Floor Statements

Mr. President, I would like to announce that the Committee on Indian Affairs will meet on Thursday, April 26, 2007, at 10 a.m. in Room 485 of the Russell Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing on S. 462, Shoshone-Paiute Tribes of Duck Valley Water Rights Settlement Act.

Those wishing additional information may contact the Indian Affairs Committee at 224-2251.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, later this week there will be a group of us in the Senate holding a meeting on trade issues and talking about what our response will be to the request by President Bush to extend what they call trade promotion authority. Trade promotion authority is a slogan that was used to replace fast track because fast track apparently became some sort of a pejorative term, at least in the minds of some. So they came up with the term ``trade promotion authority.'' It is like labeling things healthy forests or clear skies, trade promotion authority. What it means is fast track. The Congress, by Constitution, has the

right to be engaged in foreign commerce. That is where it is described, in the Constitution. It is not described as part of executive branch responsibilities. It is described as part of the responsibilities of Congress to be involved in the issue of trade and foreign commerce.

What has happened over some years is the Congress has given the President authority to negotiate trade agreements in secret behind closed doors, bring the trade agreements to this Congress, and we agree we will put on a straitjacket and not be allowed to offer any amendments, and it will be considered as a trade agreement that we have negotiated with some other country under expedited procedures. The Congress itself has decided to put itself in a straitjacket with something called fast track or trade promotion authority. I did not support that. I didn't support it for President Clinton. I don't support it for President Bush. President Bush has had fast track trade promotion authority now for some while. It is about to expire on June 30. He is asking that it be extended. As for me, I will not support extending it. I hope to be involved with a group of Senators who similarly will describe the danger to this country's economic future that would be entailed by supporting the extension of fast track or trade promotion authority.

Let me describe what the danger is. Some wish to ignore all the evidence that exists with respect to trade. The fact is, in the past year our trade deficit in 1 year was $830 billion. What does that number mean? It probably doesn't mean much to most people. It means every single day we purchase from foreign countries $2 billion more than we are able to sell to foreign countries. Every single day we put $2 billion worth of IOUs in the hands of another country. A substantial portion of those IOUs is now possessed by China, Japan, and others. About $1 billion is owed from the citizens of this country to China and Japan.

In addition to the imbalance of $2 billion a day importing more than we export or consume--saying it another way, about 6 percent more than we produce--we are seeing American jobs being shipped overseas. We have actually some cheerleaders for that proposition. We have some people in this country who say isn't that great. Isn't that a wonderful situation where we can actually move American jobs abroad. None of those people will ever lose their jobs. They will write books and make laws, but they will never lose their jobs. It is the folks who shower after work who lose their jobs; the people who go to the plant, the people on the assembly line; the people who find their job is going elsewhere because there is someone else in the world, a billion to a billion and a half people willing to work for 20 or 30 cents an hour. They will work with no health care benefits and no retirement benefits and in some cases for 20 cents an hour. If they decide they are being cheated out of wages and try to organize workers, they will be sent to prison.

That is the new economy? That is the new circumstance of the global economy? That is free trade? That is good for our country? I don't think so.

I have spoken at length about this issue. I am for trade and plenty of it. Sign me up. I support trade. I like trade. I insist that it be fair to this country. I am flat out tired, through fast track, of having trade agreements being negotiated in secret overseas someplace behind closed doors by U.S. negotiators who forget who they are working for. They bring them to this Chamber under expedited authority called fast track and there is the prohibition of any amendment being offered to change what is obviously wrong with the agreement. Then it runs through here like a hot knife through butter. We have had NAFTA and CAFTA and U.S.-Canada. We have had all these trade agreements, at the end of which we have the largest trade deficit in the history of humankind. It is not even close. Every time we pass a new trade agreement, we have a larger deficit.

The people who come up with these concoctions called free trade say: Isn't this wonderful? No, it is not. Would they say it was wonderful if they were losing their jobs? They wouldn't. But they are not the ones losing their jobs.

Alan Blinder, a mainstream economist, former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, said this about the outsourcing of American jobs: There are 40 million American jobs subject to outsourcing. Not all of them will leave this country, but even those that remain will have downward pressure on their income because there is someone else somewhere else in the world willing to work for pennies.

So is that the new global economy? Is that the flat world? Mr. Friedman wrote the book ``The World is Flat.'' I know better than that; so does he. The world is not flat. In the chapter where he looks at Bangalore, India and says, isn't this wonderful, all these jobs in India, no, it is not wonderful.

Is this the kind of new economy we signed up for? Have we forgotten the lessons, have we forgotten what it took to get to this kind of standard of living?

James Fyler was shot 54 times. It was said once he died of lead poisoning. I guess when you are shot 54 times--he was actually killed in Ludlow, CO, nearly 90 years ago. He was killed because he thought people who went into the coal mines to mine for coal had a right to a fair wage and a right to work in a safe workplace.

Move forward a century from James Fyler, from people who gave their lives to lift the standards in this country, to expand the middle class, to provide for good jobs, demand a fair wage, demand decent benefits, and then ask yourself if, after a century, when we expanded the middle class in this country--with good jobs that pay well--have we now decided there is a new strategy, a bankrupt strategy, which is so- called free trade, which is unfair to the American worker, because it is a race to the bottom, saying to companies: If you can find somebody who will work for 20 cents an hour, have them make the Huffy bicycles, have them make the Radio Flyer little red wagons, have them make the Fig Newtons, have them make the Hanes underwear, and have them make the Levi's. They are all gone because they went in search of cheap labor. All those American jobs are gone. Now, I ask you, is that a road to a better future for American workers?

We, actually, in this Chamber, mind you--not me but a majority--have supported one of the most pernicious provisions I have ever seen, a provision that says: Do you know what, if you want to close your manufacturing plant and fire your workers and move the jobs to China, we intend to give you a big fat tax break for doing it. That is unbelievable. I have tried four times to change that in the Senate and have come up short in the vote four straight times. But I guarantee you this: One day, there will be enough clear thinking in this Congress to decide we ought to stop subsidizing the export of American jobs.

So I started by saying we have an $830 billion trade deficit. That relates to the export of jobs and the purchase every day of $2 billion more than we are able to ship abroad. We are going to have to repay that someday. You can make a case on the budget deficit that is money which we owe to ourselves. You cannot make that case with the trade deficit. That will be repaid someday with a lower standard of living in this country.

That is why we ought to, as a country, begin worrying about and thinking about this new strategy. I am for a fair trade strategy. I am for trade, and plenty of it, but it must be fair to this country. I am sick and tired of seeing trade agreements that pull the rug out from under our workers and pull the rug out from under our standards. I want to lift people up, not press people down. I do not believe in a future in which 40 million to 50 million additional workers are subject to outsourcing. But if they are not outsourced, they, nonetheless, can come home and say: Honey, I didn't lose my job today, but they are going to pay me less.

One final point. I spoke here about a week ago about Circuit City. I do not know much about that company. I do know this: They announced they were going to fire 3,400 people. Because they were bad workers? Not a bit. No. They said: We are going to fire them because we want to rehire other workers to whom we can pay less money. They were making, I think, slightly above $11 an hour. They wanted to fire 3,400 workers so they could hire cheaper workers, less expensive workers.

I do not know. If you go into a store and ask somebody where the camera counter is, are you going to find a worker who knows? Maybe you have a worker you could pay less money to, but do these companies forget that their company is their workers, the company is represented by their workforce, that is their brand?

We are headed in the wrong direction. There is no social program in this country as important as a good job that pays well. Yet the whole notion here of the companies that want to produce in China and ship here and run their income through the Cayman Islands to avoid paying taxes to this country--the whole notion is, this is a new day, it is a new economy. Don't you understand it? Free trade. That is not fair trade, where I come from.

My colleague, Senator Brown, has worked on this issue for a long while in the U.S. House, and now in the U.S. Senate. I really appreciate seeing new voices come to the Senate demanding we move toward fair trade relationships. We can compete, but the competition has to be fair. That has not been the case with any of these trade agreements.

Mr. President, I am happy to yield the floor so my colleague, Senator Brown, can be recognized.

Mr. President, will the Senator from Ohio yield for a question?

Mr. President, the Senator from Ohio has described automobiles as one part of his discussion. I wonder if the Senator from Ohio knows, for example, with respect to South Korea, we imported about 700,000 automobiles from South Korea in the last year. We were able to export about 4,000 American cars to South Korea.

Now, why the imbalance? Mr. President, 99 percent of the cars driven on the streets of South Korea are made in South Korea. That is the way they want it. Once in a great while, we have a little burst. The Dodge Dakota pickup--all of a sudden, it looked like they were going to sell some Dodge Dakota pickups in South Korea. Just like that, the Government shut that down. Oh, they do it very subtlely, but they know what they are doing--just like that.

China is a good example. We did a trade agreement with China. China is now creating an automobile export market. They want to be a big automobile exporter and intend to export to this country. Here is what we said to China, a country with which we have a giant trade deficit: When you ship your Chinese cars to the United States, we

will impose a 2.5-percent tariff on your cars. And we agree that for any U.S. automobiles we would sell in China, you may impose a 25- percent tariff. So to a country with which we have a giant trade deficit--we now have a $230 billion trade deficit with China--we have said: It is OK for you to impose a tariff that is 10 times higher than we would impose on your cars.

That is unbelievably ignorant, in my judgment, ignorant of our own economic interests.

If I may make one additional point. In Ohio, they used to make Huffy bicycles. I have spoken about that at some length on this floor. They paid people $11 an hour to make Huffy bicycles. Huffy bicycles are 20 percent of the American bicycle market. You can buy them at Wal-Mart, Kmart, Sears. The people at the plant in Ohio loved their jobs. They made the Huffy bicycles for over a century. They all got fired. They all lost their jobs. You can still buy a Huffy bicycle. They are all made in China.

But on the last day of work, after they were fired, these Huffy bicycle workers, as they drove out of the parking lot of the plant, all left a pair of empty shoes where their car used to sit in the parking lot. It was their way of saying to this company: You can ship our jobs overseas, but, by God, you are not going to fill our shoes. It was a poignant way for workers to say: This job mattered to me. We worked here for a century making bicycles as American workers. And now it is gone.

It is unbelievable, when you hear these stories and see what the consequences are of American companies that have decided: Do you know what, the new economy says, let's produce where we can pay people 30 cents an hour. Incidentally, that is how much workers get who are now producing Huffy bicycles. They are paid 30 cents an hour. They work 7 days a week, 12 to 14 hours a day. That is what the Ohio workers were told. You cannot compete against that, so you lose.

In my judgment, our country, this Senate--Senator Brown and I and others--has to begin standing up for the economic interests of our country and our workers. If we do not, we will surely see a shrinking of the middle class and a dramatic impact on the economy and future growth of this country. That is why this is such an important issue.

Again, let me just say how impressed I am with not only Senator Brown but especially Senator Brown and some others who have joined us in the Senate, who will be very strong voices on behalf of a sane, thoughtful, sensible protrade policy that is pro-fair trade and stands up for this country's economic interests.

I thank the Senator from Ohio for yielding to me.

Mr. President, I would like to ask the Senator to yield for one more point. The Governor of Pennsylvania, Governor Rendell, tried very hard to keep a company in Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania House Furniture. They make fine furniture with Pennsylvania wood, a very special kind of Pennsylvania wood. They make top-of-the-line furniture and did for a long time--I think for over a century as well. They were purchased by La-Z-Boy, and La-Z-Boy decided that Pennsylvania House Furniture would be outsourced to China. At that point, Governor Rendell and folks in Pennsylvania got involved to try to save Pennsylvania House Furniture, but they couldn't do it. The jobs all went to China. Incidentally, they now ship the wood from Pennsylvania to China, put the furniture together, and then ship it back to be sold as Pennsylvania House Furniture.

There is somebody in this country who has a piece of furniture that they don't understand the value of. The last day at work at this plant where they had made furniture, these craftsmen, who made top-end, top- of-the-line furniture, these craftsmen, the last day of work, on the last piece of furniture that came off the assembly line in Pennsylvania, turned it over and they all signed it. Someone has a piece of furniture with the signatures of all the craftsmen at that plant who, on their last day at work, decided they wanted to sign as a note of pride in the work they had just completed.

Then the jobs were gone, all gone to China, because the Pennsylvania workers could not compete with those who would work for 25 cents, 30 cents, 35 cents an hour. But they shouldn't have to. That is the point of our discussion about fair trade.

Mr. President, today I am pleased to be joined by Senator Craig to introduce legislation called the Fuel Efficiency Act of 2007. This legislation is an important component of broader legislation that my colleague and I recently introduced on March 14, 2007. That legislation is a balanced plan with the overall goal to improve the energy security of the U.S. through a 50 percent reduction in the oil intensity of the economy by 2030.

