Floor Statements

Mr. President, the issue of Internet freedom, which is also known as net neutrality, is one that is very important to me. I have long fought in Congress against media concentration, to prevent the consolidation of control over what Americans see, read and hear in the media. Americans have recognized how important this issue is and millions spoke out when the FCC sought to loosen the ownership rules to allow for more consolidation.

But now, Americans face an equally great threat to the democratic vehicle of the Internet. The Internet, which we have always taken for granted as an open and free engine for economic and creative growth, is now also at risk, and this must also become a front burner issue for consumers and businesses.

The Internet became a robust engine of economic development by enabling anyone with a good idea to connect to consumers and compete on a level playing field for consumers' business. The marketplace picked winners and losers, and not some central gatekeeper. Our economy, small businesses and consumers benefited tremendously from that dynamic marketplace.

But now we face a situation where the FCC has removed nondiscrimination rules that applied to Internet providers for years, and that enabled the Internet to flourish, and consumers and innovation to thrive.

The FCC removed these rules, and broadband operators soon thereafter announced their interest in acting in discriminatory ways, planning to create tiers on the Internet that could restrict content providers' access to the

Internet unless they pay extra for faster speeds or better service. Under their plan, the Internet would become a new world where those content providers who can afford to pay special fees would have better access to consumers.

On November 7, 2005 then-SBC, now AT&T, CEO Ed Whitacre was quoted in Business Week as saying: ``They don't have any fiber out there. They don't have any wires. They don't have anything . . . They use my lines for free--and that's bull. For a Google or a Yahoo! or a Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes for free is nuts!''

In another article a senior executive from Verizon was quoted as saying: ``(Google) is enjoying a free lunch that should, by any rational account, be the lunch of the facilities providers.''

Now perhaps if we had a competitive broadband market we would not need to be concerned about the discriminatory intentions of some providers. In a market with many competitors, there is a reasonable chance that market forces would discipline bad behavior.

But this is not the case today: FCC statistics on broadband show that the local cable and telephone companies have a 98 percent share of the national broadband residential access market.

For those that say, the market will take care of competition, and ensure that those that own the broadband networks won't discriminate, that cannot be so when at best consumers have a choice of two providers.

Furthermore, these broadband operators have their own content and services, video, VOIP, media content. They have an incentive to favor their own services and to act in an anti-competitive fashion. Last year Cablevision's Tom Rutledge talking about Vonage made the following statement: ``So, anyone who buys Vonage on our network using our data service doesn't really know what they are doing . . . Our service is better, its quality of service. We actually prioritize the bits so that the voice product is a better product.''

With these developments, consumers' ability to use content, services and applications could now be subject to decisions made by their broadband providers. The broadband operator will become a gatekeeper, capable of deciding who can get through to a consumer, who can get special deals, faster speeds, better access to the consumer.

This fundamentally changes the way the Internet has operated and threaten to derail the democratic nature of the Internet. American consumers and businesses will be worse off for it.

It is for this reason that Senator Snowe and I are reintroducing the Internet Freedom Preservation Act, with the support of Internet businesses large and small, consumer groups, labor and education groups, religious organizations, and many others.

Last year we faced an uphill battle: broadband providers were spending millions of dollars on print and television advertisements and efforts to convince lawmakers to let them act as gatekeepers on the Internet, removing the power from the consumers that drive Internet choice today.

We still face the vast resources of broadband operators that seek to authorize their ability to control content on the Internet. But more importantly on the side of our legislation we have the grass roots support for and the substantive merits of Internet freedom.

In addition, we have proof that it can be done- nondiscrimination rules and Internet freedom can co-exist with profitable business plans. Recently AT&T accepted as a condition of its merger with BellSouth a net neutrality provision written by the FCC. Wall Street immediately reported that it expected no impact on AT&T's bottom line by the acceptance of these conditions, and AT&T is forging ahead, while at the same time having committed to protecting Internet freedom.

It is clear that an open and neutral Internet can co-exist and thrive along with competitive and profitable business models.

But legislation is still critical. The merger conditions are an important step but are not enough. We must restore Internet freedom mandates to the entire broadband industry and make them permanent, ensuring that consumers can continue to receive the benefits of an open and vibrant Internet not only in the short term from AT&T, but from any broadband provider in the longer term.

Today we introduce the Internet Freedom Preservation Act to ensure that the Internet remains a platform that spawns innovation and economic development for generations to come. We look forward to working with our colleagues in Congress to enact these important measures into law.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my 15 minutes be extended to 20 minutes.

Mr. President, I rise to talk about a piece of legislation that is not getting completed, and I will do that in a moment.

I thank my colleague from Wyoming and others for the work they have just completed with respect to the issue of family care and family support. It is a very important piece of legislation.

I listened to my colleague from Oklahoma talk about a number of important issues.

Regarding the issue of health care, clearly we have to deal with the health care issue. He mentioned the amount of money spent on health care. It is true, we spend more money per person than anybody in the world, by far. And by the way, we rank 48th in life expectancy. Yes, 48th--not 20th or 2nd but 48th in life expectancy, a country which spends far more than any other country per person in the world on health care. We have a lot to do on health care.

With respect to fiscal policy, my colleague raises an important point about things that come to the Senate--proposals, ideas--that are not paid for. He raises an important point. They should be paid for.

The largest area of that kind of expenditure, by the way, in recent years, has come at the request of the President. Nearly $400 billion, now, is the cost for the war in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the fight against terrorism. None of it is paid for. We have sent America's sons and daughters to war, wearing America's uniform, and essentially said to them: By the way, go fight; when you come back, you can pay the bills because the President has not asked and this Congress has not had the courage to decide we ought to pay for that which we spend. That does need to change.

I noticed this morning in the Washington Post an article by a man named Samuelson, apparently an economist. I have read some of what he has said over the years. He talks about the value of the dollar slipping, decreasing, and its consequences on our country. He described all the reasons except the real reason. The real reason our dollar has decreased in value is we have an unsustainable trade deficit of $800 billion a year, $2 billion a day, day after day after day. That is unsustainable and will, without question, jeopardize this country's future. It will have a profound influence on the value of the dollar with respect to the value of our currency. That will have an influence on virtually everything else in this country.

So we have to get our hands around this issue of international trade and start demanding and insisting on fair trade, start deciding with our trading partners--China and other countries, Japan, South Korea, Europe--that we are not going to allow these dramatic trade imbalances to occur. They will have dramatic impact on this country's economic future. I will have more to say about that at another time.

Because there was discussion about health care in the Senate, I wanted to speak about something that isn't getting done today, and it is a real tragedy. I use the word ``tragedy'' because it is the right word to use about this issue.

Senator John McCain and I have worked as chairman and vice chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee all of this session of the Congress to try to pass a piece of legislation called the reauthorization of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act. We come to the end of the session without progress, unfortunately.

Senator McCain has done great work on this issue. My other colleagues--I notice my colleague from Wyoming, who is in the Chamber-- have worked with us on this issue. The Indian Health Care Improvement Act should have been done, should have been passed. We come to the end of another session of the Congress and it is not getting done. There is a reason for that. We have written legislation that is bipartisan, and day after day after day, month after month, the agencies and the administration have objected.

Let me describe what we face with respect to Indian health care. A good many American Indians, Native Americans, live in Third World conditions. I have spoken about it many times on the floor of the Senate. They live in Third World conditions inside this country. I have spoken about the grandmother who lay down in this country on a cot in a house and froze to death. It is in this country. Read that story and then ask yourself: What backward Third World country did that occur in? It occurred in this country.

The fact is, whether it is health care or housing or education, we face a bona fide crisis on Indian reservations. We have a responsibility, what is called a trust responsibility, for Indian health care. We spend twice as much per person as a country to provide health care for Federal prisoners as we do for Native Americans for whom we have a trust responsibility. They get half the support we provide to Federal prisoners for health care.

Talk to the Indian Health Service. They will not give you this number willingly, but talk to them long enough and they will tell you, finally, that 40 percent of the health care needs of Native Americans living on Indian reservations is unmet. That is health care rationing.

Now, let me describe, if I might, just the consequences of that rationing, perhaps, by telling you of some real people. We had a tribal chairman who testified before our committee who said: On our reservation it is widely known, don't get sick after June first, because after June first, there is no more contract health money. And if you get sick after June first and show up at a hospital, and your problem is not ``life or limb,'' then you're not going to be treated, you're not going to be paid for.

So let me describe some of these things.

An 80-year-old American Indian elder, a diabetic, living on an Indian reservation, fell while tending to her garden, and she broke her leg in two places. The break was so severe there was a bone sticking out of her ankle. She went to the hospital. She was sent home with painkillers. She went to a second hospital and was told the condition was not priority 1--not priority 1: which is ``life or limb''--and therefore she was not able to get care at the second hospital. She went to the third hospital--limped in--and finally received some care at the third hospital, with a bone protruding from her leg.

Now, what is ``life or limb''? That is under what is called contract care. It means that if your life is not at stake, or the loss of an arm or leg is not at stake, you do not get the contract care. So don't get sick after June.

Another American Indian with diabetes called in for a prescription drug refill for insulin, and he was told he needed to come back in and get some blood work done before he could get the insulin. It was 2 weeks before they could get him in for his blood work, so he was without insulin for 2 full weeks. As a result, this is an American Indian who will likely require dialysis for the rest of his life because he could not get his prescription for insulin filled on time.

Or a woman named Lida Bearstail. Lida told me it was all right to use her name. She went to a clinic because of knee pain. Her condition was one in which the cartilage had worn away, so it was bone on bone, enormously painful for Lida. Bones in her knee were rubbing against each other with great discomfort and great personal pain.

When that happens to one of us, to our families, to the people who work here, what is the response? You get a knee replacement--surgery, and replace the knee.

Well, what happened to Lida Bearstail? Well, she still limps. She has trouble walking. Perhaps soon she will not be able to walk. Knee surgery is not in her future because this is not about ``life or limb,'' it is just about unbearable, agonizing pain. Again, denied, not a priority, not ``life or limb.''

Ardel Hale Baker told me I could use her story as well. A couple of months ago she had very serious chest pain and she thought she was perhaps having a heart attack. Her blood pressure was very high. Her chest pain was very intense. It wouldn't quit. So she went to the Indian Health Service clinic. She was diagnosed as having a heart attack, and she needed to be sent immediately to the nearest major hospital. And they said: You have to go in an ambulance.

Well, Ardel Hale Baker said, while she was having this heart attack: Is there a chance I could go to the hospital in something other than an ambulance, some method other than taking an ambulance?

They asked her: Why?

She said: Well, I'm going to get billed for the ambulance, and I don't have any money.

If you are not ``priority 1,'' you may end up paying the bill. Your credit rating is ruined. American Indian after American Indian discovers that: You are not a priority. Your credit rating is gone. And the credit companies come after you.

In the middle of her heart attack, she asked the question: Is there some other method besides an ambulance? Why? Because of cost.

Anyway, she arrived at the hospital. And let me tell you what happened at the hospital with Ardel Hale Baker. The nursing staff was lifting her off the gurney from the ambulance and putting her on a hospital bed, and as they lifted her off the gurney, they found something taped to her leg. This woman was having a heart attack, and they found a piece of paper taped to her leg. And here is what the paper said. It said her name: ``Hale, Ardel.''

And then it said:

You have received outpatient medical services. This letter

is to inform you your priority 1 care cannot be paid for due

to funding issues.

So a woman is hauled into a hospital on a gurney with a heart attack and a paper attached to her leg saying: ``This will not be paid for.'' This kind of thing is unbelievable, and it is going on in this country with respect to American Indians for whom we have a trust responsibility for health care, and those needs are not being met.

As I indicated, Senator McCain and I have worked long and hard on this legislation, only to find roadblocks every--every--part of the way. The Health and Human Services agency, the Justice Department, virtually every agency continues to raise roadblocks even today.

I have come to the floor many times in this session of the Congress to talk about a young girl named Avis Littlewind. She is also a part of this legislation. Avis Littlewind was 14 years old when she killed herself. It does not sound good to say that. That is what happened to her. She laid 90 days in a bed in a fetal position, missing school, severely depressed. Then she took her life.

Avis Littlewind was a teenager, 14 years old, who apparently felt things were so hopeless, she was so helpless, that she should take her life. Her sister had taken her life 2 years prior.

Now, I went to that reservation. I met with the tribal chairman, I met with the tribal council, I met with Avis's schoolmates, I met with the relatives, to try to understand what causes this. And it is not just Avis Littlewind. It is not just this young girl. There has been a cluster of suicides, teenage suicides, on these reservations, and none of us really want to talk about it. But if we don't, we will not be able to address it.

