have good intelligence. This war on terrorism is not a bunch of words, it is real, and there are too many victims out there in this country today who understand that reality. The way to protect our country in the future is to have a good understanding of what is going on in the world, have good intelligence, have good information, and take steps to protect ourselves. But it does not serve this country's interest by ratcheting up the rhetoric and talking about World War III with respect to a country that the administration has alleged up to now has had a nuclear weapons program, only to find out that nuclear weapons program was discontinued 4 years ago.

This Congress and this administration needs to have an aggressive conversation about credibility. We actually represent the same country. I am sure we want the same result. We want to protect this country. We want a foreign policy that deals with reality and a foreign policy that deals with truths that exist out there in a very challenging world.

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

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