This is important to me because the United States remains dangerously dependent on foreign sources of oil. Today we import over 60 percent of our oil from Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Venezuela, and other unstable nations of the world. This is very troubling to me.

Our larger proposal is grounded in four cornerstone principles. The first principle is achievable, stepped increases in fuel efficiency of the transportation fleet. The second principle promotes increased availability of alternative fuel sources and infrastructure. The third principle calls for expanded production and enhanced exploration of domestic and other secure oil and natural gas resources. Finally, the fourth principle improves the management of alliances to better secure global energy supplies.

In the United States, we use about 67 percent of our oil to power our vehicles. This is the area where we are least secure and increasingly dependent. For these reasons and more, we introduced S. 875 as a bi- partisan, balanced approach to securing our future energy through reducing our dependence on foreign oil.

I am also a member of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee which has jurisdiction over the fuel economy standards of our Nation's vehicle fleet. I look forward to working with Chairman Inouye, Ranking Member Stevens, and other members of the committee who are interested in enacting strong, fair, and forwarding-looking fuel economy standards.

It should be noted that this is the first time that both Senator Craig and I have publicly stated our support for increased fuel economy standards beyond the incremental steps that the current administration has made to date. Our Nation's fuel economy standards have not significantly changed since the mid-1980s. We now have lower passenger vehicle fuel efficiency standards than Japan, the European Union, Australia, Canada, and yes, even China.

The bill we have introduced today reforms and strengthens fuel efficiency standards by establishing an annual 4 percent increase in the fuel economy of the entire new vehicle fleet, including automobiles, medium trucks, and heavy trucks from 2012-2030. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will have discretion to invoke ``off-ramps'' if it is determined that the increase is not technologically achievable, creates material safety concerns, or is not cost effective.

Senator Craig and I came together to develop a new pathway forward because we believe that bolder energy security measures must be taken now to address our long-term security, economic growth and environmental protection. There is no silver bullet to solving our energy dependence. Digging and drilling is a strategy I call yesterday forever. Conservation alone is not the answer. Renewable fuels hold promise, but we need to do much more here. We believe the combination of steps sets the right pathway to U.S. energy security, and we look forward to moving increased fuel economy standards through the Senate Commerce Committee.

Mr. President, today I am pleased to be joined by Senator Craig to introduce legislation called the Fuel Efficiency Act of 2007. This legislation is an important component of broader legislation that my colleague and I recently introduced on March 14, 2007. That legislation is a balanced plan with the overall goal to improve the energy security of the U.S. through a 50 percent reduction in the oil intensity of the economy by 2030.

This is important to me because the United States remains dangerously dependent on foreign sources of oil. Today we import over 60 percent of our oil from Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Venezuela, and other unstable nations of the world. This is very troubling to me.

Our larger proposal is grounded in four cornerstone principles. The first principle is achievable, stepped increases in fuel efficiency of the transportation fleet. The second principle promotes increased availability of alternative fuel sources and infrastructure. The third principle calls for expanded production and enhanced exploration of domestic and other secure oil and natural gas resources. Finally, the fourth principle improves the management of alliances to better secure global energy supplies.

In the United States, we use about 67 percent of our oil to power our vehicles. This is the area where we are least secure and increasingly dependent. For these reasons and more, we introduced S. 875 as a bi- partisan, balanced approach to securing our future energy through reducing our dependence on foreign oil.

I am also a member of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee which has jurisdiction over the fuel economy standards of our Nation's vehicle fleet. I look forward to working with Chairman Inouye, Ranking Member Stevens, and other members of the committee who are interested in enacting strong, fair, and forwarding-looking fuel economy standards.

It should be noted that this is the first time that both Senator Craig and I have publicly stated our support for increased fuel economy standards beyond the incremental steps that the current administration has made to date. Our Nation's fuel economy standards have not significantly changed since the mid-1980s. We now have lower passenger vehicle fuel efficiency standards than Japan, the European Union, Australia, Canada, and yes, even China.

The bill we have introduced today reforms and strengthens fuel efficiency standards by establishing an annual 4 percent increase in the fuel economy of the entire new vehicle fleet, including automobiles, medium trucks, and heavy trucks from 2012-2030. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will have discretion to invoke ``off-ramps'' if it is determined that the increase is not technologically achievable, creates material safety concerns, or is not cost effective.

Senator Craig and I came together to develop a new pathway forward because we believe that bolder energy security measures must be taken now to address our long-term security, economic growth and environmental protection. There is no silver bullet to solving our energy dependence. Digging and drilling is a strategy I call yesterday forever. Conservation alone is not the answer. Renewable fuels hold promise, but we need to do much more here. We believe the combination of steps sets the right pathway to U.S. energy security, and we look forward to moving increased fuel economy standards through the Senate Commerce Committee.

Mr. President, there is a poignant story about the days following the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. As his body lie in state here in the U.S. Capitol, long lines of people formed in order to file past the body of the dead President. A journalist interviewed a worker who was standing there, with his hat in his hand held in front of him, with tears in his eyes. The journalist asked this working man, who had been standing in line for some long while: Did you know Franklin Delano Roosevelt? The working man looked back at him and said: No, I didn't. But he knew me.

The question is, Who knows American workers today? I ask that question because I read in the paper that Circuit City, a pretty well- known corporation in this country, has decided it wants to lay off 3,400 workers. Here is what Circuit City said about those workers:

It had nothing to do with their skills or whether they were

a good worker or not.

That is according to a Circuit City spokesperson.

Now, this sort of thing follows on the heels of the offshore outsourcing of many other American jobs, American companies shutting down. There is no more Fruit of the Loom underwear made in America, no more Levi's made in America, no more Huffy bicycles made here, no more Fig Newton cookies made here. There are no more Radio Flyer little red wagons made in America. It is all gone. It is all outsourced. Those workers all got fired. Pennsylvania House Furniture. I could go through the long list.

We understand that even as companies outsource jobs to China in search of 30-cents-an-hour labor, other companies that keep their jobs here have decided to put downward pressure on wages to be competitive, so we see the announcement of Circuit City. Three thousand four hundred workers need to be laid off because they are paid an average of $10 to $11 an hour; they are firing workers making 50 cents above the average. They plan to replace them with new workers who will work for substantially less, and they say they are going to save $110 million through these firings and replacements.

But Circuit City executives actually seem to be doing a little better than the workers. The employees are losing their jobs, but the CEO gets $10 million a year. The chairman gets $10 million, the CEO gets $10 million, the executive VP gets $6 million. This is from a company that lost money. I don't know. Maybe in some towns that seems to work. In my hometown, it wouldn't work very long.

It seems to me we are becoming a society of disposable workers, run by those who don't think workers make much of a difference in this country. Circuit City said they will start hiring replacements immediately. Anybody can apply for the jobs except for the Circuit City workers who were fired. They have to wait 10 weeks, and then they can reapply for the job at a lower salary.

So let's put some names to these 3,400 workers. I pulled some out of the newspaper.

Bobby Young worked 20 years for Circuit City. He got a letter from his boss saying he was fired. It was addressed ``To Whom It May Concern.'' It is unbelievable. He said he is 47 years old. ``What they did as a company to me, it's not the American way,'' he says. To Whom It May Concern: You are fired. It tells you a little something about the concern about the workers, doesn't it?

Alan Hartley, Charlotte, NC. He thought he and other top employees were being called into a special meeting because he thought they were going to be recognized for outstanding performance, but it wasn't quite that way. They decided they were going to be recognized to be laid off because they should be replaced with lower paid workers. Now he says they are going to hire people who aren't properly trained for the jobs to help take care of the customers.

I haven't told my kids yet. They don't know I just got

fired for doing a good job.

Steven Rash made $11.59 an hour; worked for the company 7 years. He was working another full-time job as well--two jobs to pay off his student debt.

It is not just Circuit City. There are other companies. I will not go through the whole list of companies. David Leonhart of the New York Times said that companies are wringing out what they see as inefficiencies. The inefficiency of paying $11.50 an hour; God forbid we should overpay people by $11.50 an hour, plus give them a little health insurance and retirement as part of their compensation. Well, when pensions and health insurance and $11.50-an-hour salary is viewed as an inefficiency, there is something wrong in this country. He also says this is a corporate safety net that is being taken away. There is no corporate safety net. It is a basic American standard of living that workers have bargained for.

Let me ask the question whether this applies to everybody. No, it doesn't. It just applies to workers, the people who take a shower after work. It just applies to those people. Top executives--in 2006 there were 35 chief executives who were fired for poor performance and, combined, they got $799 million payment as they went out the door. Pfizer's chairman, he got $200 million when he bailed out of that company, despite the fact the company had lost more than $130 billion in value. Home Depot chairman, he got fired on the very first day of 2007. He got $210 million as he went out the door. United Health Group, he somehow ended up with $1.1 billion in stock options as he went out the door. I don't quite understand all these things.

Jack Welch, a celebrated CEO, wrote the book ``Winning,'' and after he retired from General Electric, he got a package he was sufficiently embarrassed about, once it was disclosed, that he decided to give some of it back.

His package included an $80,000-a-month Central Park apartment during his retirement, lifetime use of the company jet, membership at an array of country clubs, maid service at multiple homes, limousines and prime tickets and several homes.

I don't understand how we have come to the point where the average CEO in this country, the average CEO of Standard & Poor's 500 companies, made $14.7 million. CEOs on average are paid 411 times more than the average workers in this company. Think of that. In 1965, CEOs on average were paid 25 times more than the average worker. Now it is 411 times more. Yesterday I opened the paper and read that Sprint CEO got a compensation package of $21.3 million, the former Nextel chairman got $36.2 million. Sallie Mae, by the way, in the business of providing student loans, their chief executive officer got a package of $16.6 million and a bonus of $2.5 million as a part of that. Ford Motor lost $12.6 billion last year. It went out and recruited a new chairman--oh, by the way, for the chairman, when the company lost $12.6 billion, that chairman got $10.5 million last year. They just went to hire a new guy and he got a $28 million package which includes an $18 million bonus.

The average CEO who was fired last year got $9 million in severance.

Abraham Lincoln once said there is no America without labor and to fleece the one is to rob the other.

There is a man named Bob Negley. Bob Negley is quite a remarkable businessman, a very unusual businessman. He ran a company called Rollerblade. Most of us know about Rollerblade. I like to rollerblade, personally--inline skates. I think it is a great sport. I haven't even broken a bone. Maybe I shouldn't say that, but I like to rollerblade. Bob Negley ran Rollerblade and then he sold it. After he sold it, he did something that is very unusual in this country. He moved to Florida, midyear, sold his position in Rollerblade, that controlling position, and moved to Florida. Then Christmastime came around and all the workers who worked for Bob Negley who made Rollerblades began to get Christmas cards from Bob Negley and his wife. In the Christmas card as they opened it up was a check from this man who had previously owned the company 6 months before. With the check was a note and it said this: I sold this company and I made a lot of money, but I understand what made this company successful. It was all of you. You worked out there in the plants and in the factories, you worked in engineering, you worked in marketing, you are the ones who made this company successful and, as a result, I made a lot of money. I want to share some of it with you. He included in the Christmas card a check computed on the number of years of service which some employees found to be over $20,000, and, by the way, he said, I have prepaid your Federal income taxes on this money. Accept this as a token of my appreciation because you were the company, you made this company successful.

Contrast that, if you will, with these days all the discussions in the newspaper about Circuit City who has to get rid of 3,400 workers. Why? Because we want to hire less-experienced workers, and we want to bring them on for less money; $11 an hour is too much.

Or, perhaps, Wal-Mart, which sends an internal memorandum around. A top executive writes a memo in Wal-Mart and says the cost of an associate--that is an employee, by the way, but you know this notion of ``associate.'' In my hometown there was a one-eyed, 3-legged dog with fleas they named ``Lucky,'' so names don't mean very much.

So he says, the cost of an associate with 7 years of tenure is 55 percent more than the cost of an associate with 1 year of tenure, and yet there is no difference in his or her productivity. Message? Don't let people stay around very long. Let's have a lot of turnover here. Let's have people around who don't know anything so we can pay them nothing. This is going on in this country, and the question is, Who is going to stand up for American workers? Who decides for a change that the expansion of the middle class in this country, where workers were paid well, was something that represented the success of the American economic engine? Who is going to decide that? These companies that decide that workers are like wrenches: use them up and throw them away, it doesn't matter, or will they decide, once again, as Franklin Delano Roosevelt did, or as did that worker standing with his hat in his hands said: I know American workers. That President knew American workers. Will we decide finally that American workers have value in this economic system?