Senator McCain and I held some hearings on this subject. The Indian Health Care Improvement Act begins to address this, as it is addressed in some other legislation that we have moved as well.

But my point is this, there are so many challenges. Do you want to go to a place where you can find 5,000 people and one dentist working in a trailer house? Do you want to see that sort of thing? Do you want to go to health clinics that are not open at key times during the day, and long lines when they are open? Do you want to go to places where the rate of diabetes is not double, triple, quadruple, but 12 times the national average, and see the people who have lost their legs as a result of diabetes, see the people on renal dialysis? Do you want to talk to the people who drive 50, 100 miles or more to get renal dialysis?

The fact is, we have a bona fide crisis in health care on Indian reservations. We are not meeting that crisis. We have legislation that should have been passed in previous Congresses. Senator McCain and I have done everything humanly possible to get a piece of legislation that would get cleared to pass this Congress, and I regret to tell you, despite all the good feelings on the floor of the Senate about what is being done, frankly, I think it is a disgrace that this legislation is not being done.

People are dying. There are young children who are not getting health care who are sick and need health care. There are elders with bones sticking out of their legs who are told health care is not available to them. There are women showing up on gurneys in hospitals with paper taped to their legs saying: ``This woman is not eligible for funding for health care.''

That ought to shame every American that it is happening. And we can do something about it by passing legislation called the Indian Health Care Improvement Act. We are not asking for everything here. We are just asking for the right thing.

Senator McCain and I have worked for a long while, and if I sound frustrated, it is because this is not just some other piece of legislation. This will mean that some people will die because we have not fixed the health care system, and we have not addressed these needs. We should not have to be reminded of this. It is our responsibility. This trust responsibility for the health care for Native Americans belongs to us, and we ought not have to be expected to be reminded of it. We ought to come to the floor of the Senate and insist on it. Instead, month after month after month, we have had objections, yes, in this Congress, I should say. We have had holds on the legislation. We have had committees that have insisted they could not move on it. We have had agencies downtown. And for dozens of reasons, we now come to the last day of the U.S. Congress in this session, and no action, and no capability, it appears to be, of making progress. And I am deeply disappointed.

I will, of course, not give up. We will be back in January. We will start again. But this is deeply disappointing to me and to others who have relied on the good will of not just those in Congress but those downtown in the Federal agencies to understand there is a crisis. This is about health care. It is about ``life and limb.'' And when you have this kind of crisis, you have a responsibility to the children, to the elders, to others living on Indian reservations, some of whom live in Third World conditions. We should not be putting up with that. We should reach out a hand to say there is a lot of trouble in the world-- and we reach out a hand to try to see if we can help in other parts of the world--there is plenty to do right here at home as well. I support reaching out to troubled spots of this world. But I believe we also have a first responsibility to reach out in this country to say to people who are living in abject and desperate poverty without health care that we are going to solve those problems, we are going to work with them.

I got interested in and involved in these issues a long time ago when I saw a picture in a paper of a young girl named Tamara. Tamara was a 3-year-old American Indian girl living on an Indian reservation, and she was placed in a foster care home. The woman who placed her in the foster care home was handling 150 cases--150 cases. She did not have the time or the capability to check what kind of home they were putting this 3-year-old girl in. The result was, they put that girl in an unsafe home.

On a Saturday night, in a drunken party, a 3-year-old girl named Tamara had her nose broken, her arm broken, and her hair pulled out by the roots--at a drunken party in a foster home that no one had checked. This 3-year-old girl suffered scars that will be with her the rest of her life.

The fact is, we understand that some of these things are happening, and we have a responsibility to do something about it. I did something about that. There is nobody on that reservation handling that many cases anymore. No social worker can do that. What that child suffered was our responsibility.

So I got involved because I saw what was going on some long while ago. And the more I have worked on these issues, the greater I see the need for us to do the right thing. Senator McCain feels exactly the same way, and we have worked as hard as we can work on a bipartisan basis in the Indian Affairs Committee, with the Republicans and Democrats on that committee, believing that health care is a priority, and that our responsibility to reauthorize the Indian Health Care Improvement Act is a primary responsibility.

And, again, I regret that we come to the last day of the session and find a circumstance where it is not going to be passed.

It takes no skill to oppose. I think it was Mark Twain who was once asked if he would engage in a debate, and he said: Of course, I would be happy to engage in the debate, as long as I can take the opposing view.

They said: We haven't told you the subject of the debate.

He said: It doesn't matter what the subject is. Taking the opposing view will require no preparation.

That is how it is in this Chamber. It is how it is downtown in the agencies. It is the easiest thing in the world to oppose. It takes no preparation at all.

We come to the end of this session with enough having opposed progress on the Indian Health Care Improvement Act that this will not be done in this session of Congress. There will still be hope because we will turn to it again in January. My hope is those who have borne the responsibility of stopping this important piece of legislation will understand the consequences and decide to help us rather than hinder us as we try again in the next session of Congress.

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

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, we have a number of objections on our side. On behalf of at least five Members in this caucus, I will be constrained to object, and I do object.

Mr. President, as the ranking member of the Interior appropriations subcommittee, I wish to join my colleague from Montana in extending our congratulations and our best wishes to John Trezise as he prepares to leave Federal service.

Each spring, the Interior Subcommittee holds a budget hearing to

review the Interior Department's budget request for the coming fiscal year. The Interior Secretary is always seated, front and center, at the main table in our hearing room ready to answer the myriad of questions coming from our subcommittee's members. And despite the sometimes obscure nature of the questions asked, the Secretary has always been able to offer a timely, if not credible, answer. That ability to respond is more often than not due to the fact that, seated immediately next to the Secretary, has been John Trezise and the fattest looseleaf binder any of us has ever seen. No matter what is asked, John has been able to reach into that book and almost instantly retrieve a figure or some other pithy explanation that nearly always seems to satisfy the inquiring Senator. It is a magical exercise that must be seen to be believed.

Mr. President, too often the word ``bureaucrat'' is used as a pejorative. But in the case of John Trezise, those of us on the Interior Subcommittee have come to learn that he exemplifies the best in civil service. And so I join Senator Burns in saying to Mr. Trezise that he can be justly proud of his service to the American people and that we wish him and his family all the best in the coming years.

Mr. President, first of all, my colleague Senator Conrad has described this amendment very well. I appreciate his leadership, as do other Members of the Senate.

For those of us who care about the future of family farming, this is a very important issue for us. I am pleased to be here today to be a cosponsor of this amendment to provide disaster aid to farmers.

Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys in the 1930s in one of their songs had a refrain that I have often used on the floor of the Senate: The little bee sucks the blossoms and the big bee gets the honey; the little guy picks the cotton and the big guy gets the money.

It hasn't changed much over 70 or 80 years. Somehow the big interests always have their day in the Congress. It wasn't too many months ago that they had their day. There was a little provision tucked in a bill that passed the Congress that said to the largest corporations in America: When you repatriate the income you have earned from abroad, we will give you a big deal. You get to pay an income tax rate of 5\1/4\ percent. I think that was worth about a $100 billion tax cut to the biggest economic interests in this country.

It was done without a lot of debate. There is plenty of money to give a $100 billion tax cut to the big interests, but now it is time to talk about working families, family farmers, small producers.

The big interests get their day. Now we are talking about the people who shower after work rather than before work. We are talking about the people

who go out and work all day. They grease combines. They plow the fields. They milk cows. They do chores. Then, at the end of the day, they take a shower and clean up because they worked hard all day. They and their families live under a yard light hoping they are going to be able to make a living. Often they plant a seed and hope it grows. They wonder whether they are going to have disease that will destroy their crop. Perhaps hail will destroy their crop. Maybe it will rain too much, or maybe it won't rain at all. Maybe if they get a crop, avoiding all those diseases and natural disasters, including weather disasters, maybe if they get a crop and they haul it to the elevator, it is worthless because that price has collapsed.

Yet that family living on the farm takes all of those risks by itself, and sometimes it doesn't work out for them.

This country for decades--for decades--has always said to family farmers who live out there alone in the country: When things happen that are tough for you--natural disasters, collapse in prices--we want to help you; we want to offer you a helping hand. We have always said that in the form of disaster aid.

It used to be that the disaster aid came in the regular farm bill because we had a disaster title in that bill. That has been changed. So now each year we have to come and plead for disaster help when a disaster occurs that hurts families living out on the farms in this country.

What has happened this year? Here is a satellite description of what happened in our country. This is July, I believe, of this year. The red in this satellite photo shows the drought. The red shows the destroyed forage. One can see the epicenter of this drought is right up in here, but the drought occurs in a wide area of this country. Look at the epicenter of this drought.

Let me read something that comes from a rancher right up here, right in the epicenter of the drought. He says in a letter dated July 12:

The grass is so dry that it breaks off when the cows walk

on it. The cricks and dams, they're all dried up. We're going

to have to sell some of the cows pretty soon so we can try to

save the rest of them. If you can do anything to help us out,

we would really appreciate it.

``If you can do anything to help us out, we would really appreciate it.'' Did anybody get an appreciative note from those who were saved $103 billion by getting a 5\1/4\-percent income tax break? Did anybody get a note of thanks? Did anybody else get to pay a 5\1/4\ income tax rate? Nobody in America gets to do that. But the biggest economic interests got to do that last year because this Congress was generous: Let me give you a big tax cut of $103 billion. Now we are talking about a few billion dollars that would reach out and help families--yes, the small producers--reach out and help families over troubled times. That is what this is about.

Let me describe a little of the history of this situation. Three times the Senate Appropriations Committee on which I serve has approved amendments to provide disaster assistance. Three times I have offered those amendments, and three times they have been accepted. Last December, 1 year ago, during the conference committee on the fiscal year 2006 Defense appropriations bill, I offered a disaster amendment. The Senate conferees--both sides, Republicans and Democrats--agreed to it and accepted it. The House conferees, at the request of President Bush, objected to it because President Bush said he would veto the bill if it was part of the bill.

In June of this year again, the full Senate approved an amendment that was on the Katrina-Iraq supplemental bill, which I included in the Appropriations Committee. Let me mention that in both cases, my colleague Senator Conrad played quite a significant role in helping to draft the amendment. He serves on the Senate Agriculture Committee, and I serve on the Appropriations Committee. We used the Appropriations Committee as the mechanism by which we have tried to get this done.

Three times the Appropriations Committee in the Senate has passed amendments that I have offered to provide disaster relief. The first two occasions were occasions in which the White House objected. The President actually said, and his advisers said, they would recommend that he veto legislation that would provide disaster help for family farmers.

In June of this year, I attached the other disaster package. It is the one Senator Conrad and a large group of us--Republicans and Democrats--put together. That is what is on the floor of the Senate right now, to be amended by the new disaster package my colleague Senator Conrad offers this afternoon, which I fully support.

So this is not a new subject. No one should come to the floor of the Senate surprised. We have dealt with this subject before. The Senate has approved it before by a fairly significant margin. We have been blocked in two conferences with the House of Representatives because the White House decided to block that help.

Let me describe a couple of pieces of history about drought. It is not a new thing to have a weather disaster wipe out family farmers across this country. One can see the epicenter up in the northern Great Plains, but one can see the destroyed forage in a wide band in the heartland of our country.

Some while ago, we saw the tracking and the description and the physical damage of Hurricane Katrina. It occurred right down here in the gulf. It hit this land with devastating force, unbelievable force, and it destroyed a lot of things. Our hearts were broken as we watched what happened in the gulf.

Part of what the hurricane destroyed was the crops that family farmers had down in these fields. They got washed away and destroyed completely. The Congress passed legislation that said to those farmers: You lost your crops due to a weather-related disaster, and here is some disaster aid. The Congress said to these farmers: You lost your crops due to weather, we are going to help you.

These farmers have lost their crops due to weather. They are just in a different part of the country. No, it is not a hurricane, it is a drought. This had a name; this didn't. Is there a difference? These farmers write to us and ask: What is the difference? We had a weather- related disaster that wiped out everything we had--all the feed, all the crops. We had to sell our cows because if you have a cow and you have no feed, that cow is going to market. We lost everything, they say.

How is it you help farmers in one part of the country who suffered an entire loss of their crops due to a hurricane and then turn a blind eye to farmers in other parts of the country who lost their crops due to drought and other weather-related disasters? How do you justify that, Congress?

The answer is there is no justification for that. When we decide we are going to help--and we should, and I have always supported that, during tough times we are going to help family farmers--then we must reach out to all the farmers in this country who suffer these devastating losses.

I am not interested in sending financial help to farmers who didn't have these losses. They are just fine. That is not what we are here about today. Today we are about the issue of trying to reach out a helping hand to those farmers who suffered a weather-related disaster and suffered losses.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt went out in the country during disasters, and he actually had a tough time traveling. He traveled by train. He showed up in my part of the country on a drought tour. Then he showed up in Huron, SD, on a drought tour. Let me read what the President said. The reason I say this is we asked the President to come out and do a drought tour this past year, or one of his underlings to come out and do a drought tour. In 1936, Franklin Delano Roosevelt did a drought tour. He stopped in Huron, SD, and here is what he said:

No city in agriculture country can exist unless the farms

are prosperous. We have to cooperate with one another rather

than buck one another. I have come out here to find you with

your chins up looking toward the future with courage and

hope, and I'm grateful to you for the attitudes you are

taking.

He was on a drought tour speaking from a platform on the back of a train.

He was also in Devils Lake, ND, August 7, 1934. Let me tell my colleagues what he said about a drought tour, this President who took a train around the country. He said:

I cannot honestly say my heart is happy today because I

have seen with my own eyes

some of the things I have been hearing and reading about a

year or more.

A growing drought that was eating the crops and destroying the crops. He said:

But when you come to the water problems up here, you are up

against two things. In the first place, you're up against the

forces of nature. The second, you're up against the fact that

man, in its present stage of development, cannot definitely

control those forces.

The fact is, the President went on a drought tour and said: We want to help family farmers. It is not much different than what we say today. This is important.

Let me show a photograph of a North Dakota family farmer. He allowed me to show this photograph on the floor of the Senate. This is a picture of one of the ranchers, these ranchers who, in many cases, had to sell their entire herds or parts of their herds because they had nothing to feed their cows. As I said before, if you have cows and you don't have feed, those cows are going to go to market and be sold. That is what has happened.

This is Frank Barnick. Frank and his wife and son raise cattle in Glen Ullin, ND. In this picture, he is walking in a crick bed that normally would provide water for his cattle. As one can see, it looks more like the surface of the Moon. There is no grass there, no water there. Frank says:

It's the worst drought I've ever seen. You do a lot of

praying wondering how you're going to get through it.

One of the issues about getting through these tough times is the issue of what is Congress prepared to do. What is the better instinct of those who serve here? I have served in Congress for some long while, and I have always been proud of being willing to vote for emergency legislation to help people in need. It doesn't matter where it is for me. If it is a hurricane that hits the South in the gulf coast, a hurricane that hits Florida, I want to be there with my vote to say this country wants to say to you, victims of hurricanes, weather- related disasters: You are not alone. You are not alone because this country cares about you. I have always been proud to cast those votes. I never had a second thought about them, and I never wondered very much whether we should. It is part of the better nature of this country to reach out to people and say: You are not alone and we want to help you.

I think of all of the things that we have done in this Congress in the last couple of years to help people. We go all around the world. It is an enormously generous country. We do a lot of things to help with everything virtually everywhere, and that is very important and I am supportive of that. But I think it is very important as well that we help people here at home and that we say to people here at home with respect to problems here at home that they are important to us, that what is happening in America is important to us as well.

Last year, we had people in the northern part of our State who woke up one morning to find that they had a million acres, a million acres of their ground--these are family farmers who had planted in grains-- washed away and gone and could not be replanted. We had another million acres that could never be planted. We are talking about 2 million acres of ground because of torrential rains that were destroyed with respect to their productivity to raise a crop, and those family farmers sitting out there with that 2 million acres were left to wonder: What next? Will I be able to continue to farm? Will I and my spouse and my son and daughter be able to continue to own this farm?

Well, we have had torrential rains and flooding that devastated a region of our State, and then we have the epicenter of the drought, as I have just shown, that is almost unbelievable.

My colleague, Senator Conrad, and I and a Congressman took several drought tours, and I have never seen anything like it. When you lose your crop or you lose your pasture and you have no capability to feed cattle or to plant a seed or harvest a crop, is it exactly the same circumstance which that family faces as the circumstance faced by a family farmer in the gulf region in Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana? Of course it is. It is exactly the same.

So my colleague today brings a piece of legislation to the floor that we have worked on and tried to perfect that does, as best we can, say to family farmers: Here is a package of disaster relief. No, it is not going to make anybody whole. This is not a massive package that everybody is going to be happy with, but at least it says to those farmers: We want you to have a chance to continue farming.

On a couple of occasions I have described the value of this, the cultural value of even caring about farming. Some people say: So what. Let the market system work. If a family is too small to make it and it floods and they can't get a crop and they are broke, tough luck. So long. See you in town someplace. Somebody else will farm that land.

We, over some 5, 8, 10 decades in this country have known better than to take that attitude. Rodney Nelson, a writer from my State and a rancher from out near Almont, ND, wrote a wonderful piece about farming. And he asked a question which is important for people in this Chamber to ask. He asked the question: What is it worth? What is it worth, he asks. 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 plow a field? What is it worth for a kid to know how to hang a door? What is it worth for a kid to know how to grease a combine? What is it worth for a kid to know how to change the oil in a tractor? What is it worth for a kid to know how to teach a calf to suck milk out of a pail? What is it worth for a kid to know how to brand? What is all that worth? What is all that worth?

There is only one place in America where they teach all that. Read the history of the Second World War and see all those young men that marked off America's farms that could fix anything, drive anything, do anything all around the world. There is only one place they teach that, and that university exists on America's family farms. So what is that worth to this country? Does it matter that families live under the yard lights out in the country on our farms? Does it matter? It does to me. It does to me.

No, they are not big interests. I understand that. They are small producers. But they deserve a voice in this Chamber. They deserve their day. They deserve the debate about their value and their worth to this country. I guarantee you the big interests get their day virtually every day in these Chambers.

This is a day to talk about what it is worth. What is it worth for this country to say to family farmers: You matter and you are not alone when trouble strikes. What is that worth for this country?

That is why we offer this amendment today. It is important. In March and April as we prepare for a new year in the Congress and work on appropriations bills and so on, there will be farmers who will learn whether they are able to plant another crop or whether they are going to be kicked off the land. They and their families will learn: Does their dream continue or is it over? And it will depend in large part on what this Congress does on this issue. We should not consider this some sort of idle exercise.

It is true that amending this Agriculture appropriations bill is not going to apparently produce this product by the end of this week. But this Agriculture appropriations bill, one way or another, is going to end up in some kind of an omnibus bill in February or early March. I am an appropriator. I am on the committee. And we are going to do some kind of an Omnibus appropriations bill, and I will do everything I can to see that this kind of disaster package is included in it. Putting it in this Agriculture appropriations bill today is the first step in trying to insist that this, too, be a priority for our country.

Let me say to my colleague, Senator Conrad, I appreciate working with him on this and many others, and underscore the point that he has made repeatedly: This is not partisan, it is bipartisan. We have aggressive, strong Republican supporters and Democratic supporters to this provision. It is important to understand that. This is about our priorities. It is always about priorities, what is important and what is not important. And so I congratulate and thank the chairman of the subcommittee and the ranking member, Senator Bennett, Senator Kohl, and

thank all of those who have joined in a very substantial bipartisan amendment to once again say to this country and this Chamber that family farmers matter to this country. And when they are in trouble, we need to reach out to say to them: You are not alone. The best, most effective way to do that today is to pass this amendment, and I hope we will do that by the end of this day.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I wonder if my colleague would yield for a question.

In the context of how much money is required to try to be helpful to family farmers as they struggle through this weather-related disaster period to determine whether they are actually going to be able to continue farming, I noticed a story the other day--I believe it was yesterday--which stated that we now have 100,000 private contractors we are paying in the country of Iraq. We are passing pieces of legislation here in the Congress, hundreds of billions of dollars of supplementals, emergency supplementals. My understanding is that we are going to be presented with another emergency supplemental for $120 billion.

In terms of what one spends, at least with respect to helping farmers who have gotten hit with tough times, you know what you are doing and where it is going to go.

The point I am making is, isn't it the case that in the context of all of this, we are not talking about a great deal of money, but in this case we are talking about a lot of people who will be directly helped, and it likely will determine whether many of them will be able to continue working on the family farm and operating the family farm? I understand this is an expenditure of money, but to the extent that we have emergencies bantered around here virtually all the time, it really is an emergency when a weather-related disaster hits--really hits--and devastates a region. That really is an emergency, to determine whether you are going to be able, or willing, to help families in deep trouble. Isn't it the case that this is not a substantial amount of money, given all the other things we have decided to very quickly say yes to?

Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. President, the Senator from Oklahoma, makes some important points. He talks about the need to have patience. One of the issues for all of us is we are about out of patience on this issue. The fact is it has been almost a year and a half trying to move this the third time--not just this but a different variation of this--trying to find a way to help those producers who are hurting. Patience is a virtue, but sometimes we run out of patience, and we are near that end.

With respect to the question of payment limits and so on, I agree with the Senator. Senator Grassley from Iowa and I have coauthored amendments--and we will again offer amendments on the floor of the Senate--to establish payment limits in the farm bill. My colleague Senator Conrad has been an active supporter of that. We don't have disagreement on those kinds of issues. I think the crop insurance program, while important, has never been sufficiently contracted to reap prices and replace disasters when a real disaster strikes. That is part of the issue here. These aren't just bad rains or high winds; these are real disasters when you see the epicenter of a drought that destroys all of the farmers. I am sympathetic. I understand what the Senator from Oklahoma is saying. I hope he understands patience is not inexhaustible when producers are wondering whether they and their family are going to be able to continue. I am talking about a lot of families who are struggling very hard.

Let me say finally the sentiments of the Senator from Oklahoma about trying to help family farmers is very much, in sync with the sentiments of Senator Conrad and others. We very much want this Congress to reach out a helping hand to those farmers who risk losing everything if we don't help them some, and say, You are not alone, we are going to help you. That is what we are trying to do here.

Will the Senator yield for a brief point?

I don't have disagreements about the issue of the pay-for here, and I think my colleague has already described he has a provision that would pay for this. There is a rule XVI against it if he puts it in this bill. I suggest perhaps we do a unanimous consent on the pay- for. If he doesn't, I know a politician who will easily pay for it. I will do a unanimous consent to pay for it. It will be objected to, regrettably.

These things ought to be paid for. The first time we suggest this is when a family is in trouble on the farm. We have had hundreds of billions of dollars come through here with hardly a blink, none of it paid for. That ought to change. I am with the Senator from Oklahoma. Let's try to change that.

The fact is, this does not have a pay-for, not because Senator Conrad doesn't want it there or I don't want it there; it ought to be there. We have the device by which this can be paid for. There is a rule against it, but we ought to do a unanimous consent to describe the fact that it will be objected to, but we want it paid for.

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

Mr. President, I understand we are, by a previous order, to vote at 5 o'clock. There appears to be 4 minutes remaining. I ask unanimous consent to speak during that time if no one else is present.

Mr. President, I only wanted to follow Senator Conrad and point out that this amendment is truly bipartisan. Those who have watched this debate will recognize we have had Republicans and Democrats come to the floor of the Senate to say this is an important amendment. They support it, and they hope the Senate will pass it.

I want to point out again that this is the third time we have brought this to the floor of the Senate. On two other occasions, it passed the Senate and had gone to conference. On both of those occasions, it was blocked in conference with the U.S. House. It was blocked by the House conferees. I believe on both occasions I asked for a vote of the Senate conferees, and the Senate conferees insisted on their position. So it is not a weak will here with respect to disaster assistance for farmers that exists. It is a very strong will, and the Senate has expressed itself previously on two occasions.

On the third occasion in the Appropriations Committee, we had a unanimous vote--by unanimous consent in the Appropriations Committee-- to add the disaster legislation earlier this year. That bill has not previously come to the floor but not because we have not tried. We have pushed and pushed to get that bill to the floor of the Senate. Only now, in what is the last week of the session, have we managed to get the bill on the floor and, by consent, offer an amendment.

So I think it is important to understand that we have been trying for a long while to get this amendment fully debated, get it through the Senate and back to conference with the House.

It appears now that, whatever may happen on the floor this afternoon, this is likely to be a part of an omnibus appropriations bill at some point in late January or, likely, mid-February. Time is very short. Someone used the word ``patience'' earlier today. Boy, we have had a lot of patience in dealing with this issue. There is broad, bipartisan support for it--or there has been at least. We have been waiting and waiting, and it has been blocked in the Senate from bringing this to the floor. Finally we are here today.