Sure, we can outsource everything. We can ship all these jobs to China and pay people 30 cents an hour to make bicycles to be sold in America. We can decide that we are going to get rid of all these workers and replace them with $8- or $6-an-hour people. Is that what is going to build a better country? Is that what is going to expand the middle class? There is no social program in this Chamber that we debate and talk about that is as important to the American people as a good job that pays well with good benefits. It is time, long past the time we start to remember that.

Yes, I used some company names here and I have described some severance packages. Perhaps I shouldn't single those companies out, but the fact is they put themselves on the front section of the business section of these newspapers with their own news: We want to get rid of 3,400 employees; that's what Circuit City says. I am saying that is a value system which ignores the fact that workers are your company. I told a company that was in to see me not so long ago: Your brand is a brand all of us recognize. Your brand is not just something painted someplace; it is the people who work for your company. If you don't understand that, at some point that brand will be worth virtually nothing. This country needs to begin to understand, once again, and honor, once again, work and working men and women who struggle every day. They get up, they work, they work hard, they give you an honest day's work, and they come home and try and raise a family and do all the things that make life in this country worthwhile. All too often these days we see this notion that somehow, by some companies, workers don't have value, don't have worth. That is a very serious mistake. Both in public policy and I hope in the private sector, we need to turn this around and understand this country's success depends on expanding the middle class, on providing opportunities for the people in this country--opportunities, yes, for a good job that pays well, to take care of families and provide the things you want for a good life in this country's future.

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

Mr. President, I am pleased to be joined by Senators Hagel, Johnson, Brownback and nine of our colleagues today in re- introducing the New Homestead Act of 2007. This legislation will help address a serious threat to the economic future of rural America--the loss of its residents and Main Street businesses.

I have previously described to my Senate colleagues the severe economic and social hardships that population out-migration has had on America's Heartland when businesses are shuttered up, schools and churches are consolidated or closed altogether. Hundreds of thousands of people have left small towns in rural areas throughout the Great Plains. If you are a business owner, mayor, school board member, minister or resident of one of these rural communities, you know firsthand about this problem. People who are from these areas know that you simply can't grow or run a business in an environment where the overall economy is shrinking, current and potential customers are leaving, and public and private investment is falling. Too many communities in North Dakota and other rural States lack the critical mass of people and resources it takes to keep a community alive and growing.

Rural counties in North Dakota and heartland States have experienced massive net out-migration in recent decades and this trend is continuing today. Forty-seven of North Dakota's fifty-three counties suffered net population losses between 2000 and 2005. My home county, Hettinger, saw its population dwindle from 4,257 in 1980 to just 2,715 in 2000. Its population is projected to drop to just 1,877 by 2020.

However, this out-migration problem isn't limited to North Dakota. Nearly all of America's Heartland is facing significant population losses. Over the past fifty years or so, nearly two-thirds of rural counties in the Great Plains lost at least one third of their population.

One of the major problems caused by chronic out-migration is the dwindling workforce of young people. A recent analysis and report prepared by Dr. Richard Rathge at the North Dakota State Data Center highlighted this concern. His report revealed that the steady out- migration of young adults over the last half century or so has significantly reduced the proportion of individuals age 20 to 34 in our rural counties. The report predicts that between 2000 and 2020, the prime working age population in North Dakota, those aged 35 to 54, will decline from 183,435 to 146,717, a loss of nearly 37,000 people. If this trend continues as predicted, there will be more elderly North Dakotans age 65 and older in the year 2020 than individuals who are in their prime working years. As the report concluded, this dwindling labor pool could have a devastating economic impact on rural communities that are already struggling from a loss of residents, businesses and investments needed to survive.

We believe the bipartisan New Homestead Act will help reverse the depopulation of our rural communities by giving people who are willing to commit to live and work in high out-migration areas for 5 years tax and other financial rewards to help them to buy a home, pay for college, build a nest egg, and start a business. These incentives include repaying up to $10,000 of a college loan, offering a $5,000 tax credit for the purchase of a new home, protecting home values by allowing losses in home value to be deducted from Federal income taxes, and establishing Individual Homestead Accounts that will help people build savings and have access to credit.

It also provides tax incentives to encourage businesses to move to or expand their operations in high out-migration rural counties, including tax credits for investments in rural buildings and to offset the cost of equipment purchases and operating expenses of small businesses with five or fewer employees. Very little, if any, private venture capital is invested in out-migration rural counties, so the New Homestead Act also establishes a new $3 billion venture capital fund with state and local governments as partners to ensure that entrepreneurs and companies in these areas get the capital they need to start and grow their businesses.

The United States Senate has previously passed parts of the New Homestead Act, but those and other provisions in the bill have not yet been signed into law. But there is good reason to think we will make significant progress on the New Homestead Act in the 110th Congress.

In March, the Senate passed S. Con. Res. 21, to establish a budget plan for fiscal year 2008. This resolution allows for Senate action on the kinds of policies provided in the New Homestead Act. Specifically, Section 306 of the budget authorizes the Budget Committee Chairman to revise the levels in the resolution by $15 billion for revenue-neutral legislation that would, among other things, provide rural development investment incentives for counties impacted by high rates of out- migration.

The Senate's action on the budget signals that Federal policy makers in the U.S. Senate do understand that rural out-migration is a serious threat to the economic well-being of the Nation's Heartland. My colleagues and I will work closely with the leaders of the Budget Committee and the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee to secure passage of New Homestead Act provisions in the coming year.

I urge my colleagues to support the New Homestead Act in the 110th Congress by cosponsoring it and helping us move this important bill forward in the legislative process.

Mr. President, I am pleased to be joined by Senators Hagel, Johnson, Brownback and nine of our colleagues today in re- introducing the New Homestead Act of 2007. This legislation will help address a serious threat to the economic future of rural America--the loss of its residents and Main Street businesses.

I have previously described to my Senate colleagues the severe economic and social hardships that population out-migration has had on America's Heartland when businesses are shuttered up, schools and churches are consolidated or closed altogether. Hundreds of thousands of people have left small towns in rural areas throughout the Great Plains. If you are a business owner, mayor, school board member, minister or resident of one of these rural communities, you know firsthand about this problem. People who are from these areas know that you simply can't grow or run a business in an environment where the overall economy is shrinking, current and potential customers are leaving, and public and private investment is falling. Too many communities in North Dakota and other rural States lack the critical mass of people and resources it takes to keep a community alive and growing.

Rural counties in North Dakota and heartland States have experienced massive net out-migration in recent decades and this trend is continuing today. Forty-seven of North Dakota's fifty-three counties suffered net population losses between 2000 and 2005. My home county, Hettinger, saw its population dwindle from 4,257 in 1980 to just 2,715 in 2000. Its population is projected to drop to just 1,877 by 2020.

However, this out-migration problem isn't limited to North Dakota. Nearly all of America's Heartland is facing significant population losses. Over the past fifty years or so, nearly two-thirds of rural counties in the Great Plains lost at least one third of their population.

One of the major problems caused by chronic out-migration is the dwindling workforce of young people. A recent analysis and report prepared by Dr. Richard Rathge at the North Dakota State Data Center highlighted this concern. His report revealed that the steady out- migration of young adults over the last half century or so has significantly reduced the proportion of individuals age 20 to 34 in our rural counties. The report predicts that between 2000 and 2020, the prime working age population in North Dakota, those aged 35 to 54, will decline from 183,435 to 146,717, a loss of nearly 37,000 people. If this trend continues as predicted, there will be more elderly North Dakotans age 65 and older in the year 2020 than individuals who are in their prime working years. As the report concluded, this dwindling labor pool could have a devastating economic impact on rural communities that are already struggling from a loss of residents, businesses and investments needed to survive.

We believe the bipartisan New Homestead Act will help reverse the depopulation of our rural communities by giving people who are willing to commit to live and work in high out-migration areas for 5 years tax and other financial rewards to help them to buy a home, pay for college, build a nest egg, and start a business. These incentives include repaying up to $10,000 of a college loan, offering a $5,000 tax credit for the purchase of a new home, protecting home values by allowing losses in home value to be deducted from Federal income taxes, and establishing Individual Homestead Accounts that will help people build savings and have access to credit.

It also provides tax incentives to encourage businesses to move to or expand their operations in high out-migration rural counties, including tax credits for investments in rural buildings and to offset the cost of equipment purchases and operating expenses of small businesses with five or fewer employees. Very little, if any, private venture capital is invested in out-migration rural counties, so the New Homestead Act also establishes a new $3 billion venture capital fund with state and local governments as partners to ensure that entrepreneurs and companies in these areas get the capital they need to start and grow their businesses.

The United States Senate has previously passed parts of the New Homestead Act, but those and other provisions in the bill have not yet been signed into law. But there is good reason to think we will make significant progress on the New Homestead Act in the 110th Congress.

In March, the Senate passed S. Con. Res. 21, to establish a budget plan for fiscal year 2008. This resolution allows for Senate action on the kinds of policies provided in the New Homestead Act. Specifically, Section 306 of the budget authorizes the Budget Committee Chairman to revise the levels in the resolution by $15 billion for revenue-neutral legislation that would, among other things, provide rural development investment incentives for counties impacted by high rates of out- migration.

The Senate's action on the budget signals that Federal policy makers in the U.S. Senate do understand that rural out-migration is a serious threat to the economic well-being of the Nation's Heartland. My colleagues and I will work closely with the leaders of the Budget Committee and the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee to secure passage of New Homestead Act provisions in the coming year.

I urge my colleagues to support the New Homestead Act in the 110th Congress by cosponsoring it and helping us move this important bill forward in the legislative process.

Mr. President, let me thank my colleague from Iowa for his leadership. I know he and many others in this Chamber have spent a great deal of time putting together a piece of legislation that is very important. I commend all of them.

There are times on the floor of the Senate where we are engaged in certain kinds of debates that cause folks to exhibit some temper and some concern and anxiety and impatience. This is one of those issues, however, that people feel very differently about. We will have people come to the floor on this issue of stem cell research who feel very strongly on both sides.

I respect all of those views. I respect everyone who comes to this floor with a position on this issue. But let me say, the position, as I see it, is a position that deals with life and death. This is very important. We deal with some issues on the floor of the Senate that are not so important, some that are very important. This ranks way up there in importance.

This is about life or death. It is about science, and it is about inquiry. It is about the search for unlocking the mysteries of what causes some of the dreaded diseases here on Earth and how we find cures for these dreaded diseases.

I chair a subcommittee that funds the science programs in our country,

especially the science programs that have to do with, for example, energy and other related matters. I think science is fascinating. In my subcommittee, we had testimony a while ago about studying termites. We are studying the digestive system of termites because we are trying to understand why it is when a termite eats wood, the termite's digestive system produces hydrogen. How is it that a termite eats wood and produces hydrogen? Again, what an interesting scientific inquiry.

Well, we are engaged in scientific research in a whole range of issues. Especially important are the areas of scientific inquiry in this area of health. What is it that causes these terrible diseases? What kinds of approaches might give us a chance to cure some of these dreaded diseases?

Well, one of those issues is the issue of stem cell research. The language almost sounds like a foreign language in some of these discussions: somatic cell nuclear transfer, in vitro fertilization clinic, stem cell research. Those are not terms people use every day in their discussions, and yet the method of using those terms in this discussion is about life or death. It is about continuing scientific inquiry to try to unlock the mysteries of some of the most terrible diseases suffered by mankind.

We passed a piece of legislation last July that moved in this direction, and the President decided to veto it. Legislation that we hoped would perhaps give us an opportunity for treatment for things such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, Parkinson's disease, ALS, Alzheimer's, birth defects, and spinal cord injuries.

We do not know, we cannot come to the floor of the Senate, we are not scientists to describe: Here is exactly what will happen as a result of this scientific inquiry. But we do know there are at least indications of great hope through this scientific inquiry. So the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act, S. 5, which we now have on the floor of the Senate, would allow researchers to pursue all kinds of promising stem cell research, including embryonic stem cell research that is federally funded.

This legislation is controversial. The legislation deals, however, only with embryos that were created for fertility purposes in in vitro fertilization clinics that would otherwise be thrown away.

Now, in vitro is a relatively new term. It has been around for about 25 years. There are more than 1 million children walking this planet of ours who were born as a result of in vitro fertilization. We had testimony before one of my committees, the Commerce Committee, in which a witness said: None of them should have been born. None of these human beings are worthy. They should not have been born. He disagrees with in vitro fertilization. It is his right to do that. I do not support that.

I think the wonder of life of having 1 million people, 1 million people who once were babies born to people, to couples who were not able to have children, is a wonderful gift. What a wonderful gift.

In vitro has been around for a quarter of a century. Because of the nature of the treatment, the infertility treatment in this process, more embryos are created than will ever be used. Rather than throwing these embryos in the waste, as hospital waste, or just waste from an in vitro clinic, it is much more life affirming, I think, to use them to better understand how we might treat devastating diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer's, and more.

I think Senator Jack Danforth, former Senator Jack Danforth, said it best. He is a colleague who served here with us in the Senate. He said this: It is not evident to many of us that cells in a petri dish are equivalent to identifiable people suffering from terrible diseases. I am and have always been pro-life. But the only explanation for legislators comparing cells in a petri dish to babies in the womb is the extension of religious doctrine into statutory law.

That is from former Senator Jack Danforth. What a profound statement. Do you equate the cells in a petri dish with someone suffering the ravages of Parkinson's disease or ALS? I do not think so. But that suggests somehow that those who oppose this legislation make that equation.

This legislation is not suggesting that anyone create an embryo for the purpose of research. It is saying those embryos that are about to be discarded, thrown away, thousands of them, because many more are produced than are to be used in in vitro clinics, rather than simply throwing them away, how about--with the consent of those from whom the embryos came--how about using them for a life-affirming purpose, for the needed research into unlocking the mysteries of these devastating diseases?

There are about 400,000 embryos frozen in these clinics. It is estimated 8,000 to 11,000 are scheduled to be discarded. It is interesting to me that no one has come to the floor of the Senate--that I am aware of--saying: Shut down these in vitro clinics. Shut them down. And, by the way, if someone tries to throw away an embryo, as they do every day, if they try to throw one away, have someone arrest them because you are throwing away a human being. It is, of course, not a human being. It has the potential to become a human being if it is implanted in a woman's uterus and grown to term. But it will not be implanted in a uterus. In fact, it will be discarded in a wastebasket.

The question my colleagues asks with S. 5 is: With consent, should that embryo, rather than simply be discarded, not be able to be used for this critically important research?

There are not enough stem cell lines available. We know that. My colleagues have made that case. The President authorized some stem cell lines, but the authorized lines were never enough, and, in fact, they were contaminated, and it is just a plain fact that we are, at this point, interrupting the scientific inquiry. We are interrupting the opportunity to search for a cure for these diseases.

The embryos we are discussing on the floor of the Senate are going to be destroyed. That is certain. These embryos are going to be destroyed. Could they, should they be used to search for the cure for these dread diseases? I believe the answer is yes.

In my last campaign for the Senate, a curious commercial was run against me by my opponent. He ran a commercial which is a description of some who feel very strongly in opposition to this kind of legislation. Because I support stem cell research very strongly, my opponent ran a commercial of a man sitting around the fire, a kind of a campfire with about six or eight young children around him.

The commercial, I suppose, was meant to be humorous but about a serious subject. A young child, with eyes very big reflected in the glow of the fire, around that fireplace, said to the camp leader: Tell us a story. Tell us a scary story.

The man said: Well, there is a man named Byron--referring to me, I guess--a man named Byron. He has a plan. His plan is to implant into a mommy's uterus an egg that is fertilized, to become a fetus, so that they can harvest it during that pregnancy to use it for body parts later.

Little children around that campfire had eyes the size of dinner plates, from that scary story. Of course, that was a complete perversion of anything that remotely related to the truth, had no relationship to any of these issues.

No one is talking about implanting something in a uterus for the purpose of growing a fetus, for the purpose of harvesting body parts. That kind of unbelievable lie permeates all too often this discussion. That is not what this discussion is about.

Those of us in this Chamber--and there are many of us who have sat in the front row of a funeral--in my case of a daughter--and asked ourselves: Was there anything, was there anything more we could have done?

Is there anything that could have been done to prevent this disease? The answer, if we prevent this kind of research, the answer for everyone will be, yes, there is something we could have done. We could have continued the scientific inquiry and research, with carefully constructed guidelines, to see if we could unlock the mysteries of these diseases.

Let me show a picture of a young girl named Camille. In fact, I just saw Camille last month. This young girl has been very near death. She suffers from juvenile diabetes, the particularly acute condition of juvenile diabetes. That is Camille in the middle. I saw her mother last week in North Dakota. Camille was in Washington, DC, about

a month ago with her mother. I have known Camille for a long time, this young girl holding the clarinet in her middle school band. She has had a tough life and has lived on the edge, suffering a very significant disease, one that has cost too many, too many Americans, and especially too many young Americans, their lives.

But there are so many opportunities for research and for potential treatment. Let me give you a couple of examples. I was on an airplane one day with one of the researchers at NIH. The researchers at NIH do unbelievable work. He told me of the use of stem cells among a group of mice that had induced heart attacks, severe, debilitating heart attacks. They used stem cells to inject back into the heart muscle of those mice, and in a matter of a couple of weeks, a substantial percentage of those mice showed no evidence of having had a heart attack. A substantial portion had complete recovery.

Let me give you a couple of other examples. Researchers at Johns Hopkins report paralyzed rats have partially regained the use of previously immobile hind legs in studies in which scientists injected the rodents with stem cells from mice embryos.

As to potential to treat ALS, University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists have turned stem cells into nerve cells carrying messages between the body to the brain, offering possibilities for repairing damage caused by ALS.

Embryonic stem cell researchers at UCLA, AIDS Institute, were able to coax human embryonic stem cells into becoming mature immune T cells. I am not a scientist. All I can tell you is this: When we look, when we search, when we inquire, when we use America's best minds and research using good ethical guidelines, important guidelines, valuable guidelines, for scientific inquiry, we then find ways to unlock these mysteries. It is pretty unbelievable what we have done in a relatively short period of time.

We have a polio vaccine. We have cured smallpox. If you go to the hospital these days and take a look at the wondrous machines and the wonderful treatments and all of the things that we are doing, all of that is a matter of experimentation and developing experience from that experimentation.

The fact is, embryonic stem cell research has very broad and very strong bipartisan support. That bipartisan support is evident in the Senate. We have had Senators on both sides of the political aisle stand up in strong support of this legislation.

Now, let me use a chart that my colleague, Senator Kennedy, just used because I believe it is so important.

Dr. Zerhouni, the Director of the National Institutes of Health, says--this is President Bush's own NIH Director: From my standpoint, it is clear today that American science will be better served, and the Nation will be better served, if we let our scientists have access to more stem cell lines.

That is from the President's own appointee to head the National Institutes of Health.

I know in political life, there are a lot of labels, pro-life, pro- choice, pro-this, pro-that, anti-that. Let me observe, it is not, as some have suggested, a pro-life position to diminish or shut off critically needed research that will give people who have Parkinson's disease, diabetes, Lou Gehrig's disease, cardiovascular disease, cancer, any number of the things that kill so many Americans, it is not pro-life to diminish, restrict, or shut down research that gives people an opportunity for hope that there might be a cure for these diseases through this scientific inquiry and research. I recognize this is controversial. I respect someone who comes to the floor and says: Senator Dorgan, you are wrong about this. I respect that. This is not an easy issue. It is difficult for a lot of Members. I have not found it particularly difficult for me, because I believe those of us who have seen the ravages--and that should be most everybody in this Chamber--of these diseases to our loved ones, to friends, to so many Americans, this country would want us to do everything possible to give the tools to the best scientific minds and the best people in the medical field possible to unlock the mysteries of these diseases and find the cures. That is what this debate has been long about.

This debate, however, is even narrower than many we have had on this subject. This is about a single issue--can we use embryos that are otherwise going to be discarded from in vitro fertilization clinics, that are otherwise simply going to become waste and destroyed, today, tomorrow, next week, next month, all year long, can we use, with the permission of the donors, those embryos for the scientific inquiry necessary for the extension of life and the curing of these dread diseases? Can we do that? The answer clearly ought to be yes, a loud, resounding yes coming from this Chamber.

My colleague Senator Harkin has been at this a long time. I have spoken on this a good number of times on the floor of the Senate myself. But it is not only Senator Harkin; he is joined in a piece of legislation on a bipartisan basis by some very significant voices in the Senate, saying: Let's do this. Let's do this for this country. All of those who are suffering from these dread diseases deserve our help. They certainly don't deserve a Government that says: By the way, we understand your suffering, but we would prefer to choose to destroy and discard embryos from an in vitro fertilization clinic rather than extend the scientific research that might find a cure for what is killing you. That is not an acceptable answer from this Senate.

I thank Senator Harkin for the time. I thank the many colleagues who have spoken in favor of this legislation and offer the fervent hope-- and I believe it exists--that we can pass this legislation with a very substantial margin within the next 24 hours.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I would like to announce that the Committee on Indian Affairs will meet on Thursday, April 12, 2007, at 9:30 a.m. in Room 485 of the Russell Senate Office Building to conduct a business meeting to consider pending legislation, to be followed immediately by an oversight hearing on Tribal Colleges and Universities.

Those wishing additional information may contact the Indian Affairs Committee at 224-2251.

committee on energy and natural resources

I thank the leader for his support and continuing interest in geothermal and renewable energy. The committee's substitute amendment provides $22,762,000 for geothermal energy research at the Department of Energy in fiscal year 2007. This is the same level of funding as provided in fiscal year 2006. After the administration proposed terminating the geothermal research program in its fiscal year 2007 budget request, the Senate Appropriations Committee rejected that proposal last year in its report accompanying the fiscal year 2007 energy and water appropriations bill, S. Rept. 109-274. Section 3201 will ensure continuation of this vital program.

First of all, the department should continue critical efforts to support new technology and deployment, including funding of existing contracts and awards under previous solicitations, but the department should be rapidly implementing and supporting the geothermal provisions of the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

Based upon the studies and reports the Senator from Nevada has mentioned, it should also be a priority for the department to support resource development and exploration technology, including continued both existing and new Geothermal Resource Exploration and Development, GRED, efforts that are underway at the DOE.

I appreciate the Senator's views on the importance of this program and share the Senator's commitment to ensuring an effective DOE geothermal program that works to expand our Nation's use of this important, renewable energy resource.

I 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, I have offered an amendment to the underlying bill, the supplemental appropriations bill. I wish to describe it for a moment, and then I wish to respond to some comments that were made earlier by my colleague from Oklahoma who is offering an amendment dealing with the agriculture disaster piece I included in this bill as well.

First, an issue I am very familiar with and concerned about. It is an issue called country-of-origin labeling. For those who don't know what that means, it means in 2002, 5 full years ago, the Congress mandated we would have country-of-origin labeling for beef, lamb, pork, fish, fruits, vegetables. Essentially, what you eat shall be labeled. If people walking around this Chamber would take their shoes off, they would find their shoes are labeled. If they took off their T-shirts, they would find they are labeled. Almost everything is labeled these days--made in Taiwan, made in China, made in wherever--so you can get a sense of where things are made. Go to the grocery store and pick up a package of pasta, linguini, spaghetti, take a look on the side and you will see what is in it. You will see where it was made. Labeling.

The only problem is we don't require labeling, for example, on a piece of steak. One day some while ago I brought to the floor of the Senate a piece of steak. I held it up and I said, I challenge anybody in the Congress to tell me where this piece of meat came from. Of course, no one tried and no one could. No one knows where that meat came from. As I asked about where this meat might have come from, I read from an inspector's report who went to a processing plant in Hermosillo, Mexico, the first time any inspector had ever been there to inspect the conditions of the processing of meat in that plant that was being shipped to American consumers. I read from the report. It said:

Carcasses of meat were hanging in rooms that were not refrigerated, layered with feces and flies, and some from diseased animals ready to be put back into the same vat where they were going to grind it for beef and so on. I read the description of what the inspector found.

They shut down that plant. They shut down that plant in Mexico. Then it was reopened because it had new ownership. They made a few changes, reopened the plant, and still ship meat from Mexico to the United States from that plant, and there has never been an inspector back to take a look.

I asked the question: Can anybody tell me this piece of meat didn't come from that plant? Well, of course, nobody could. So you might ask why, if 5 years ago we mandated that there be country-of-origin labeling for meat in this country, why is there no labeling on meat? Well, the majority party in recent years apparently cared a lot about what the big packers thought and all the folks who were opposed to labeling these meat products. I was in a conference committee over in the middle of this Capitol in a small room. We were all packed into this little conference, an Appropriations Committee conference, and it was November of 2005. Country-of-origin labeling, remember, was supposed to have gone into effect on September 30, 2004. But then the majority party got involved and they extended it once.