This is not an idle matter for a lot of American families. For many farm families, the decision will be a decision about whether they will be able to continue living on and working on their family farms. For those who don't know about them, those who never lived on a farm and don't know what they do on a family farm, don't understand the risks that are taken on a family farm, there are ways they should avail themselves to find out. It is an important part of this country.

The network of farm families that are spread across the prairies and lands of this country and produces the foodstuffs, raises cattle, plants and harvests crops, takes all the risks, is an unbelievable group of Americans, and in many ways they are America's all-stars, the entrepreneurs who risk everything virtually every year. When real trouble comes--a natural disaster--the best instinct of this Chamber has always been to say to them: We want to help you. That is all we are saying with this amendment. We want to help family farmers have a chance to continue to stay on the lands. My hope is we will give broad, bipartisan support for this legislation today.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I shall not object, Senator Conrad is not on the floor. I am certain this will be acceptable to him. His amendment will modify the disaster aid amendment that was put in the Senate appropriations bill in the Senate committee. I wish to be recognized following Senator Conrad's statement on this introduction, to be part of that discussion.

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

Madam President, at some point today following the debate with respect to the India security agreement, we will by unanimous consent have an opportunity to have the agriculture appropriations bill on the floor. My colleague Senator Conrad will offer an amendment to that bill which will amend a provision that I added to the bill in the Senate Appropriations Committee.

My colleague Senator Burns and I added a farm disaster amendment. My colleague Senator Conrad has been working on an amendment that will expand that to include the 2007 disaster

legislation. Because we are going to have an agriculture appropriations bill on the floor today at some point, I thought it was interesting to call attention to a story that was in today's newspaper.

Our family farmers--many of whom got hurt badly with the devastating droughts and some of whom have been hurt by floods and so on--as I said yesterday are the economic all-stars of this country. They get up in the morning and do chores. They take showers afterwards--not before. They risk everything they have, hoping their crops will grow. They produce foodstuff for a hungry world. They are the economic all-stars in this country.

But let me point out that in this morning's newspaper the U.S. Department of Agriculture has said they are going to eliminate ``hunger''--actually eliminate the word ``hungry.'' The U.S. Government has vowed that Americans will never be hungry again, but they may experience ``very low food security.'' The U.S. Department of Agriculture has decided they are not going to use the term ``hungry'' as they define that number of people in this country who do not have enough to eat and are hungry.

There is something called ``an ache in your belly.'' There are hunger pangs for people who do not have enough to eat. Apparently that is not going to be called ``hunger'' anymore. Those folks who can't find anything to eat and are suffering the pangs of hunger and the ravage to their body because of not having food are going to be called people with ``very low food security.''

If you don't have anything to eat, that is a ``very low food security,'' but it doesn't describe in English what is happening. In English, these are people who are hungry.

I don't understand sometimes the bureaucracy. I was here years ago when ketchup was described as a vegetable, a part of a daily meal. Of course, that was never very right. It is not a vegetable. Now they are going to eliminate ``hunger.''

Throughout the years I have been here, I have served on the hunger committee when I was in the U.S. House, and I toured much of the world--going to refugee camps, been around parts of this country. I have seen hunger. I have seen devastating hunger.

I would desire to eliminate hunger, if we can. Our farmers are part of being able to do that at some point with the prodigious quantities of good food which they produce. We are not going to eliminate hunger by taking ``hunger'' out of the lexicon of the Department and replacing it with ``very low food security.'' I think it is not about the terminology; it is about the will. Do we have the will to decide in a country such as ours to address the issue of hunger and make sure they have enough to eat.

We have programs in this country such as food stamps and the WIC Program and other programs to try to address some of these issues. Now apparently we have some folks in the bureaucracy who will address it by changing the words to ``very low food security.''

Remember that when we later today talk about family farmers and the plight many of them have. They are the ones planting the seed and growing the crops--or at least trying to do that, except during the years where there is a disaster when they have serious problems.

We have a hungry world. The fact is in this world we circle the Sun. Our little planet has 6.3 billion neighbors. Half of them have never made a telephone call and live on less than $2 a day. There is plenty of hunger in this country and the world. Eliminating the word ``hunger'' from the lexicon of the U.S. Department of Agriculture is not addressing the issue of hunger.

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

Mr. President, I wish I were on the Senate floor today able to be supportive of the chairman and ranking member of the committee. They have both given persuasive and eloquent statements about the matter.

I come to the floor of the Senate with a different view. I come here very disappointed because I think we are beginning down a very troublesome road for this country. I want to talk a little about what all this means.

I know the issue is not an issue that rates at the top of the attention of the American people at the moment, this Government, or the press corps. This is an issue about whether there will be more nuclear weapons built in a world in which there are already too many nuclear weapons. This is an issue in which we are going to discuss the issue of nonproliferation, stopping the spread of nuclear weapons at a time when we have terrorism in this world that we worry could result in a terrorist organization acquiring a nuclear weapon and detonating a nuclear weapon in a major American city.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to show a couple of items on the floor of the Senate.

Mr. President, my colleague, Senator Lugar, is someone who has been a real leader with Senator Nunn on the Nunn-Lugar program, which I have been proud to support. It has been a program that has actually reduced the number of nuclear weapons and reduced the delivery systems for nuclear weapons. It is what we aspire to do. It is what our country should lead the world in doing, and that is to step away from the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the building of new nuclear weapons.

This is a piece of a wing strut from a Backfire bomber. This used to be flying in the air, part of a wing strut from a Soviet Backfire bomber that likely carryied nuclear weapons that threatened our country. We didn't shoot this plane down. This wing strut was sawed off. The wing was destroyed. The plane was destroyed. It was dismantled.

How did that happen? We actually paid for it. My colleagues, Senator Nunn and Senator Lugar, proposed legislation that allowed us to, with the Russians, actually begin to destroy and reduce delivery systems and nuclear weapons. So this bomber that carried a nuclear weapon, presumably to threaten this country, doesn't exist anymore. A piece of its wing is in my desk drawer in the United States Senate.

This is a vile of ground-up copper. This used to be part of a Soviet submarine, that prowled under the water with missiles and warheads presumably aimed at U.S. cities. Yes, this used to be a Soviet submarine carrying weapons of mass destruction threatening our country.

This was a hinge on a missile silo in the Ukraine, and that missile silo contained a missile. That missile contained nuclear warheads, presumably aimed at a U.S. military target or a U.S. city. This hinge, of course, is in my desk today, not in a field in the Ukraine. Where that missile used to sit, there is no missile. There is no missile silo. There are now sunflowers planted in that field in the Ukraine.

The Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus--all three countries--had several thousand nuclear weapons and are now free of all nuclear weapons.

How did all that happen? Was it by accident? No, no, it wasn't. This country embarked on a set of policies and proposals that resulted in the reduction of delivery systems and nuclear weapons.

Have we been enormously successful? I have described some successes, but we

have, oh, probably 25,000 to 30,000 nuclear weapons remaining on this Earth. Far too many--25,000 to 30,000 nuclear weapons. We have much to do to step away from the abyss of having a terrorist organization or rogue nation acquire nuclear weapons and threaten our country or threaten the world.

We have all experienced 9/11/2001 where several thousand innocent Americans were murdered. That was an unbelievable terrorist attack on our country. It could happen again with a nuclear weapon. We are going to spend $9 billion or $10 billion this year building an antiballistic missile defense system to create some sort of an electronic catcher's mitt to catch an intercontinental ballistic missile someone might aim at our country armed with a nuclear warhead.

That is one of the least likely threats our country faces. We are going to spend close to $10 billion for a threat that is one of the least likely threats we face.

The most likely threat, perhaps, instead of an intercontinental ballistic missile coming in at 18,000 miles an hour aimed at an American city, is a container ship pulling up to a dock in a major American city at 3 miles an hour with a container that contains a weapon of mass destruction onboard, to be detonated in the middle of an American city.

Let me read for the Record, as I start--and I want to then talk about this specific agreement--I want to read an excerpt from Graham Allison's book. He is at Harvard. He wrote a book called ``Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe.''

I talk about 9/11/2001, several thousand Americans murdered by terrorists. The detonation of a nuclear weapon in an American city by a terrorist group will not mean several thousand Americans being murdered; it could likely mean several hundred thousand Americans being murdered, or more.

Let me read to you from Graham Allison's book. I am quoting:

On October 11, 2001, a month to the day after the terrorist

assault on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President

George W. Bush faced an even more terrifying prospect. At

that morning's Presidential Daily Intelligence Briefing,

George Tenet, the director of central intelligence, informed

the president that a CIA agent code-named Dragonfire had

reported that Al Qaeda terrorists possessed a ten-kiloton

nuclear bomb, evidently stolen from the Russian arsenal.

According to Dragonfire, this nuclear weapon was now on

American soil, in New York City.

The CIA had no independent confirmation of this report, but

neither did it have any basis on which to dismiss it. Did

Russia's arsenal include a large number of ten-kiloton

weapons? Yes. Could the Russian government account for all

the nuclear weapons the Soviet Union had built during the

Cold War? No. Could Al Qaeda have acquired one or more of

these weapons? Yes. Could it have smuggled a nuclear weapon

through American border controls in New York City without

anyone's knowledge? Yes. . . .

In the hours that followed, national security adviser

Condoleezza Rice analyzed what strategists call the ``problem

from hell.'' Unlike the Cold War, when the United States and

the Soviet Union knew that an attack against the other would

illicit a retaliatory strike of greater measure, Al Qaeda--

with no return address--had no such fear of reprisal. Even if

the president were prepared to negotiate, Al Qaeda had no

phone number to call.

Clearly, no decision could be taken without much more

information about the threat and those behind it. But how

could Rice engage a wider circle of experts and analysts

without the White House's suspicions leaking to the press? A

CNN flash that the White House had information about an Al

Qaeda nuclear weapon in Manhattan would create chaos. New

Yorkers would flee the city in terror, and residents of other

metropolitan areas would panic.

I continue to quote:

Concerned that Al Qaeda could have smuggled a nuclear

weapon into Washington as well, the president ordered Vice

President Dick Cheney to leave the capital for an

``undisclosed location,'' where he would remain for many

weeks to follow. That was standard procedure to ensure

``continuity of government''. . . . Several hundred federal

employees from more than a dozen government agencies joined

the vice president at this secret site. . . . The president

also immediately dispatched NEST specialists (Nuclear

Emergency Support Teams of scientists and engineers) to New

York City to search for the weapon. But no one in the city

was informed of the threat, not even Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

As the CIA's analysts examined Dragonfire's report and

compared it with other bits of information, they noted that

the attack on the World Trade Center in September had set the

bar higher for future terrorist spectaculars.

I won't read to the end. I ask unanimous consent that this document be printed in the Record at the end of my statement.

At the end of this process, they finally determined after about a month that this was not a credible threat. Dragonfire's report turned out not to be credible.

But at the time they took the report very seriously. They analyzed it this way: Was it possible that a Russian 10-kiloton nuclear weapon could have been stolen? Yes, it was possible. Is it possible a terrorist group could have acquired it? Yes. Is it possible it could have been smuggled into New York City? The answer was yes. And, if so, was it possible a terrorist group could detonate a nuclear weapon in a major American city? The answer was yes.

This is not fiction. I am reading an excerpt of a book of something that happened in October of 2001.

My greatest fear is that we do not yet understand the difference between what was and what is. What was, was a standoff called the cold war in which two major nuclear superpowers aimed massive numbers of nuclear warheads at each other, but understanding, under the concept of mutually assured destruction, called MAD, that if either attacked the other, the other would be literally vaporized by an avalanche of nuclear weapons. The result was that there was a standoff, a mutually assured destruction standoff, and although both sides in that Cold War--the United States and the Soviet Union--possessed the most unbelievably powerful killing machines known to humankind, they were not used. Neither side ever used them.

Fast-forward to today. The Cold War is over. President Bush, in fact, visited with the President Putin yesterday, in Russia. Times have changed, but this world still has somewhere between 25,000 and 30,000 nuclear weapons, the loss of one of which could be cataclysmic for this world. The detonation of one nuclear weapon in a major city will change everything--everything--and be a catastrophe unlike any we have previously known.

If we have 25,000 or 30,000 nuclear weapons on this Earth, what is the responsibility of this great country? What is our responsibility? What burden falls on our shoulders? I submit it is the burden to provide world leadership to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons and to reduce the stockpile of nuclear weapons. That is our responsibility. That responsibility falls on us.

How do we do that? Listen, our country has provided leadership in a nonproliferation treaty, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the test ban treaty. Our country has been moving always, telling the rest of the world we aspire to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. Now we live in this age of terrorism where we see people who are perfectly content to kill themselves. They don't care. As long as they can take a weapon with them and kill themselves and many others with them, it doesn't matter to them. They are reaching for some higher glory, apparently.