In November of 2005 I was part of a conference on the Agriculture appropriations bill and I was prepared to debate this issue on country- of-origin labeling. The chairman of that conference banged the gavel, recessed the conference, and we never met again. The next time we saw the results of what those folks had done in a smoky back room some place, they had further extended country-of-origin labeling to September of 2008. They keep extending it and extending it. The law says meat must be labeled by September 30, 2004. It is not now labeled. Why? Because it has been extended and extended again, always done in the dead of night, always done in an amendment that is brought up not in the House or the Senate, but stuck in a conference some place--an unbelievable practice.

The result is we come now to this piece of legislation, an emergency supplemental appropriations bill, and I say: You know what. Let's decide that country-of-origin labeling for meat takes effect this September, several months ahead. Let's decide it does that.

One of the culprits here has been the U.S. Department of Agriculture too, because they almost wore out their shoes by dragging their feet. They have no interest in doing anything this aggressive, even though the Congress said: You must do it. They drug their

feet, got their heels stuck in the ground. That gave their friends here in Congress enough time to do these extensions. The result is in this country today there is no labeling of meat products.

It is interesting. The other day I was listening to news reports, tragic news reports about pet food in this country--millions, tens of millions, I guess, of people who have fed pet food to their pets, apparently containing ingredients they had no notion of, filler wheat from China, apparently rat poisoning, and pets have died. A tragedy for those pet owners. But how would they have known? There is no label. They don't know what is in it. They don't know where it comes from. I assume even if it had a label, it wouldn't say rat poison. I don't know how rat poison would get into pet food. But in any event, as I was listening to the news and watching some owners of pets who had described the terrible, agonizing death of their pets from eating contaminated pet food, it reminded me again of this issue of labeling and of my description of the investigator who went to the one processing plant in Mexico, processing meat for this country.

Why in these circumstances and in this day and age, do we not have labeling on meat that is sold to the American consumer?

Up north in Canada--my heart goes out to those livestock producers in Canada. They are trying hard. They are trying to make a living like everybody else is, but the plain fact is they have had 10 cases of mad cow disease in Canada. Nine of them in Canada, one recently, and one Canadian cow discovered in the State of Washington. That is 10 cases of mad cow disease, including the most recent case a couple of months ago. Yet, even at that point, it seems as if the Secretary of Agriculture wants to do a mad cow cattle drive from Canada to the United States. He is all anxious about opening this market right now; got to do it right now. I am wondering why his inclination isn't first to protect our domestic industry. We have other countries that say, we want to trade with you. We want to buy some beef from you, but we are not interested in buying beef that is intermixed with other kinds of beef. We want beef that is certified as American beef. Why? It is the safest in the world. But if you open this border wide open to the Canadian cattle at this point, especially at this point, given what we have known about BSE in Canada, how can we tell other countries without country-of- origin labeling that we have segregated and we know exactly where this meat comes from?

I think the USDA is making a business mistake. I say to the USDA Secretary this: If you are going to do this, at least be consistent and say you cannot do it without implementing country-of-origin labeling immediately; you must argue for both. Yet he has not been willing to do that.

I don't want, by talking about this, to suggest in any way that people in this country should be concerned about their supply of meat. They should not. We have a lot of ranchers and folks in this country who do a lot of work to keep our beef, lamb, pork, and poultry supply safe. But the American consumer wishes to purchase that which comes from American ranchers. That is why country-of-origin labeling is important, to give the American consumer the choice and the opportunity. I am telling you something. It is long past time when this should have been done. Those who serve in this Congress who want to continue to prevent the consumer from knowing where this meat comes from do no favor to the American consumer, and they certainly do no favor to the producer who is producing the best quality of supply that exists in the world but are told it doesn't need to be labeled because the consumer doesn't need to know. Boy, I think that is dead wrong.

So I have introduced a piece of legislation that will move country- of-origin labeling up to September of this year. It is long past time for this Congress to take action to undo what others have done in the appropriations process in the dead of night to extend this country-of- origin labeling.

Let me also talk for a moment about amendments that will likely be offered to strike from the emergency legislation some assistance to family farmers who suffered weather-related disasters. Almost all of us were here when we debated what to do about Hurricane Katrina, which came roaring onto the shore in this country and devastated a significant part of this country. It flattened it, killed people, ravaged houses, destroyed a city, and then another city. It rendered the gulf coast in shambles. Included in that is the crop that the farmers planted, the crop they put in the fields, hoping it would grow--the destruction of all that crop that was put in for that year by those farmers.

What do we do about that? What we decided to do was to provide emergency help, billions and billions of dollars of help, to those people who were injured by Hurricane Katrina. At least one part of that was to help family farmers who lost everything in the gulf. We said: You are not alone, you didn't cause this hurricane, you are the victims of it. Just like the other victims of this weather-related disaster, we want you to know we are with you and we want to help you.

And we did. Family farmers in that region got disaster assistance and got it with my help. I insisted on supporting that, and I know my colleagues did as well. We had a responsibility to say to those farmers: You lost everything. You are the victims of this weather- related disaster. We want to help you get back on your feet and recover. We want you to be able to continue living and working on a family farm.

So we did that. But that was not the only weather-related disaster. In the last 2\1/2\ years, we have had torrential flooding in my State, for example. At one point, we had 2 million acres of land that was planted and completely washed away, or not planted at all. If you are a farmer who owns land in that 2 million acres, you didn't have a crop, or didn't plant one, and you don't have any hope.

Last year, we were the epicenter of a devastating drought. The pasture down near Zeeland, ND, when I drove there to go to a meeting with ranchers and farmers, looked exactly like a moonscape. Nothing was growing at all. Under the best of circumstances--I come from a semiarid area, where 17 inches of rain fall a year. Put that in the epicenter of a drought and you have real trouble. We had farmers who lost everything and not just us, but in other parts of the country the same was true.

We name hurricanes but not droughts or floods. The drought didn't have a name. It wasn't ``Drought Kenneth'' or ``Drought Irma.'' Because these farmers lost everything to disasters that didn't have a name, are they any less deserving? Do we think any less of the interest in keeping them on the land and giving them help to continue farming? The answer ought to be, no, of course not. That is why I added a disaster piece for family farmers in this appropriations bill.

My colleague, Senator Conrad, and I, and so many others, on a bipartisan basis--Senators Bond, Feinstein, Boxer, and others--have all worked together to try to reach out to family farmers and say: When trouble visits your farm and you have lost everything, you are not alone. This Congress wants to help. This is not a recent urge of ours. We have always done this. We have always done it. So I was proud to be a part of putting this in the appropriations bill. It is on the floor. It should not be controversial. I spoke to President Bush last night and said: Mr. President, do not call this pork; it is not pork. You don't legislate pork, you eat pork. We understand about meat and pork and so on. This is not pork, but some want to call it that. Say that to a farmer and the farmer's family living under that yard light 10, 15 miles from town who lost everything; say to him: By the way, when the Congress wants to help you, somebody believes it is pork. It is not pork; it is in this country's interest to help those family farmers. It is simply in our interest. That is why we have added this, and I know we will have amendments to strip it out or make changes.

The fact is this is a worthy and a noble thing for the Congress to do. I hope that when the amendments are offered, we will be able to defeat them.

Yes.

Mr. President, the Senator from California is absolutely correct. It has always been the case that there are certain things you cannot predict in the coming year. You can budget for expected expenditures and programs you want to fund, but there are some things you probably cannot predict; for example, Hurricane Katrina is probably the prime example or a devastating drought or torrential rains or ice storms in California this spring. So what we have always done is we have always done emergency supplemental bills to try to respond to those. Only in this Presidency have those emergency bills overwhelmingly been defense bills because the President decided to move our armies overseas. We got involved with respect to Afghanistan and Iraq, and we asked for no expenditures, except he would later ask for emergency funding for it. We have passed roughly $450 billion in emergency funding for defense. That is not the basis, generally, of what emergency supplemental bills have been about. They have been to respond to the unanticipated events in this country, such as agricultural disasters and other things.

I said yesterday, when I spoke on the floor, I thought it curious that in the Senate, when we did an $18 billion emergency funding for reconstruction of Iraq, nobody stood up, that I am aware--and Senator Wyden and I cut it by about $1.8 billion--and said: OK. You are going to invest in health clinics. If you do that in Iraq, it is national security; if you do it in America, it is pork. You are going to invest in road programs. In Iraq, it is for national security; in America, it is called pork. You are going to invest in any number of dozens of other things, and as long as it is in Iraq with the reconstruction programs, that is OK, that is part of our national security issue. But if it is doing it in this country, they say, no, no, no, no, you cannot do that.

I observe one thing. Some of what we do is flatout spending. I understand that. We need to tighten our belts. But some of what we do is investing in this country's future. I think investing in this country's future includes saying to family farmers that this country values having you on the farm. You are the seedbed of family values that nourishes our country from the small towns to the big cities. Culturally and economically, you matter to this country.

When we pass a disaster bill that includes disaster help for family farmers, I think it represents the best instincts of this country and, frankly, it is what we must do if we are going to maintain a network of family farms producing America's food. Finally, we understand, all of us, that big corporations could probably farm from California to Maine--buy up the whole country and farm it. We know what would happen to food prices. Our country is much better served by having a network of family farmers out there, with their families living under yard lights, producing America's food supply. That is why I think the best instincts of this Congress is to do what we did in this legislation, to provide disaster help for those who need it.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I hope the Senate will oppose this measure. The agricultural disaster program that was put in the supplemental bill is a bipartisan piece of legislation. Senator Conrad, myself, Senator Kit Bond, Senator Dianne Feinstein--many of us worked together to put this in the legislation.

It is very simple. It reaches out a helping hand to those farmers, in many cases who lost everything, to say: You are not alone. This country wants to help you during tough times.

We have always--we have always--provided disaster relief on an emergency basis, except for the last several years; it has been blocked. This is the opportunity, on a bipartisan basis, for us to say to family farmers: You matter to this country. We want to help you. When you have had a weather-related disaster, we are here to help.

I hope we will turn down the amendment offered by my colleague from Oklahoma.

Mr. President, before my colleague from Missouri, Senator Bond, leaves the floor, I wonder if I might just engage him in a colloquy for just a moment.

Mr. President, I came to the floor to speak about agriculture disaster provisions in the emergency supplemental bill. We had some people on the Senate floor yesterday questioning whether they are valid, whether they are necessary provisions to help family farmers. I noted the Senator from Missouri was a cosponsor of mine, as we worked together to put the agriculture disaster program in the emergency supplemental bill.

Let me make a point and then ask a question of my colleague from Missouri.

First of all, I appreciate very much his help. I know Missouri has been hit with a devastating drought and other weather-related disasters for family farmers. It has been the case in other parts of the country as well. We have been working for some long while just to reach out a helping hand to those farmers out there struggling who got hit with weather-related disasters to say: You are not alone. As is the tradition in this country when you get hit with a weather-related disaster and lose everything, this country wants to help you some. We help everyone around the world. It is time to take care of things at home. That is what this provision is about.

I ask the Senator from Missouri about his motivation for being a part of those of us who worked together to get this put in the emergency supplemental bill. I know he strongly supports it.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Missouri for his leadership on this issue as well.

Let me say that the Congress did help farmers in the gulf region who lost their crops. I understand we helped cities that were devastated and lost buildings and lives and so on. We also helped farmers who lost their crops.

My point is--and I think the point of the Senator from Missouri is-- there is

no difference between a person who loses their entire crop in Missouri or North Dakota or in the gulf region because of a hurricane. We do not name droughts. We name hurricanes. But if Hurricane Katrina took your entire crop away, this Government would say: We want to help you. So, too, should we help in the case of a drought or ice storms, as the Senator from Missouri just described. I certainly appreciate his help on these matters.

I wanted to come to the floor because yesterday there was some discussion by several Members of the Senate referring to the agriculture disaster piece as pork. Now, our farmers know about pork, and they know you do not legislate pork, you eat pork. There is a big difference.

I am just curious, why is it every time you try to do something in this country to help people who need help, it is called pork. Well, if you invest, for example, in public policy, as we have, to say build a road in Iraq, that is national security. If you have a provision in an appropriations bill that says build a road in this country, it is pork. If you build a health clinic in Iraq, that is national security. If you build it here, it is pork. If you build a water project in Iraq, that is national security. If you build it here, it is pork.

Why is it, to someone in this Chamber, investing in this country is always pork, but as long as it is investing somewhere else in this world, that is just fine. Mr. President, $18.1 billion went out of this Chamber in unbelievable ways for reconstruction in Iraq. Let me tell you, any time someone is sending one-hundred-dollar bills out of the back of a pickup truck, you don't think there is going to be graft and fraud and corruption? You take a look at what has happened with respect to the taxpayers' money and the way it was spent in Iraq. I described some of that on the floor of the Senate previously.