In this age of terrorism, everything about nuclear weapons has changed. The loss of one nuclear weapon, the loss of one anywhere on this globe to a terrorist organization is going to be devastating.

So if that is the case, what does it have to do with what we are talking about today? We are now talking today about a country called India. India is quite a remarkable place--a wonderful country with wonderful people. It is a big country. It is trying to build an economy. You can read some books about what is going on in India and the discussions about progress--it is quite a remarkable place. Our country aspires to have a better relationship with India. I support that. I believe we ought to reach out to India and improve our relationship, cement our relationship.

I know there are some who see all of the geopolitical relationships on this Earth as aligning one way or the other. We align with this country to be a counterweight against this set of interests, and it is kind of akin to teams. So I confess to you, I come here today not perhaps understanding all of the sophisticated elements of counterweights

and the nuances of why someone believes it is essential, at this point, to allow India to produce additional nuclear weapons in order to create some sort of counterweight to China, but I want to talk about this issue. I was unbelievably surprised to read in the newspaper of the travels of Ambassador Burns, someone for whom I have high regard, and of the interest of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in going to India and reaching a deal without consulting Congress that I think begins to unravel, and undermine several decades of efforts in our country to tell the world: It is our responsibility and our major goal to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and try to reduce the number of nuclear weapons and reduce the nuclear threat.

We would not be in this position today with this bill with India if India had followed the example, for example, of South Africa. They secretly had nuclear weapons by the 1980s. But South Africa dismantled them prior to the transfer of power to the postapartheid government. Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus had more than 4,000 nuclear weapons in those three countries when the Soviet Union was dissolved which they gave up in the years following. And I must say that my colleague Senator Lugar and others had significant successes in working with those three countries to accomplish that. So Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus are all now free of nuclear weapons.

Any nuclear deal--any relationship we have with another country that deals with nuclear power and nuclear issues should be judged, in my opinion, on whether it reduces the number of nuclear weapons. Does it reduce the nuclear weapons that exist or increase them? It is quite clear that what we are debating will result in an increase in nuclear weapons in India. I don't think there is much doubt about that. This bill fails that test, in my judgment.

Experts have warned that there is enough weapons-usable fissile material in the world to make about 130,000 nuclear weapons. A working nuclear bomb, we are told, can be made with as little as 35 pounds of uranium-235 or 9 pounds of plutonium-239. And the acquisition of a nuclear weapon by a terrorist is, in my judgment, the greatest threat that exists in our country.

Retired GEN Eugene Habiger, who commanded America's nuclear forces, said that nuclear terrorism ``is not a matter of if, it is a matter of when.''

Henry Kissinger wrote in the Washington Post recently:

The world is faced with the nightmarish prospect that

nuclear weapons will become a standard part of national

armament and wind up in terrorists' hands.

Former Senator Sam Nunn wrote in the Wall Street Journal:

We know that terrorists are seeking nuclear materials--

enriched uranium or plutonium--to build nuclear weapons. We

know that if they get that nuclear material, they can build a

nuclear weapon. We believe that if they build such a weapon,

they will use it. We know terrorists are not likely to be

deterred, and that the more this nuclear material is

available, the higher the risks.

Osama bin Laden has been seeking nuclear components since the 1990s. In 1998, Osama bin Laden issued a statement entitled ``The Nuclear Bomb of Islam,'' declaring:

It is the duty of Muslims to prepare as much force as

possible to terrorize the enemies of God.

And Osama bin Laden's spokesman announced that the group aspires ``to kill 4 million Americans, including 1 million children,'' in response to casualties supposedly inflicted on Muslims by the United States and Israel.

The more countries there are with nuclear weapons and weapons-grade nuclear material and the more weapons each of them has, the greater the threat that one will be used by a rogue nation or will fall into the hands of terrorist groups.

Now, frankly, we have not been very aggressive as a country in recent years in stopping proliferation. Instead of talking about how we would reduce the number of nuclear weapons, we were on the floor of the Senate, during previous debates, talking about the fact that we need new nuclear weapons. Our country has said we need designer nuclear weapons; we need bunker-buster nuclear weapons. We have people openly speaking about the desire in this country to build additional nuclear weapons.

We attacked Iraq because we believed it possessed and was seeking nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction. We are spending $10 billion a year, as I said, on missile defense for fear that North Korea already has nuclear weapons. And we are talking about serious issues with Iran in order to try to stop its nuclear program. And the No. 1 nightmare is that a terrorist group may acquire a nuclear weapon. No one in my judgment can credibly say that a world that has more nuclear weapons is a safer world. It is just not.

Nowhere in the world is the threat of nuclear terrorism more imminent than in South Asia. It is the home to al-Qaida which seeks nuclear weapons. It is an area where relations among regional nuclear powers are always tense: China, India, and Pakistan. India and China fought a border war in 1962. India and Pakistan fought three major wars, had numerous smaller scale conflicts since the partition of British India in 1947. Both India and Pakistan detonated nuclear weapons in 1998 and declared themselves as nuclear powers. And after that, all of us in the world held our breath as they began fighting a limited war in Kashmir.

Now, it has traditionally been the case that the United States has led the international community in efforts to deny India, Pakistan, and other nonnuclear States access to nuclear technology. That has been our traditional role. We have always been the one who said: No, no, no. We can't do that. We need to limit the capability of nations that will not sign up to nonproliferation.

We pushed for the nonproliferation treaty, which prohibits nuclear assistance to these so-called nonnuclear States, unless they agree to put all of their nuclear facilities under international safeguards and to give up the option of developing a nuclear weapon. That has been our position. It has always been our position.

Article I of the nonproliferation treaty obligates the recognized nuclear weapons States, including the United States, to:

Not in any way assist, encourage, or induce any non-nuclear

weapons State to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear

weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.

That is Article I of the nonproliferation treaty. We signed it. We helped write it. We supported it. It is what we believe in.

The United States helped form the Nuclear Suppliers Group in 1975 to help prevent the misuse of peaceful nuclear technology. In 1978, we passed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act, which restricts nuclear commerce with States that don't agree to the full scope of the safeguards. We pushed for U.N. Security Council Resolution 1172 which condemned India's and Pakistan's 1998 nuclear tests and called upon them to cease their nuclear weapons programs and join the nonproliferation treaty as nonnuclear weapons states. We did that.

In 1998, President Clinton imposed sanctions on both India and Pakistan, under section 102 of the Arms Control Act, which requires sanctions on any non-nuclear weapons state that has detonated nuclear devices.

Now, these policies did not stop India's and Pakistan's nuclear weapons programs, but they did restrain them and they hindered them. In fact, that is precisely why we are here with respect to India.

The Bush administration has taken a different tact now. Their proposal is to provide ``full'' assistance to India's civilian nuclear program, while India keeps its nuclear weapons, which represents a complete abandonment of our traditional approach to nonproliferation.

I don't think you can come to the floor and argue that this is part of an approach we have always taken. This is a U-turn. This is a 180- degree change from the approach we have always had. The Bush administration formed an agreement that allows New Delhi to dramatically expand its stockpile of nuclear weapons and could ignite a regional arms race. That is what we have here. They can have reactors behind the curtain that will not be subject to inspection by anybody. That is part of the deal. It will undermine 30 years of nonproliferation efforts at the very time when we are engaged in these issues with North Korea and Iran.

It is a major, it seems to me, exception to the prohibition of nuclear assistance to any country that doesn't

accept international monitoring of all of its nuclear facilities. This is a major exception to that. And it also is one that gives legitimacy to a nuclear arsenal that India secretly developed, and it is not going to help us in any way. It will hinder us in convincing others to give up their nuclear weapons.

Now, India never signed the nonproliferation treaty. Because of that, Pakistan never signed the treaty. In the 1960s, India used both American technology and also Canadian technology and the nuclear fuel provided under what was called the Atoms For Peace Program to secretly build nuclear weapons. By doing so, New Delhi broke an explicit pledge to both the United States and to Canada about the use of technology and nuclear fuel only for peaceful purposes. In 1974, India conducted its first nuclear weapons test. It denied that it had done so. It said it was a peaceful nuclear test.

In May, 1998, they conducted a series of nuclear tests and declared themselves as a nuclear weapons state. In response, Pakistan did exactly the same thing and declared themselves as a nuclear state.

Because India has a shortage of domestic uranium, the application of the U.S. and international laws that prevent the sale of nuclear fuel and other nuclear assistance to them has seriously constrained its nuclear power industry and nuclear weapons program. All of us understand that India has energy issues. It has an expanding population and it wishes to build additional powerplants, nuclear powerplants, but it also wishes to build additional nuclear weapons. India's power reactors, we are now told, are operating at less than capacity due to fuel shortages and their utilization rates are expected to decrease even further. Very little uranium is leftover from its domestic supplies for India to turn to nuclear weapons. So in the past year-- couple of years--New Delhi has stepped up efforts to get our assistance in obtaining nuclear fuel and reactor components so it can increase its nuclear power. But the fact is, it will also increase its nuclear weapons programs.

Here is what the deal that is now brought to the floor of the Senate does: My understanding is that it obligates the United States to persuade the members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group to change their rules which bar sales to India. It allows India to buy sensitive nuclear technologies, now forbidden under the nonproliferation treaty. It includes nuclear fuel, nuclear reactors, and advanced technology. This agreement would open the door to India's cooperation with France, Japan, and others who want to do business with India and who now have not been doing business with India because of the NPT. In return, in this agreement, India has agreed to allow the IAEA inspections and safeguards at 14 of their 22 planned nuclear power reactors. But eight of their nuclear power reactors will be placed behind a curtain. No one will be able to inspect them. That is where they will be able to continue increasing the production of nuclear weapons, and it is not-- you wonder, do they want to produce additional nuclear weapons? Let me quote directly from a senior adviser to India's nuclear program, December 2005, an article in The Times of India. Dr. Subrahmanyam says:

Given India's uranium ore crunch and the need to build up

our minimum credible nuclear arsenal as fast as possible, it

is to India's advantage to categorize as many power reactors

as possible as civilian ones to be refueled by imported

uranium and conserve our native uranium fuel for weapons-

grade plutonium production.

This is clear:

Given India's . . . crunch and the need to build up our

minimum credible nuclear deterrent arsenal. . . .

That is what this is about in India.

We have those who support this, who say it is not perfect, but it is not bad. I don't know whether the contention on the Senate floor is going to be that this will not result in additional warheads. But I am clear, and I think everybody should be clear, it will. India will produce additional nuclear weapons. We believe, if that makes the world safer, I guess that is what one can argue. I do not believe that at all. I think the addition of nuclear weapons to the stockpile that exists in this world is a serious danger to the world.

Pakistan has already said: If you are going to give this deal to India, how about giving this deal to us? We might want to look at what we are doing. The administration just proposed, by the way, a big arms package for Pakistan: 36 Lockheed F-16C/D fighter planes, 500 JDAM satellite-guided bomb kits, 700 bunker buster bombs, 1,600 laser-guided bombs, 800 conventional bombs, 500 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles, 200 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, 130 Harpoon antiship missiles, 115 self-propelled howitzers.

That is an arms package to Pakistan. But Pakistan would say: We have nuclear weapons. We exploded them. We showed you we have nuclear weapons. You are going to give this deal to build more nuclear weapons to India. We want that deal for Pakistan. We want to build more nuclear weapons.

What will China say? What will China say when they see this agreement and decide that India is increasing its stockpile? China will say: We want to increase the stockpile of nuclear weapons.

India is in the process of becoming a full-fledged nuclear power with a triad, an emerging triad. Aircraft? They have a number of types of aircraft used to deliver a nuclear weapon, or that could be so used, and land-based missiles and naval weapons.

I do not allege that India is a country that is an aggressor. That is not my point. I think our relationship with India is important. I believe we ought to connect with India. We ought to reach out to India. We ought to have an improved relationship with India. I don't know, maybe it is advantageous to have India as a counterweight in the region to China.

But, look, do any of us really believe that an agreement that pulls the rug out from under decades of positions we have held in this country on nonproliferation that results in the building of additional nuclear weapons advances our interests? Advances the world's interests? Of course not.

It falls on our shoulders as the nuclear power in the world. It is our responsibility to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. Will our children or our grandchildren someday see a nuclear weapon detonated in a major American city? Will we see that? We didn't see it during the Cold War because we had mutually agreed destruction; that is, both countries, us and the Soviet Union, understood if one launched a missile or airplane containing a nuclear weapon to be detonated in our country, we would launch sufficient nuclear weapons to completely destroy their country and their society. Both sides understood that. Both sides understood we have arsenals that would destroy each other and neither side did. Neither side was an aggressor.

In an age of terrorism, all of that has changed. In an age of terrorism, if we do not embrace policies that stop the production of additional nuclear weapons, we have missed an enormous opportunity to prevent the detonation of a nuclear weapon in one of our cities. This agreement simply does not stop the spread of nuclear weapons. It doesn't prevent the production of additional nuclear weapons. This undermines that which we have described as our goal in the United Nations. It undermines that which we have for decades described as being our goal as a leader in nonproliferation. It provides the green light for India to produce additional nuclear weapons.

With all the sophisticated arguments in favor of this agreement, I fail to see how undermining decades of effort at nonproliferation and now providing a green light to India to produce new nuclear weapons, additional nuclear weapons, makes this a safer world. Quite the contrary. I think it is dangerous. I think this agreement is a horrible mistake. I think all of the sophisticated calculations mean very little when we have decided to send signals to the world that we do not oppose producing additional nuclear weapons; that we support that.

We are willing to decide to undermine the nonproliferation treaty. We are willing to ignore United Nations resolutions all because Ambassador Burns and Secretary Rice and the Bush administration said: You know what, we have all these calculations about weights and counterweights and geopolitical strategies and here is our new one. It is a new strategy that undermines decades of what ought to be the best virtue of this country, and that is providing world leadership, real world

leadership, aggressive world leadership to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and prevent the building of more nuclear weapons and begin reducing the number of nuclear weapons that exist in this world.

As I said when I started, I regret very much I am on the other side of this issue from Senator Lugar. Senator Lugar has great credibility on these issues because he has done a very substantial amount of good work. I am not quite sure how I should describe this. I was extraordinarily surprised when I read the first account in the newspaper that it was likely that this agreement was going to be supported by my colleague and friend. I would say the same with respect to Senator Biden. I have great respect for them. So I am someone who comes to the floor of the Senate in disagreement. That doesn't mean I in any way disparage their abilities or their intellectual honesty in pursuing strategies they believe are best for this country.

I have very strong opposition to those who believe, however, that this in any way represents our best interests. I wish I could come to the Senate floor with a better message, but I do not. I believe one day we will look back on this with great regret. We have seen that in this decade already with some other decisions, information provided us with respect to Iraq and other decisions we have made. We have already, in my judgment, had opportunities to understand regret about policies undertaken that turned out to be not in this country's best interests.

I believe if we open the floodgates with this agreement, we will seriously undermine this country's best interests.

Exhibit 1

[From Blueprint Magazine, October 7, 2004]

Nuclear Terrorism--Book Excerpt

(By Graham Allison)

On October 11, 2001, a month to the day after the terrorist

assault on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President

George W. Bush faced an even more terrifying prospect. At

that morning's Presidential Daily Intelligence Briefing,

George Tenet, the director of central intelligence, informed

the president that a CIA agent code-named Dragonfire had

reported that Al Qaeda terrorists possessed a ten-kiloton

nuclear bomb, evidently stolen from the Russian arsenal.

According to Dragonfire, this nuclear weapon was now on

American soil, in New York City.

The CIA had no independent confirmation of this report, but

neither did it have any basis on which to dismiss it. Did

Russia's arsenal include a large number of ten-kiloton

weapons? Yes. Could the Russian government account for all

the nuclear weapon the Soviet Union had built during the Cold

War? No. Could Al Qaeda have acquired one or more of these

weapons? Yes. Could it have smuggled a nuclear weapon through

American border controls into New York City without anyone's

knowledge? Yes. In a moment of gallows humor, someone quipped

that the terrorists could have wrapped the bomb in one of the

bales of marijuana that are routinely smuggled into cities

like New York.

In the hours that followed, national security adviser

Condoleezza Rice analyzed what strategists call the ``problem

from hell'' Unlike the Cold War, when the United States and

the Soviet Union knew that an attack against the other would

elicit a retaliatory strike for greater measure, Al Qaeda--

with no return address--had no such fear of reprisal. Ever if

the president were prepared to negotiate, Al Qaeda had no

phone number to call.

Clearly no decision could be taken without much more

information about the threat and those behind it. But how

could Rice engage a wider circle of experts and analysts

without the White House's suspicions leaking to the press? A

CNN flash that the White House had information about an Al

Qaeda nuclear weapon in Manhattan would create chaos. New

Yorkers would flee the city in terror, and residents of other

metropolitan areas would panic. The stock market, which was

just then stabilizing from the shock of 9/11, could collapse.

American Hiroshima. Concerned that Al Qaeda could have

smuggled a nuclear weapon into Washington as well, the

president ordered Vice President Dick Cheney to leave the

capital for an ``undisclosed location,'' where he would

remain for many weeks to follow. This was standard procedure

to ensure ``continuity of government'' in case of a

decapitation strike against the U.S. political leadership.

Several hundred federal employees from more tan a dozen

government agencies joined the vice president at this secret

site, the core of an alternative government that would seek

to cope in the aftermath of a nuclear explosion that

destroyed Washington. The president also immediately

dispatched NEST specialists (Nuclear Emergency Support Teams

of scientists and engineers) to New York to search for the

weapon. But no one in the city was informed of the threat,

not even Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

Six months earlier the CIA's Counterterrorism Center had

picked up chatter in Al Qaeda channels about an ``American

Hiroshima,'' The CIA knew that Osama bin Laden's

fascination with nuclear weapons went back at least to

1992, when he attempted to buy highly enriched uranium

from South Africa. Al Qaeda operatives were alleged to

have negotiated with Chechen separatists in Russia to buy

a nuclear warhead, which the Chechen warlord Shamil

Basayev claimed to have acquired from Russian arsenals.

The CIA's special task force on Al Qaeda had noted the

terrorist group's emphasis on thorough planning, intensive

training, and repetition of successful tactics. The task

force also highlighted Al Qaeda's strong preference for

symbolic targets and spectacular attacks.

Staggering the imagination. As the CIA's analysts examined

Dragonfire's report and compared it with other bits of

information, they noted that the attack on the World Trade

Center in September had set the bar higher for future

terrorist spectaculars. Psychologically, a nuclear attack

would stagger the world's imagination as dramatically as

9/11 did. Considering where Al Qaeda might detonate such a

bomb, they noted that New York was, in the jargon of national

security experts, ``target rich.'' Among hundreds of

potential targets, what could be more compelling than Times

Square, the most famous address in the self-proclaimed

capital of the world?

Amid this sea of unknowns, analysts could definitively

answer at least one question. They knew what kind of

devastation a nuclear explosion would cause. If Al Qaeda was

to rent a van to carry the ten-kiloton Russian weapon into

the heart of Times Square and detonate it adjacent to the

Morgan Stanley headquarters at 1585 Broadway, Times Square

would vanish in the twinkling of an eye. The blast would

generate temperatures reaching into the tens of millions of

degrees Fahrenheit. The resulting fireball and blast wave

would destroy instantaneously the theater district, the New

York Times building, Grand Central Terminal, and every other

structure within a third of a mile of the point of

detonation. The ensuing firestorm would engulf Rockefeller

Center, Carnegie Hall, the Empire State Building, and Madison

Square Garden, leaving a landscape resembling the World Trade

Center site. From the United Nations headquarters on the East

River and the Lincoln Tunnel under the Hudson River, to the

Metropolitan Museum in the eighties and the Flatiron Building

in the twenties, structures would remind one of the Alfred P.

Murrah Federal Office Building following the Oklahoma City

bombing.

On a normal workday, more than half a million people crowd

the area within a half-mile radius of Times Square. A noon

detonation in midtown Manhattan could kill them all. Hundreds

of thousands of others would die from collapsing buildings,

fire, and fallout in the ensuing hours. The electromagnetic

pulse generated by the blast would fry cell phones, radios,

and other electronic communications. Hospitals, doctors, and

emergency services would be overwhelmed by the wounded.

Firefighters would be battling an uncontrolled ring of fires

for many days thereafter.

The threat of nuclear terrorism, moreover, is not limited

to New York City. While New York is widely seen as the most

likely target, it is clear that Al Qaeda is not only capable

of, but also interested in, mounting attacks on other

American cities, where people may be less prepared. Imagine

the consequences of a ten-kiloton weapon exploding in San

Francisco, Houston, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, or any

other city Americans call home. From the epicenter of the

blast to a distance of approximately a third of a mile, every

structure and individual would vanish in a vaporous haze. A

second circle of destruction, extending three-quarters of a

mile from ground zero, would leave buildings looking like the

Murrah building in Oklahoma City. A third circle, reaching

out one and one-half miles, would be ravaged by fires and

radiation.

Uncontrollable blaze. In Washington, a bomb going off at

the Smithsonian Institution would destroy everything from the

White House to the lawn of the Capitol building; everything

from the Supreme Court to the FDR Memorial would be left in

rubble; uncontrollable fires would reach all the way out to

the Pentagon.

In a cover story in the New York Times Magazine in May

2002, Bill Keller interviewed Eugene Habiger, the retired

four-star general who had overseen strategic nuclear weapons

until 1998 and had run nuclear antiterror programs for the

Department of Energy until 2001. Summarizing his decade of

daily experience dealing with threats, Habiger offered a

categorical conclusion about nuclear terrorism: ``it is not a

matter of if; it's a matter of when.'' ``That,'' Keller noted

drily, may explain why he now lives in San Antonio.''

In the end, the Dragonfire report turned out to be a false

alarm.

I want to say just one additional thing. I have two amendments that I intend to offer today. I do not intend to take a great amount of time with either of them. Both of them are very important. I wish to say to the chairman, I know he is working through this bill today. I want to be

cooperative but not so cooperative that I do not have an opportunity to fully explain amendments that I think are very important relative to what I just described.

The amendments I will offer, one has to do with requiring India to comply with what the U.S. is already required to comply with, the second relates to a United Nations resolution, that our country pushed, that represents American policy that appears to be completely contradictory to the underlying bill on the floor of the Senate.

I say to the chairman, I will have two amendments. I am prepared in a reasonable period to offer the amendments. I do have, with Senator McCain, an obligation at 12 o'clock for a few minutes off the Senate floor. We are going to be speaking to a group. But following that, I would be happy to come over and offer my two amendments if the Senator is willing to have me do that.

Mr. President, I missed the last point.

I will be off of the Senate floor for the other requirement that I have, but I will come back. My understanding is there is a proposal to perhaps try to modify one of my amendments?

Yes. I intend to offer the other amendment, debate it, and ask for a recorded vote on it. I will take a look at the proposed modification to see what that modification is, but I will try to be back on the Senate floor as quickly as possible to accommodate the Senator's interests in getting it done.

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

I have two amendments to offer. I will be happy to offer and debate them in order and to work with the chairman on whatever arrangements he might wish for a vote on these amendments.

I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. President, this amendment is very simple and very short. Its brevity is contained in line 4 to line 6.

It is an amendment that says we will:

On page 5, beginning on line 15, strike ``Treaty; and'' and

all that follows through ``that exports'' . . . and insert

the following:

(9) to continue to support implementation of United Nations

Security Council Resolution 1172.

Let me describe what this means and why I am offering it. In May of 1998, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed Security Council Resolution No. 1172 after India and then Pakistan, detonated nuclear weapons. The Security Council unanimously passed a resolution.

The resolution I have in my hand, in part, says that the Security Council is gravely concerned at the challenge that the nuclear tests conducted by India and then Pakistan constitute to international efforts aimed at strengthening the global regime of nonproliferation of nuclear weapons and also gravely concerned at the danger to peace and stability in the region.

Continuing, it says that the resolution condemns the nuclear tests conducted by India on 11 and 13 May, 1998, and by Pakistan on 28 and 30 May, 1998, demands that India and Pakistan refrain from further nuclear tests, calls upon India and Pakistan immediately to stop their nuclear weapon development programs, to refrain from weaponization or from the deployment of nuclear weapons, to cease development of ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons and any further production of fissile material for nuclear weapons; it says the Security Council recognizes that the tests conducted by India and Pakistan constitute a serious threat to global efforts toward nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament, urges India and Pakistan and all other states that have not yet done so to become parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty without delay and without conditions.

That was the reaction of our country and of the United Nations in May of

1998, following the detonation of nuclear weapons by both India and Pakistan, a point in time in which the world was very concerned about those actions.

Our country then led a multinational effort to pass a resolution in the United Nations, Resolution 1172. That resolution, which passed unanimously and which has become a resolution that represents our policy and our support for these basic tenets, is at odds with the underlying legislation being considered by the Senate.