We paid a corporation $220 million to reconstruct 142 health clinics in Iraq. Twenty got done. The rest--122--never got done. A courageous Iraqi doctor went to the Iraqi Health Minister and said: Well, can I see these Iraqi clinics that were supposed to have been rehabilitated with American taxpayer dollars?

The Iraqi Health Minister says: Well, those were ``imaginary clinics.''

The money was not imaginary. The American taxpayer got fleeced. The money is gone.

But why is it when we come to this Chamber and talk about investing in people's lives in this country--a farmer, his wife, and two kids, who live out under a yard light, who planted in the spring, trying to make a go of it, hoping it would not rain too much, hoping it would rain enough, hoping it would not hail or they would have crop disease or insects, hoping they would raise a crop. Finally, when they get a crop, they hope the price is sufficient so maybe they can make a living. Then, along comes a storm, an unbelievably devastating storm-- perhaps an ice storm, perhaps a torrential rain--that wipes out their entire crop, washes it away. Or maybe it is a drought. All of a sudden, that farmer has nothing. Oh, they put the seeds in the ground, but nothing came up, or they put the seeds in the ground, and it washed away. The farmer ends up with nothing.

Look, the grand tradition in this Chamber has always been to provide some disaster aid to farmers who lose everything. Why? Because we want to maintain a network of family farms in this country. This is not new. We have been doing it for some long while. When we have devastating weather-related disasters hit family farmers, we help them with a disaster bill. It is only recently that has become controversial.

Twice I have run that disaster bill through the Appropriations Committee. Senator Conrad, myself, and others put together a bipartisan bill. As an appropriator this year, I offered it with my colleague, Senator Feinstein from California, and Senator Bond from Missouri-- bipartisan. We offered it a third time. It is going to come to the floor now. It is in this bill, and we have people complaining about it. This is investing in our country's strength. This is the best notion of our country to say to family farmers: You had some trouble. It wasn't your fault. We want to help you through this difficult time.

Now, we have usually done this without great controversy. The controversy this time is because the last two times I got this through the Senate, I was a conferee and I went to the conference. The President was threatening to veto a bill that had agriculture disaster help in it for family farmers. So twice we went to conference and the U.S. House conferees, at the request of the then-Speaker of the House, Mr. Hastert, blocked it on behalf of the President.

Well, it is here a third time and we will go to conference. This time I will be a conferee and my colleague Senator Feinstein will be a conferee, Senator Bond will be a conferee, and there will be bipartisan support on the Senate side. The difference this time is we go to the conference and the House conferees will come to conference having passed their own disaster bill for family farmers. This time we are going to get this to the President's desk, at long last.

Some say: Well, why just farmers? Why family farmers? There is something unusual about those who produce from the land in this country. It goes back to the homestead days in sod huts out there, alone, trying to raise a family, raise a crop, make a living. We could do, I suppose, without family farmers, but it wouldn't be the same country. You could have corporate agri-factory farms from California to Maine, but it wouldn't be the same country. Once they control food production, then ask yourselves: What is going to be the cost of food in this country?

Someone once wrote, and I have mentioned him on the floor a few times--Rodney Nelson, in fact, a North Dakota rancher who wrote a piece of prose about ranching and farming. He asked this question, and I think it is important for the country. He said: What is it worth for a kid to know how to plow a furrow, how to teach a newborn calf to suck milk from a pail? 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 build a door, to build a lean-to, to grease a combine, to pour cement? What is it worth for a kid to learn all of those things? There is only one university in America where you learn all of that, and that is the family farm, America's family farm. It is an unbelievable asset to this country.

We are asking for something very simple that has been done routinely prior to this President beginning to block it, and that is when trouble comes, when weather disasters wipe out an entire crop, we say to families living out there under the yardlight, trying to raise a family and raise a crop: You are not alone. This country wants to help. That is why we brought this in this bill to the floor of the Senate. It won't make anybody whole, but it does say to farmers: Maybe you will have a chance to keep going. They live on hope. How else could you plant a crop and do anything other than hope that things will work out?

This country has a rich tradition of supporting family farmers, because it is in this country's interests. The seedbed rolls from big cities to small towns and enriches and nourishes this country. We have always known that and we have always done the right thing.

Family farmers have been hard hit in the last couple of years with weather-related disasters. This Congress took action with respect to one facet of those weather-related disasters. We said farmers in the Gulf of Mexico who lost their entire crops due to a hurricane named Katrina, you are going to get some help. The rest of you, we are sorry. Well, listen. I was supportive of saying to those farmers we are going to give you some help. It doesn't matter to me whether it is a Katrina or a drought that doesn't have a name or an ice storm that is not named, weather-related disasters that destroy farmers' crops, in my judgment, ought to be responded to by this Congress to say to those family farmers: This has destroyed your crop, but not your hope. We want to give you hope to be able to continue farming. That is what this disaster piece is all about. I am proud to stand here and support it. Those who believe this is some kind of pork do not understand what essential investment in this country's strength is all about. An investment in America's family farming is a good investment in this country's future.

My colleague from California who worked with me in the Appropriations

Committee to get this done is on the floor, so let me yield the floor to her and thank her for her leadership in responding to these needs as well.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, we are considering the supplemental appropriations bill. I spoke earlier about the agricultural disaster piece in that bill. I believe other colleagues will be over to talk about that as well. My colleague, Senator Feinstein from California, just finished discussing it. She was a major cosponsor of it. I have indicated previously that my colleague, Senator Conrad, is coming. He worked to create a coalition of interest and support of the agricultural disaster piece. So when others come, I expect we will have more discussion about this important issue.

I wish to talk for a moment about the supplemental appropriations bill and the issue of Iraq. Earlier, one of my colleagues was describing the issue of Iraq and the controversy that the Congress might get involved and somehow interfere and that there cannot be 535 commanders in chief. I understand that. I wish to make a couple of points about Iraq, however.

The issue of Iraq, as you know, casts a shadow on virtually everything else in this country. We are spending, in terms of the lives of American soldiers and America's treasure, an unbelievable amount with respect to the war in Iraq. All of us want this country to succeed. There is nobody here who doesn't want America to succeed in whatever we are involved in.

I wish to make this point: The National Intelligence Estimate has just been completed. There is a classified and an unclassified version. The unclassified version tells all of us and the American people that what is happening in Iraq is largely sectarian violence. It is not a fight against the ``terrorists.'' It is sectarian violence--Shia

trying to kill Sunni, Sunni trying to kill Shia. That is a civil war by classic definition. That is what we face in Iraq. There is an al-Qaida presence in Al Anbar Province. We understand that. What is happening there is largely a civil war.

Now, the head of our intelligence services in this country testified twice. The former head, Mr. Negroponte, and the current head have testified within the last 2\1/2\ months. Both of them have said exactly the same thing. They have both said the greatest terrorist threat to this country is al-Qaida, its networks around the world, and its determination to strike us in our homeland. So the greatest threat to our homeland is from the terrorist group al-Qaida. Both have described al-Qaida as operating in a safe hideaway in northern Pakistan.

If the greatest threat to our country is al-Qaida, if the leadership of al-Qaida is directing threats against our homeland and they are in a secure hideaway in northern Pakistan, if that is the greatest threat to our homelend, and if, in fact, what is happening in Iraq, according to the National Intelligence Estimate, is a civil war, then I think the question is, What better protects our country? Is it beginning to extract from a civil war? After all, the Iraqi people have seen Saddam Hussein executed. They have seen the opportunity to vote for their own new Constitution. They have been given the opportunity to vote for their own new Government. The only question remaining is, Do those same people have the will to provide for their own security? So the question is, What better protects our country? Is it the opportunity to extract from a civil war at some point soon or is it the determination to ignore the presence of the al-Qaida leadership in northern Pakistan?

If we begin to withdraw and extract from a civil war in Iraq, do we then have a better capability to keep our eye on the ball, the greatest threat to our country, the leadership of al-Qaida and their network around the world? If that were the case, wouldn't this country wish to begin to take action against the greatest threat to our homeland and threat to our security, the leadership of al-Qaida?

That is not me describing that. That is from the National Intelligence Estimate, the combined judgment of the intelligence communities in our Government.

You can make a pretty strong case that Osama bin Laden, who boasted about murdering innocent Americans on 9/11/2001--he still speaks to us from time to time from a ``secure hideaway,'' as described by the head of our intelligence. Al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden, after all of these years having passed since 9/11, still exist. Their leadership apparently is still intact, according to the head of our national intelligence services. We generally know where they are. They are apparently in a country that is supposed to be cooperating with us-- Pakistan.

The question is, Why have we not brought to justice the leadership of al-Qaida, if that is our greatest threat? The answer, I suppose, is because this country has 140,000-plus soldiers in Iraq prosecuting a war in the middle of what is now a civil war in Iraq.

We can debate forever, perhaps, the conditions that got us to this point--terrible intelligence, the most unbelievable intelligence failure, perhaps, in the history of this country. This country told the world that the country of Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction that threatened America. Now it turns out, we understand, to take one example, that the issue of mobile chemical weapons laboratories--that intelligence was given to us by German authorities. That came from a fabricator who is now alleged to have been a drunk--a single source, perhaps drunk, fabricator persuades this country to tell the world Iraq has mobile chemical labs. But it turns out they didn't.

I could go on at great length about the intelligence failures. Whatever the intelligence failures were, we went to Iraq. This country went to Iraq, and a number of things have happened. We have unearthed mass graves. Several hundred thousand Iraqis were murdered by a brutal regime headed by Saddam Hussein. There are a number of brutal regimes in this world. We don't take it upon ourselves--unless it is in our national interest--to send troops to those brutal regimes. But Saddam Hussein was, in fact, a brutal dictator. He has been executed. The world is better for that. The country of Iraq has shed itself of a brutal dictator. His execution comes amid other opportunities for the people of Iraq. They have a constitution, a brandnew one; they wrote it and voted for it. They have a new government. They have created and voted for that government. And now we have tens and tens and tens of thousands of American soldiers in Iraq, in the middle of a civil war.

We have taken our eye off the ball because the issue really is the terrorist organizations that wish to commit acts of terror against our country. The head of our national intelligence says that al-Qaida is the greatest terrorist threat to our country. They are in secure hideaways in northern Pakistan. It seems to me that the ability to begin to extract ourselves from the middle of a civil war in Iraq gives us the opportunity to put pressure on and work with other countries to bring to justice the greatest terrorist threat to this country, the terrorist organization that murdered Americans on 9/11/2001. That ought to be our overriding goal. If that is the greatest terrorist threat, it seems to me our most important job is to eliminate that threat, and sooner rather than later.

So I end where I began. No one in this Chamber has a difference of opinion about whether we want our country to succeed. We love our country, and we want to succeed. We honor our soldiers, and we insist, when we send America's sons and daughters to war, that they have all the things they need and the support they need to do their job. But from a policy perspective, I believe this President has made very serious mistakes.

One of my colleagues, this morning, said the general will tell us whether things are going well. I cannot tell you how many briefings I have been in--top-secret briefings--month after month after month and year after year in which the top generals have come to us and said things are going really very well, when, in fact, that hasn't been the case. Only later have we discovered it was not the case; it never was the case.

It seems to me that this country has to evaluate what it can do at this point to begin to find a way to withdraw and extract from a civil war in Iraq. Perhaps there needs to be partitioning, I don't know. I know that is a tough subject to introduce these days. But if there are no alternatives, perhaps you have to partition the parties fighting each other, the Sunnis and Shias, and try to find another device to deal with the issue.

In any event, it seems to me it is in this country's best interest to keep our eye on the ball, and the ball here is, according to head of our intelligence, that the greatest terrorist threat to our country is the leadership of al-Qaida and their network. We have not, in my judgment, with respect to al-Qaida and the deepening problems of the Taliban in Afghanistan, kept our eye on the ball. That is one of the reasons there needs to be a change.

This notion of ``stay the course'' or ``cut and run,'' which was the slogan--there is the slogan of the week or the slogan of the month. The administration's slogan of the month last year was ``stay the course'' or ``cut and run.'' It was always a false choice that was never a substitute for thoughtful debate. It was a thoughtless chant of things that mattered very little.

What matters most to this country is that we are engaged in pursuits which will provide opportunity to strengthen this country, which do honor and justice to the efforts of our soldiers, and which relate to responding to the terrorist threat because the threat against this country is a very serious, abiding, long-term threat. All of us want to succeed in dealing with that threat.

Mr. President, one of my colleagues, Senator Conrad, has arrived. I think he intends to speak on this agricultural disaster issue. Let me at this point yield the floor, and I think other colleagues will speak on the agricultural disaster piece I spoke on earlier.