I offer a piece of legislation, an amendment, that says it is still U.S. policy to support the implementations of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1172.

How does this square with what is before the Senate?

Resolution 1172 demonstrated that our country, the United States, and the rest of the international community, agree there should be no further nuclear weapons testing in South Asia and there should be an end to dangerous nuclear arms competition and no additional nuclear weapons produced. That resolution is as relevant today as it was in 1998.

Both India and Pakistan have violated Resolution 1172. They continue to build nuclear weapons, they produce fissile material for weapons in both of those countries, they continue to develop new nuclear-capable missiles.

No one in this Chamber would like to see, in my judgment, India or Pakistan resume nuclear testing.

Now, the Bush administration wants to lift international restrictions on nuclear trade with India. It is as if the United Nations Security Council resolution doesn't exist, never happened, doesn't apply to our country, doesn't apply to India. What does that say to North Korea? What does that tell the country of Iran?

This past July, the United States convinced the Security Council of the United Nations to call upon Iran to fully cooperate with the IAEA and suspend its uranium enrichment program, stop work on a heavy water production. Iran has not complied and the U.S. working with other nation states on the Security Council to pass another resolution.

In October, the Security Council passed Resolution 1718, which condemns North Korea's nuclear test and demands that North Korea not conduct any further nuclear test or launch of a ballistic missile. It also calls on North Korea to abandon all nuclear weapons in existing nuclear programs in a complete, verifiable, and irreversible manner; also, to give up its ballistic missile program.

But these resolutions on Iran and North Korea will, in my judgment, mean far less if the United States does not reaffirm its commitment to Resolution 1172 with respect to India and Pakistan.

As the world watches our actions--and we have Ambassador Burns and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice rushing to India to negotiate these kinds of agreements that begin to untie and unravel decades of leadership by our country against the proliferation of nuclear weapons. As the world watches our actions, what will they learn from this discussion, from these actions by the Senate? Will they learn today that we remain committed to Resolution 1172 of the United Nations?

It would be, it seems to me, a huge step backward for the Senate to say that Resolution 1172, which was our policy, which passed unanimously in the United Nations, which called for the cessation of the production of additional nuclear weapons by both India and Pakistan, if we were to tell the world that somehow that is no longer our policy, that is no longer operative--at least it is not operative with respect to India and Pakistan.

As I said earlier, the burden falls to us to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. It is our responsibility. We are the major nuclear superpower in the world. We inherit the requirement to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists, try to prevent a cataclysmic terror attack anywhere in the world and especially against the cities of our country by a terrorist group who has a nuclear weapon. It is our responsibility to do that.

What then embraces that responsibility? What kind of things should we be doing in the Senate? Should we be deciding in the Senate that one way to do that is to allow the production of additional nuclear weapons on this Earth? Of course not, that is absurd. Will the underlying bill that is before the Senate allow the production of additional nuclear weapons? Of course, it will. Everyone agrees with that. We all understand that. If that weren't the case, there would not be a requirement to keep eight of the nuclear reactors behind a curtain that will never be inspected. We understand what is going on.

I read this morning the statement from one of the top advisers in India that said they have a responsibility to move quickly and aggressively to continue to build their nuclear deterrent. That is exactly what is at work here. Has our country now decided it is not our responsibility to stop this? Have we decided to be the green light to allow others to build additional nuclear weapons? Is that the junction we have reached? Not with my vote.

I understand all the arguments about the geopolitics and about India and China and counterweights and all of these issues. None of it, in my judgment, justifies a decision by the United States of America to send a signal to the world that we believe it is all right for anybody to begin producing additional nuclear weapons.

Our role, our responsibility, is to find ways today, on Thursday, November 16, 2006 to shut down the production of additional nuclear weapons, put pressure on those who want to build more nuclear weapons, to say to them it is not acceptable to us to have you building additional nuclear weapons.

Yes, that goes for India. It goes for Pakistan. It goes for China. It goes for all of those countries.

That ought to be our message. It ought to be unified. It ought not to be convoluted. It ought to be clear. Yet the underlying message with what is on the floor of the Senate--again, negotiated by Ambassador Burns and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, largely in secret; I read about it, by the way, in the Washington Post--the underlying message is we have decided to develop a relationship with India that is a counterweight to China in that region. One way to do that is to allow India to be able to purchase the things they need with which to produce additional nuclear power.

They have been prevented from doing that because they refused to sign the nonproliferation treaty. They refused to sign that treaty; therefore, they have had sanctions against them and resolutions at the United Nations enacted that have condemned the actions. And now, in one fell swoop, they are told: Never mind. It does not matter. We are friends, and that friendship transcends the sanctions that exist for those of you who have not signed the nonproliferation treaty.

I think this is a horrible mistake. Again, I do not question the motives of those who disagree with me. But we have made some very serious mistakes recently because some big thinkers made some big mistakes. This is a very big mistake. It is likely that the Senate will pass the underlying legislation today. I will regret that. But if it passes that legislation without reaffirming the basic support for Resolution 1172, this message today will have been a very destructive message to the rest of the world with respect to our country's leadership away from nuclear proliferation.

So, Mr. President, I would hope that we could have a vote on this resolution. I have a second resolution that I shall offer. But with that discussion of my resolution, I will yield the floor so my colleagues can respond to it.

Mr. President, just a couple of----

Yes.

Mr. President, it is my intention to respond briefly to a couple of comments that have been made in objection to my amendment, and then to offer my second amendment, per agreement with the chairman. That would probably take me about 10 minutes, and to speak in support of my second amendment.

Mr. President, I listened intently to my two colleagues

who apparently cannot find the ability to support this amendment. I do want to make a couple of observations. One of my colleagues said that India is in full compliance with its commitments. Well, yes, that is true. And the reason they are in full compliance with their commitments is they do not have the commitments we have. They have not signed the nonproliferation treaty. They do not have the commitments that we would expect of them. So are they in full compliance with the commitments that do not exist? I do not know. I mean, I guess. It is not much of an excuse for India, in my judgment. I don't understand that objection.

The discussion of ``this agreement would cease if the following'' omitted one key issue: ``This agreement will cease if India continues to produce additional nuclear weapons.'' No, that was not included in this bill. Why? Because this agreement allows India to continue to produce additional nuclear weapons. That is at the root of this agreement; otherwise why would you have nuclear facilities put off limits behind a curtain, behind which India can produce additional nuclear bombs?

So this issue of that we have safeguards, and this agreement will cease if the following exists, does not include that this agreement will cease if India continues to produce additional nuclear weapons. Why doesn't it include that provision? Because all of us here know what is going to happen. What is going to happen is this agreement is going to pass, and our ally, a wonderful country, India, is going to be told by this country: It is all right if behind a curtain uninspected facilities continue to produce additional nuclear bombs. That is all right with us. It works fine with us. It is not all right with me. It does not work fine with me.

The past versus the future? I am glad we are not debating the Constitution. That is the past. Man, that is a couple hundred years past. What are the virtues of the Constitution? How about the virtues of the past, the efforts in the past at nonproliferation, the efforts in the past when we were serious about these issues? Really serious. And this country took it upon themselves to say: We are going to lead the way. We, by God, are going to lead the way because it is our burden. It is our responsibility.

We inherit that requirement. Yes, that is the past, and I am proud of that past. In fact, this morning I described part of that past, credited, I might say, to my colleague from Indiana and my former colleague from Georgia, and my colleague from Delaware. I hold in my hand a wing strut from a Soviet bomber that likely carried a nuclear weapon, which could have been dropped on an American city.

That wing strut came from an airplane that was not shot down. That airplane was sawed up by an agreement. That sawing of that Backfire bomber, whose wing strut I now hold, was paid for by American taxpayers. We destroyed nuclear weapons, no, not by battle, not through firing our nuclear weapons. We destroyed them by saws and other methods of destruction, paid for by the American taxpayer.

We destroyed nuclear weapons. Four countries that possessed them are now free of nuclear weapons. We destroyed delivery systems, Backfire bombers, missiles. Yes, that is the past, a past I am enormously proud of, a past we need more of, a past we need to learn from.

The future? The future is a process here by which we say: Do you know what. India, you are a good country--and let me join in that description of the county of India. But we also say: We don't care so much anymore you didn't sign the nonproliferation treaty. We don't care that you violated Resolution 1172 of the United Nations. That is all OK. And, in fact, we are going to tell the suppliers of the world that can supply you with things you need to produce nuclear power go ahead and do that. The sanctions are off. We have decided that our position has changed. It used to be that we and the rest of the world would not allow you to purchase that because you would not sign the nonproliferation treaty. We have changed our minds. In fact, we are going to tell the suppliers to furnish that to you, and you can use it behind the curtain with some of your facilities to produce additional nuclear weapons. You can do it because there will be no inspections.

That, frankly, is the circumstance of this legislation. So we have disagreement. I regret that. But I feel very strongly. I know my colleagues feel strongly about their position on this issue. I would just say, I hope we will not decide today as a Senate to say that Security Council Resolution 1172 does not matter because it is old. It is timeless. It is not old. It is timeless in its position of what we should stand for as a country.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Let me respond briefly. There is a very big difference between this and the agreement we had with the Soviet Union. In the Soviet Union agreement, both sides, the United States and the Soviet Union,

decided they wished to reduce the number of nuclear weapons and the delivery systems of those weapons. As a result of that decision, both sides wishing to reduce both weapons and delivery systems, we embarked on a process that was very helpful to both countries and to the world and to world peace. This is very different. This is mutual interest.

But now, we are told it is in our mutual interest, us and India, to have India be allowed to produce additional nuclear weapons, not reduce nuclear weapons. Under this agreement, everyone will agree, India will be allowed to increase nuclear weapons. If India is allowed to increase nuclear weapons under this agreement, that is very different from the agreement we had with the Soviets by which we decided to reduce.

The point is, this agreement says it is in our mutual interest to allow India to increase its production of nuclear weapons. That is clearly not in our mutual interest, but that is what the resolution says.

Second, my colleague is right, none of this operates in a vacuum. This will not be in a vacuum, either. Pakistan will insist on producing more nuclear weapons. So will China. Pakistan has already told our country: If you are going to do this with India, we want you to do it with us. So this decision will not be made in a vacuum vis-a-vis India; this decision will have an impact regionally and around the world.

My colleague is very skillful in presenting his position. I admire both of my colleagues and their skill and determination as well. We just have a difference of opinion. I think this is a very significant mistake.

I have a second amendment which I will send to the desk and offer for its consideration and try to truncate the description of that very briefly, if that is appropriate to the chairman.

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 5182 and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to offer a modification to the first amendment I offered today. The amendment had two line numbers in it that were made to the original copy of the legislation. That legislation was subsequently changed. So let me ask unanimous consent that on the initial amendment I offered today, on line 1, the reference to line 15 be struck, and it is line 8; on line 2, the reference to line 15 be struck, and it is line 9.

Mr. President, the second amendment I have sent to the desk says that before this United States-India agreement can go into effect, the President must submit to the Congress a written determination that India has committed to certain basic provisions consistent with U.S. nonproliferation goals and with the NPT, the nonproliferation treaty. It requires the President to determine that India has committed to, for example, putting all of its reactors that supply electricity to the civilian sector under the IAEA inspection regime. This would close a loophole that exists in the proposed agreement, and that loophole allows India to keep electricity-producing reactors out of the IAEA inspection regime. Eight of them will be out of the regime, and those eight are going to be behind a curtain, unable to be inspected, and able to produce the materials to produce additional nuclear weapons. Fourteen of the existing and planned nuclear reactors would be inspected, and eight of them would not.

If those other eight reactors produce civilian electricity, my amendment would require that India allow inspection of them.

The bill as now written would allow India to produce energy with nuclear reactors that are closed to IAEA safeguards. My amendment says that is a loophole which should not be allowed. If India can keep energy-producing reactors outside of these safeguards, why shouldn't other countries be allowed to do so? How will our country say to others: Well, we have special deals. We have loopholes here for one, but we are not consistent. There is no consistency with respect to our position on these issues.

The amendment also requires India to undertake a binding obligation not to assist, encourage, or induce nonnuclear weapons states to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons. That is what our country has obligated itself to do under the nonproliferation treaty. It is what other nuclear weapons states have done as well, including Russia, China, Britain, and France. They have all agreed to and signed the nonproliferation treaty and agreed to that basic provision, a binding obligation not to assist, encourage, or induce nonnuclear weapons states to manufacture or acquire nuclear weapons.