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

Mr. President, some would believe, and perhaps should believe, that this budget issue is very complex, very difficult and is hard to resolve. I accept all that. But there ought to be some things all of us would agree are very easy to deal with. The slam-dunks, as it were; the issues that all of us ought to say: Enough, we are not going to put up with this on the revenue side.

Let me tell my colleagues the taxes I believe we ought to be getting that we are not getting. Should we increase them? Absolutely. Those are the taxes that would have been paid under normal circumstances but now are not being paid because companies have decided they want to run their income through a tax-haven country. They want to produce in China, sell in America, and run their income through the Cayman Islands.

What is the purpose of that? To avoid paying U.S. taxes. They want all the opportunities of being an American company but none of the responsibilities to pay the taxes to help this country run, to help this country do what it should do.

So let me go through some of the examples. First, let me show a picture of the Ugland House. An enterprising reporter named ``David Evans'' did some research. This picture shows a five-story building on Church Street in the Cayman Islands that is home to 12,748 corporations. Now, we have talked about that. I have spoken about it in previous months on the floor of the Senate. Why do I do that? Everyone understands that in this little building on a quiet street on the Cayman Islands, there aren't 12,748 companies. That is a legal fiction created by some lawyers to allow companies to use this address to avoid paying U.S. taxes. That is what is inside this white building: fictional addresses so companies can park income here and avoid paying taxes to the United States.

Should we shut that down? You bet your life we ought to shut it down--just like that. It ought not be controversial. Do we not believe that everybody ought to pay their fair share of taxes as a part of living in this great country? So that is one issue. That, by the way, is a current tax scam that exists and is robust. I could go through the names of companies that have many subsidiaries in tax-haven countries. I mentioned Halliburton the other day. They have 17 subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands, a country that has never imposed a corporate income tax. They also have two subsidiaries in

Liechtenstein, for God's sake. But it is not just that company. I could go through a whole list of companies that have dozens and dozens of subsidiaries they have created in tax-haven countries to avoid paying taxes in this country.

Let me give some other examples of what has been going on. This is Dortmund, Germany. This is a picture of a streetcar in Dortmund, Germany. It is interesting. Actually, an American company leased the streetcars in Dortmund, Germany. Why? Because an American company wants to run streetcars in Germany? No, not at all. These belong to city government in Germany. An American corporation leased them, and immediately leased them back to the German city, and then the company is able to claim large tax deductions that lower its tax burden in the United States. Here is what the city councilman, Manfred Jostes, said:

It's absolutely unbelievable. I still to this day can't

believe that something like this works.

A German city councilman trying to think through how is it we can lease our streetcars to an American company, they lease them back, we get a premium and never lose the opportunity to use them. The only thing that is valuable to the American company is they don't have to pay taxes because they can claim large deductions relating to this streetcar system in Germany.

It is not just streetcars. How about American companies buying town halls? Here is a picture of a town hall in a German city that I can't even pronounce. That is a huge, old town hall owned by an American company. Why? Because they like town halls in Germany? No. Because they want to be able to claim large deductions in an abusive cross-border leasing transaction with a German city for the purpose of reducing their tax obligations in this country.

Here is a railroad in Belgium owned by an American company. Because they like to run trains in Belgium? No, no. It is about reducing their taxes in our country.

How about an American company buying a German sewer system. This one--Wachovia Bank has been pretty aggressive. They bought a German sewer system, and they reportedly get $175 million in U.S. tax savings by owning a foreign sewer system. The city in Germany--Bochum, Germany, doesn't lose the use of its sewer system. The American corporation didn't buy a German sewer system because they wanted to use the sewer; they bought it because they wanted to lease it back to the German city so the U.S. company can depreciate it and reduce its tax burden to the U.S. Government. Sale and leaseback. Pretty unbelievable.

FleetBoston Financial and another investor bought Chicago's 911 emergency call system. Think of that. Chicago sets up a 911 emergency call system, then sells it to two corporations. It is a city-owned system. The companies buy it, and lease it back to Chicago. Chicago still has it. It is a sale and leaseback transaction by which an American corporation can now own and lease back the 911 emergency call system in Chicago and be able to depreciate it to save money on their tax bill. It is unbelievable to me.

When are we going to put a stop to this? Well, the Finance Committee took a look at these sale and leasebacks and owning foreign sewer systems and they said: We will stop it as of this date, but everything else is OK. It is not OK with me.

It is not OK with me that we still have companies that decide they want to move their profits to a controlled offshore foreign subsidiary, despite the fact that the subsidiary doesn't do any real business there.

It is not OK with me that we still provide large tax breaks to U.S. companies that close down a manufacturing plant in this country, fire its American workers and move those good-paying jobs to countries like China. When U.S. companies close down a U.S. manufacturing plant such as Huffy bicycles or Radio Flyer little red wagons, fires its American workers and moves those good-paying jobs overseas, U.S. tax law actually gives companies like these a large tax break. This is a slap in the face of domestic companies that do not get this break. It is a slap in the face to hardworking Americans whose jobs are cut and moved overseas.

I have forced the U.S. Senate to vote to repeal this perverse tax break several times but it still remains in place. I will offer my proposal to eliminate this ill-advised tax subsidy again and again until it is gone.

So I have legislation in three areas that will shut these things down and shut them down for good. All of that, I understand, is able to be accomplished and has a fit in this budget proposal. Senator Conrad, I believe, has in this budget proposal provided room for the three proposals I have offered, the kinds of proposals that will finally and irrevocably shut down this nonsense.

Now, we are short of money. The fact is we are short of revenue, so how are we going to get it? Are we going to go ask some people who go to work all day and take showers at night. You know, they get dirty and work hard at a construction site, come home and have to take a shower after work rather than before work. We are going to go back to those folks and say: You know what. Our Government is short of money. We would like you to pay some more in taxes. Or are we going to go to these companies who have decided they want to own a sewer system in Germany? They want to have a ``fictional'' address on Church Street in the Cayman Islands or they want to engage in transfer pricing.

Transfer pricing schemes, by the way, where companies have their own subsidiaries and buy and sell from them and charge things such as $50 for a tractor tire or $18 for a toothbrush; dramatic overpricing on the one hand or underpricing on the other. They use this accounting scam to try to demonstrate they have earned no money in the United States and therefore owe no taxes in the United States when, in fact, they earned a lot of money and transfer-priced those profits out of our country. Another scheme. It is wholesale tax avoidance.

The question for this Senate ought to be now: Are we going to get the revenue that is owed to us from some of the largest enterprises? I have not named a lot of them. I could name a lot of them, and they should have the opportunity to be named so that their shareholders know what they are doing.

It wasn't long ago, by the way, when some of us came to the Senate floor and named the companies who decided they wanted to renounce their American citizenship. I was a part of that. The late Paul Wellstone was a part of that. Paul sat right over there at that desk at the end of that row and I remember it as if it were today, the speeches Paul would give about this issue.

The companies have decided: You know what. We want all the benefits of being an American. We were chartered here. We exist here. We appreciate being here, but we don't want the responsibility of paying taxes. That is the origin and the roots of some of this tax avoidance. But then, it went even further. There was a time when companies said: You know what. We appreciate being an American, but we can save a great deal of money if we renounce our American citizenship and move our citizenship to, let's say, the Bahamas. My thought was: You want to move your corporate citizenship to the Bahamas for the purpose of not paying American taxes; then when you get in trouble, why don't you call in the Bahamian Navy. My understanding is they have a force of 20 people. Perhaps I have understated it. But maybe then you ought to call the Bahamian military when you get in some trouble, when someone tries to expropriate your assets somewhere around the world.

I come to the floor today because I am flat sick and tired of these schemes: The hood ornament on excess here is the schemes by which town halls are now for lease or for sale, sewer systems are now for sale. Yes, action has been taken to shut some of that down prospectively. Yes, that is good. But we still have circumstances under which American corporations are owning these assets, depreciating the assets that clearly are government assets for one single purpose, and that is to avoid paying the taxes that they would otherwise owe to the United States of America.

So then who pays taxes? Well, there is the infamous woman who once said: Only the little people pay taxes. She

sort of sniffed: Only the little people pay taxes. Well, we know who does pay taxes. It is people who work, who get a W-2 form which says: Here is your income, here is your withholding, here is the obligation you have to the United States of America. No flexibility. You work, you earn an income, you pay taxes.

The word ``tax'' is not a dirty word. It is part of the price of a civilized society. We build roads. We operate schools. We provide for the defense of this Nation. We have a Center for Disease Control. We have the National Institutes of Health. We run Bethesda Hospital and Walter Reed for the veterans. We do a lot of things that are pretty wonderful, and we have built a pretty spectacular country through private sector and public sector initiatives. But in order to do that, we need a revenue base. Some of the biggest interests in this country have decided: We want to be a part of everything America has to offer, but we don't want to be a part of the revenue base. We want to find ways to own a foreign sewer system or run our income through a fictional address in the Cayman Islands. We want a large tax break for shutting down a U.S. manufacturing plant and moving those jobs overseas. We want to find a way to transfer price so that we are pricing safety pins at 100 times their value, or underpricing pianos, selling pianos for $40. That sort of transfer pricing is unbelievable. That transfer pricing has allowed some corporations to scam the Federal Government and avoid paying the taxes they owe this country. So I came to the floor today only to say this: Part of the process of a budget is to make plans about spending. What is it we need to spend? What do we have to do to invest in our country's future to strengthen our country? Then also, what kind of revenue can we expect and who shall contribute that revenue? Who is responsible for paying taxes? It is not, as the socialite sniffed, ``the little people''; it is a responsibility for all of us in this country to pay taxes. I think when we see what has been going on with tax avoidance on a massive scale--and I see those who might criticize Senator Conrad for saying: Let's capture some of this in this budget, and they say: Well, that is not real--you bet your life it is real.

You bet your life it is real. This tax avoidance is large, and it is growing. We have a responsibility to say to those interests: Pay up. Be a part of this country. Being a part of this country is to make money in this great economy of ours, but also the responsibility to pay some taxes to this country as well.

As I indicated, I have three provisions that will be provided for as a result of the way this budget is structured. I intend to offer those as legislation in this coming year. I expect that ought to be a noncontroversial portion of the debate in this country. It ought to be the first baby step to do what is right.

I yield the floor.

Amendment No. 489

Mr. President, I am pleased today to be joined by Senators Grassley, Durbin and Collins in re-introducing the Restitution for Victims of Crime Act. This legislation will give Justice Department officials the tools they say are needed to help them do a better job of collecting court-ordered Federal restitution and fines. It is virtually identical to the bill we introduced in June of last year.

Recent information from the Justice Department suggests the many victims of crime and their families continue to face a significant challenge in trying to recover a sense of emotional and financial security after a crime has been perpetrated against them.

By law, victims of Federal crimes are generally entitled to ``full and timely restitution'' for losses from a convicted offender. Unfortunately new Justice Department data show that the amount of uncollected Federal criminal debt is still spiraling upward--jumping from some $41 billion in fiscal year 2005 to nearly $46 billion at the end of fiscal year 2006. This is a hike of some $5 billion in uncollected Federal

criminal debt int he past fiscal year alone. Criminal debt ordered by Federal courts in North Dakota that remained uncollected at the end of fiscal year 2006 totaled $18.7 million, up almost $4 million from the preceding year.

Crime victims should not have to worry if those in charge of collecting court-ordered restitution on their behalf are making every possible effort to do so. We believe that passing the Restitution for Victimis of Crime Act would greatly help Federal criminal justice officials in this task.

Our bill includes provisions that will remove many existing impediments to increased collections. It will also provide new tools to help Federal criminal justice officials prevent criminal defendants from spending or hiding their ill-gotten gains and other financial assets by setting up pre-conviction procedures for preserving assets for victims' restitution.

I hope that my Senate colleagues will help us get the legislation enacted at the first available opportunity. This will send a clear and much-needed message to white collar and other criminals: if you commit a crime you will be held accountable and will not be allowed to benefit in any way from your criminal activity and ill-gotten gains. I also believe this bill will reassure many innocent victims of Federal crime that the justice system is working hard to recover court-ordered restitution that is owed to such victims.

I understand that criminal debt collection can be a tough job. It may be impossible to collect the full amount of restitution owed to victims in some cases. Clearly criminal debt collections may be more difficult in cases where convicted criminals are in prison, ill-gotten gains are already gone or these criminals are without any other financial means to pay their full restitution.

However, victims of crime in this country should expect Federal law enforcement officials tasked with collecting outstanding restitution to do a better job. At the very least, crime victims should not be concerned that their prospects for financial restitution are being diminished because criminal offenders are frittering away their ill- gotten gains on lavish lifestyles and the like. But, as I have mentioned before, past Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigations rightly give many crime victims real reason to worry. GAO's work made clear that more financial assets could be recovered but for a failure of some criminal justice officials to make criminal debt collection a top priority.

At my request, the GAO reviewed five white-collar financial fraud cases and concluded that the Justice Department's prospects were ``not good for collecting additional restitution from offenders'' owed to the victims--even though one or more of the criminal offenders involved had reported earning millions of dollars in income, having millions in net worth and/or were spending thousands of dollars monthly on entertainment and clothing prior to the judgments entered against them. In addition, the GAO found that certain offenders had taken expensive trips overseas, had fraudulently obtained millions of dollars in assets and converted those assets for personal use, had established businesses for their children, or held homes worth millions of dollars that were located in upscale neighborhoods. Despite all of this reported wealth, GAO found that only a small fraction of court-ordered restitution owed to victims had been collected.

The legislation that Senator Grassley and I are re-introducing today is based on a comprehensive package of recommendations by the Justice Department that stem in large part from the work of the Task Force on Improving the Collection of Criminal Debt. Justice Department officials believe these changes will remove many of the current impediments to better debt collection.

For example, Justice Department officials described a circumstance where they were prevented by a court from accessing $400,000 held in a criminal offender's 401(k) plan to pay a $4 million restitution debt to a victim because that court said the defendant was complying with a $250 minimum monthly payment plan and that payment schedule precluded any other enforcement actions. Our bill would remove impediments like this in the future.

This legislation will address another major problem identified by the GAO for officials in charge of criminal debt collection; that is, many years can pass between the date a crime occurs and the date a court orders restitution. This gives criminal defendants ample opportunity to spend or hide their ill-gotten gains. Our bill sets up pre-conviction procedures for preserving assets for victims' restitution. These tools will help ensure that financial assets traceable to a crime are available when a court imposes a final restitution order on behalf of a victim. These tools are similar to those already used successfully in some States and by Federal officials in certain asset forfeiture cases.

Key provisions of the bill would do the following:

Clarify that court-ordered Federal criminal restitution is due immediately in full upon imposition, just like in civil cases and that any payment schedule ordered by a court is only a minimum obligation of a convicted offender.

Allow Federal prosecutors to access financial information about a defendant in the possession of the U.S. Probation Office--without the need for a court order.

Clarify that final restitution orders can be enforced by criminal justice officials through the Bureau of Prisons' Inmate Financial Responsibility Program.

Ensure that if a court restricts the ability of criminal justice officials to enforce a financial judgment, the court must do so expressly for good cause on the record. Absent exceptional circumstances, the court must require a deposit, the posting of a bond or impose additional restraints upon the defendant from transferring or dissipating assets.

Help ensure better recovery of restitution by requiring a court to enter a pre-conviction restraining order or injunction, require a satisfactory performance bond, or take other action necessary to preserve property that is traceable to the commission of a charged offense or to preserve other nonexempt assets if the court determines that it is in the interest of justice to do so.

Under the bill, a criminal defendant is allowed to challenge a court's pre-judgment asset preservation order. For example, a defendant may challenge a post-indictment restraining order if he or she can show that there is no probable cause to justify the restraint or the order does not provide the accused with adequate resources for attorney fees or reasonable living expenses.

Permit the Attorney General to commence a civil action under the Anti-Fraud Injunction Statute to enjoin a person who is committing or about to commit a Federal offense that may result in a restitution order; and permit a court to restrain the dissipation of assets in any case where it has power to enjoin the commission of a crime, not just banking or health care fraud as permitted under current law.

Allow the United States under the Federal Debt Collections Procedure Act to use prejudgment remedies to preserve assets in criminal cases that are similar to those used in civil cases when it is needed to preserve a defendant's assets for restitution. Such remedies, including attachment, garnishment, and receivership, are not currently available in criminal cases because there is no enforceable debt prior to an offender's conviction and judgment.

Clarify that a victim's attorney fees may be included in restitution orders, including cases where such fees are a foreseeable result from the commission of the crime, are incurred to help recover lost property or expended by a victim to defend against third-party lawsuits resulting from the defendant's crime.

Allow courts at their discretion to order immediate restitution to those that have suffered economic losses or serious bodily injury or death as the result of environmental felonies. Under current law, courts can impose restitution in such cases as a condition of probation or supervised release but this means that many victims of environment crimes must wait for years to be compensated for their losses, if at all.

The Restitution for Victims of Crime Act has previously been endorsed by a number of organizations concerned about the well-being of crime victims, including: The National Center for Victims of Crime, Mothers Against Drunk

Driving, the National Organization for Victims Assistance (NOVA), the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence, Parents of Murdered Children, Inc., Justice Solutions, the National Network to End Domestic Violence, the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and the National Association of VOCA Assistance Administrators (NAVAA). Most recently, the National Crime Victim Law Institute shared its support for our bill.

Last year, United States Attorney Drew Wrigley in Fargo, North Dakota said this legislation ``represents important progress toward ensuring that victims of crime are one step closer to being made whole.''

Senator Grassley and I look forward to working with these groups and others to move this bill forward in the legislative process. With the Justice Department's help, we can make criminal debt collection a top priority for all Federal criminal justice officials once again.

Mr. President, I am pleased today to be joined by Senators Grassley, Durbin and Collins in re-introducing the Restitution for Victims of Crime Act. This legislation will give Justice Department officials the tools they say are needed to help them do a better job of collecting court-ordered Federal restitution and fines. It is virtually identical to the bill we introduced in June of last year.

Recent information from the Justice Department suggests the many victims of crime and their families continue to face a significant challenge in trying to recover a sense of emotional and financial security after a crime has been perpetrated against them.

By law, victims of Federal crimes are generally entitled to ``full and timely restitution'' for losses from a convicted offender. Unfortunately new Justice Department data show that the amount of uncollected Federal criminal debt is still spiraling upward--jumping from some $41 billion in fiscal year 2005 to nearly $46 billion at the end of fiscal year 2006. This is a hike of some $5 billion in uncollected Federal

criminal debt int he past fiscal year alone. Criminal debt ordered by Federal courts in North Dakota that remained uncollected at the end of fiscal year 2006 totaled $18.7 million, up almost $4 million from the preceding year.

Crime victims should not have to worry if those in charge of collecting court-ordered restitution on their behalf are making every possible effort to do so. We believe that passing the Restitution for Victimis of Crime Act would greatly help Federal criminal justice officials in this task.

Our bill includes provisions that will remove many existing impediments to increased collections. It will also provide new tools to help Federal criminal justice officials prevent criminal defendants from spending or hiding their ill-gotten gains and other financial assets by setting up pre-conviction procedures for preserving assets for victims' restitution.

I hope that my Senate colleagues will help us get the legislation enacted at the first available opportunity. This will send a clear and much-needed message to white collar and other criminals: if you commit a crime you will be held accountable and will not be allowed to benefit in any way from your criminal activity and ill-gotten gains. I also believe this bill will reassure many innocent victims of Federal crime that the justice system is working hard to recover court-ordered restitution that is owed to such victims.

I understand that criminal debt collection can be a tough job. It may be impossible to collect the full amount of restitution owed to victims in some cases. Clearly criminal debt collections may be more difficult in cases where convicted criminals are in prison, ill-gotten gains are already gone or these criminals are without any other financial means to pay their full restitution.

However, victims of crime in this country should expect Federal law enforcement officials tasked with collecting outstanding restitution to do a better job. At the very least, crime victims should not be concerned that their prospects for financial restitution are being diminished because criminal offenders are frittering away their ill- gotten gains on lavish lifestyles and the like. But, as I have mentioned before, past Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigations rightly give many crime victims real reason to worry. GAO's work made clear that more financial assets could be recovered but for a failure of some criminal justice officials to make criminal debt collection a top priority.

At my request, the GAO reviewed five white-collar financial fraud cases and concluded that the Justice Department's prospects were ``not good for collecting additional restitution from offenders'' owed to the victims--even though one or more of the criminal offenders involved had reported earning millions of dollars in income, having millions in net worth and/or were spending thousands of dollars monthly on entertainment and clothing prior to the judgments entered against them. In addition, the GAO found that certain offenders had taken expensive trips overseas, had fraudulently obtained millions of dollars in assets and converted those assets for personal use, had established businesses for their children, or held homes worth millions of dollars that were located in upscale neighborhoods. Despite all of this reported wealth, GAO found that only a small fraction of court-ordered restitution owed to victims had been collected.

The legislation that Senator Grassley and I are re-introducing today is based on a comprehensive package of recommendations by the Justice Department that stem in large part from the work of the Task Force on Improving the Collection of Criminal Debt. Justice Department officials believe these changes will remove many of the current impediments to better debt collection.

For example, Justice Department officials described a circumstance where they were prevented by a court from accessing $400,000 held in a criminal offender's 401(k) plan to pay a $4 million restitution debt to a victim because that court said the defendant was complying with a $250 minimum monthly payment plan and that payment schedule precluded any other enforcement actions. Our bill would remove impediments like this in the future.

This legislation will address another major problem identified by the GAO for officials in charge of criminal debt collection; that is, many years can pass between the date a crime occurs and the date a court orders restitution. This gives criminal defendants ample opportunity to spend or hide their ill-gotten gains. Our bill sets up pre-conviction procedures for preserving assets for victims' restitution. These tools will help ensure that financial assets traceable to a crime are available when a court imposes a final restitution order on behalf of a victim. These tools are similar to those already used successfully in some States and by Federal officials in certain asset forfeiture cases.

Key provisions of the bill would do the following:

Clarify that court-ordered Federal criminal restitution is due immediately in full upon imposition, just like in civil cases and that any payment schedule ordered by a court is only a minimum obligation of a convicted offender.

Allow Federal prosecutors to access financial information about a defendant in the possession of the U.S. Probation Office--without the need for a court order.

Clarify that final restitution orders can be enforced by criminal justice officials through the Bureau of Prisons' Inmate Financial Responsibility Program.

Ensure that if a court restricts the ability of criminal justice officials to enforce a financial judgment, the court must do so expressly for good cause on the record. Absent exceptional circumstances, the court must require a deposit, the posting of a bond or impose additional restraints upon the defendant from transferring or dissipating assets.

Help ensure better recovery of restitution by requiring a court to enter a pre-conviction restraining order or injunction, require a satisfactory performance bond, or take other action necessary to preserve property that is traceable to the commission of a charged offense or to preserve other nonexempt assets if the court determines that it is in the interest of justice to do so.

Under the bill, a criminal defendant is allowed to challenge a court's pre-judgment asset preservation order. For example, a defendant may challenge a post-indictment restraining order if he or she can show that there is no probable cause to justify the restraint or the order does not provide the accused with adequate resources for attorney fees or reasonable living expenses.

Permit the Attorney General to commence a civil action under the Anti-Fraud Injunction Statute to enjoin a person who is committing or about to commit a Federal offense that may result in a restitution order; and permit a court to restrain the dissipation of assets in any case where it has power to enjoin the commission of a crime, not just banking or health care fraud as permitted under current law.

Allow the United States under the Federal Debt Collections Procedure Act to use prejudgment remedies to preserve assets in criminal cases that are similar to those used in civil cases when it is needed to preserve a defendant's assets for restitution. Such remedies, including attachment, garnishment, and receivership, are not currently available in criminal cases because there is no enforceable debt prior to an offender's conviction and judgment.

Clarify that a victim's attorney fees may be included in restitution orders, including cases where such fees are a foreseeable result from the commission of the crime, are incurred to help recover lost property or expended by a victim to defend against third-party lawsuits resulting from the defendant's crime.

Allow courts at their discretion to order immediate restitution to those that have suffered economic losses or serious bodily injury or death as the result of environmental felonies. Under current law, courts can impose restitution in such cases as a condition of probation or supervised release but this means that many victims of environment crimes must wait for years to be compensated for their losses, if at all.

The Restitution for Victims of Crime Act has previously been endorsed by a number of organizations concerned about the well-being of crime victims, including: The National Center for Victims of Crime, Mothers Against Drunk

Driving, the National Organization for Victims Assistance (NOVA), the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence, Parents of Murdered Children, Inc., Justice Solutions, the National Network to End Domestic Violence, the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and the National Association of VOCA Assistance Administrators (NAVAA). Most recently, the National Crime Victim Law Institute shared its support for our bill.

Last year, United States Attorney Drew Wrigley in Fargo, North Dakota said this legislation ``represents important progress toward ensuring that victims of crime are one step closer to being made whole.''

Senator Grassley and I look forward to working with these groups and others to move this bill forward in the legislative process. With the Justice Department's help, we can make criminal debt collection a top priority for all Federal criminal justice officials once again.