Lastly, my amendment requires the President to determine that India has committed itself to pursuing negotiations on measures directed at reducing nuclear stockpiles and eventually eliminating nuclear weapons. These are the same commitments, the very same commitments our country has made, the same commitments other nation states which have signed the nonproliferation treaty have made. So I believe it is appropriate that if we have this agreement with India dealing with the issue of nuclear weapons, they should be under the same obligations we are under. Even though they have not signed the nonproliferation treaty, we have. We have obligations under that treaty. They should accept the obligations under that treaty, in my judgment, even though they have not yet signed it.

This debate today has been interesting and, in many ways, very frustrating as well. I intend to support very aggressively the amendment offered by my colleague from New Mexico, Senator Bingaman. I believe that amendment is very important and at the root of much of what I have talked about today as well.

It seems to me this is a case for our children and our grandchildren about what kind of a world they are going to live in. It is interesting. If you just fast forward from 1960 to 1980 to 2000 and fast forward from 2001 to today, we went through a Cold War with the Soviet Union where we had heavy nuclear weapons, huge nuclear weapons with big bombers and powerful missiles aimed at each other, so we had a Cold War. Massive numbers of nuclear weapons were built. We had a standoff between our country and the Soviet Union. There was great concern and worry that somehow, something would happen in which someone would launch a missile or a submarine or an airplane would launch a missile with a nuclear weapon and we would start a nuclear war and our two countries would be obliterated. It didn't happen. Instead, we chose a much more constructive direction.

We and the Soviet Union began what is called arms control talks, and we reached arms control agreements. Those agreements began the destruction of weapons systems, delivery systems, nuclear weapons. I admit that a very small amount of those delivery systems and nuclear weapons were actually destroyed, but some of them were. It was actually moving in the right direction rather than the wrong direction. We developed a test ban treaty. We led the way. We said: We are going to no longer test nuclear weapons. We said that to the world. A nonproliferation treaty. We said this is important to do, and we were the leaders in saying this is the right course for the world. Now we are told: You know what, that is old-fashioned; that is the past; this is the future. I say that what we did then is timeless. These values don't change, the value of deciding that our future ought to be a future with fewer nuclear weapons rather than more nuclear weapons.

If anyone has listened closely, they will know there has been no refutation of the assertion that some of my colleagues and I have made that this agreement will mean we have more nuclear weapons produced. No one has disputed that. This agreement means we are signing up to have more nuclear weapons produced on this Earth. One--just one--nuclear weapon in the hands of a terrorist group pulling up to a dock in a major American city on a container ship at 2\1/2\ or 3 miles an hour

can potentially kill hundreds of thousands of American citizens--just one--and there are 30,000 out there. Can anyone here tell me that every one of those 30,000 is safeguarded and that no terrorist organization will acquire one? Can anybody tell me that is going to be the case?

I started this morning talking about a CIA agent called Dragon Fire who reported 1 month after 9/11 that a Russian 10-kiloton nuclear weapon had been stolen by a terrorist group and taken into New York City and was about to be detonated. That episode has been written about in a book. Most of us have heard of it. It was a time when for a month we didn't know if it was true or not. It wasn't disclosed publicly because there would have been mass hysteria if it was thought that a 10-kiloton nuclear weapon had been stolen from Russia and was now in New York City about to be detonated. It eventually was discovered that had not happened. But when they did the postmortem on that situation, it was understood that it was clearly possible. Russia had those weapons. They were not safeguarded well. They are not, and they were not. They could have been stolen. It could have been smuggled into a major American city by a terrorist group and it could have been detonated, killing hundreds of thousands of people. That is the consequence of one nuclear weapon. Just one. We have 30,000 or so on this Earth. What are we doing today? We are saying it is all right if they build more--in this case, India. It is OK if they build more.

This is not going to be done in a vacuum. What we do here today will have consequences for Pakistan, it will have consequences for China. You think they won't decide if India is going to be allowed to build more nuclear weapons that they won't build more nuclear weapons? Of course they will. That is what this is about.

I understand it is argued that this is geopolitics; you don't understand it; you can't see over the horizon. Maybe not. What I do understand is that this world will be a safer place with fewer nuclear weapons, this world will be a safer place if we care about nonproliferation, if we reduce the number of nuclear weapons, and this world will not be safer if at the end of today we have decided that we have given a green light to a world with more nuclear weapons.

I hope my colleagues will agree with me and support my amendment.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my second amendment be considered, notwithstanding the Harkin amendment that was previously offered.

Mr. President, let me ask the chairman. I wish to respond for 2 minutes to the comments which the chairman just made in opposition to my amendment prior to proceeding to the vote.

Mr. President, I will try not to take the 2 minutes, but it is important to point out the chairman, in responding--and I suspect the ranking member in his response--is saying this is a killer amendment. It is not offered as a killer amendment, but it is the case that my amendment would impose upon India exactly the same burdens that exist upon our country. My colleague, the chairman, said the President ``did not negotiate''--he started the sentence. That is what brings me to the floor--that the President ``did not negotiate.'' What he did not negotiate was a requirement and a burden on India which clearly is a nuclear weapons state. He did not negotiate a requirement and a burden on them that we ourselves assume under the nonproliferation treaty. My amendment would simply provide that requirement and that burden to the country of India.

I come from a town of 300 people. I have to relearn always the lessons of the Senate--and not just the Senate but the way the Government works. In my hometown you always call things just the way they are. You saw it, you spoke it, and described it. In this body, however, now we know that India has a nuclear weapon--has many of them. We know they have detonated them, and we know they are a nuclear weapons state. So we have decided as a country officially to describe India as a responsible state with nuclear technology as opposed to a nuclear weapons state. I don't know; maybe it works here. It doesn't work in my hometown. We have to call things as we see them.

We have responsibilities--all of us do. Our responsibility is, I think, toward nonproliferation, to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, to reduce the number of nuclear weapons. I regret that the underlying piece of legislation is going to result in more nuclear weapons being built.

The second amendment I have offered is an amendment that simply says let us impose on those with whom we negotiate the same burdens we inherit ourselves. In fact, the United States negotiated with India in the way that exempts them from those burdens. I think that is fundamentally wrong.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, my amendment, in light of the underlying bill brought to the floor of the Senate, would express that we would continue to support the implementation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1172.

The reason that is important is it had been the policy of this country to not only author but to support that resolution after India and Pakistan exploded their nuclear weapons.

It calls on them to immediately stop their nuclear weapons development programs, refrain from weaponization or deployment of nuclear weapons, cease the development of ballistic missiles, and so on.

That has been a very important tenet of this country in supporting that United Nations Resolution 1172. Despite what we are doing in the underlying bill, I would hope this country and this Senate would express our support for that which we drafted and that which we encouraged the rest of the world to support some while ago.

Mr. President, the second amendment I had offered says that before the United States-India agreement can go into effect, the President must submit to the Congress a written determination that India has committed to certain basic provisions that are consistent with the U.S. nonproliferation goals and with the nonproliferation treaty. In other words, I would suggest that we should impose the same burdens on India as we have on ourselves. There is great reluctance to do that by this Chamber, but that was my amendment. I must say there is very little education in a third vote if I believe it weakens our efforts in nonproliferation nuclear weapons. So rather than have a third recorded vote, I will ask that we vitiate the recorded vote and vote on this amendment by voice.

First, I ask unanimous consent on behalf of Senator Feingold that a fellow in his office by the name of David Bonine be granted floor privileges for the duration of the debate on S. 3709, the India-United States nuclear legislation, and any vote thereon.

Mr. President, my colleague from Florida was describing the issue of prescription drug pricing in our country--an amendment that would be offered to a subsequent appropriations bill dealing with the FDA and its enforcement of the reimportation of prescription drugs.

Let me point out, as he properly said, that Senator Snowe and myself and others, a large bipartisan group, Senators McCain and Kennedy, introduced legislation--and have been blocked from having it considered for some many months in the Senate--dealing with the comprehensive approach to reimportation of FDA-approved drugs.

The American consumer is now charged the highest prices for prescription drugs in the entire world. Let me say that again. The American consumer is charged the highest prices for prescription drugs anywhere in the world. It is not fair. That pricing policy has to change. One of the ways to change it will be to put downward pressure on pricing in this country by allowing American consumers to access those identical FDA-approved drugs, some of which are actually made in this country; to reimport them from other countries, FDA-approved, made and manufactured in manufacturing plants approved by the FDA.

My colleague talked about Canada and the United States. That is an obvious issue. My State borders Canada, and we see people coming back and forth going to Canada to purchase prescription drugs, in some cases for one-tenth the price they are charged in this country.

We need to find a way to pass the comprehensive legislation. My colleague from Florida cosponsored that bill and worked with us on it-- myself, Senator Snowe from Maine, Senator McCain, Senator Grassley, Senator Kennedy, a pretty significant bipartisan group in the Senate. We have not had a vote on that only because it has been blocked. We will have a vote on that in the next session of Congress if we are not able to offer it in the coming weeks. In the next session of Congress, we will have a vote on it.

We will have very substantial numbers in the Senate supporting that legislation. When we do, it will be good news for American consumers who now pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. That is unfair. I certainly support the amendment that deals with a funding limitation that would be offered as described by my colleague from Florida. That in itself does not solve the larger problem. He has indicated that. I believe Senator Vitter would indicate that as well. It is a step in the right direction.

I am supportive of it with the understanding that we will have a more comprehensive piece of legislation on this issue which will be introduced, will be offered, and will be voted on with a very large majority in the Senate. The House of Representatives has already demonstrated its support for such a plan. If we can't get it done in the lameduck session, as soon as we turn the calendar and begin a new year, I am convinced we will get this done.

I appreciated the words of my colleague from Florida.

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

Mr. President, my colleague was on the Senate floor yesterday, as I was, and he was offering an amendment on the Military Construction appropriations bill dealing with agricultural disaster. In exchange for withdrawing that amendment on the Military Construction bill, he was given some assurance that the Agriculture appropriations bill would come next to the Senate and he would be able to offer that amendment on the Agriculture appropriations bill.

Let me, first of all, support my colleague, Senator Conrad. He knows and I know that the Agriculture appropriations bill includes a disaster piece that I added in the committee many months ago. That amendment I offered in the committee was one we had worked on with Senator Conrad and many other Senators on a bipartisan basis. It was Senator Conrad and myself who were recognized in the committee to offer the agricultural disaster plan. That was in the spring of this year.

Subsequent to that, we have now had a very substantial drought that has enveloped a fair part of this country, devastating some additional crops, and we have not been able to get the Agriculture appropriations bill back to the Senate so we can make an adjustment to the disaster plan for farmers, an adjustment to include the 2006 disaster, but we have not been able to get it to the floor of the Senate. That is why my colleague, Senator Conrad, offered it yesterday as an amendment to the Military Construction bill. We have already passed it twice in the Senate; that is, an agricultural disaster plan.

Two times I added it in the Appropriations Committee. On two occasions--I believe both were with supplemental bills--both occasions we went to a conference with the House of Representatives. I had money in for a farm disaster plan. In both circumstances, we went to the conference; the Senate conferees, at my request, had a vote, insisted on the Senate position which included an agricultural disaster plan for family farmers who got hit with the weather disaster; and on both occasions the President threatened a veto and got the House conferees, at the request of the Speaker, to object. Therefore, twice it got knocked out in a conference.

The third time now, I have added the farm disaster piece to the Agriculture appropriations bill. We did that before this growing season in which we had a very devastating drought, so that needs to be adjusted.

My colleague, Senator Conrad, is offering the farm disaster piece that would try to reach out to those family farmers who now do not know whether they will be able to continue farming, reach out with a helping hand to say: You are not alone. We cannot make

you whole, but we can help you during a tough time.

This Congress has already said to the farmers in the Gulf of Mexico: You will get disaster aid because you got hit with Hurricane Katrina and you lost your crops. You get disaster aid. This Congress has essentially said to other farmers and this President has said to other farmers: You might have lost all of your crops from a drought or a flood, but it didn't have a name named ``Katrina.'' It is not like a hurricane, it is not named; therefore, you are not going to get any disaster help--just those who got hit with Hurricane Katrina and lost their crops. That is not fair. No one in this country would think that is fair.

So what we are trying to do--I in the Committee on Appropriations and my colleague, Senator Conrad, here in the Senate with this amendment-- is to say to farmers who are out there wondering: Will our family be able to continue on the farm next year? Will we be able to do spring planting? Will we have the capability to put a crop in? At this point, the answer for many of them, thousands of them, is: No, we are not going to be able to continue farming because we had a disaster. Where a crop should have existed on our land, there was barren land, no seeds, no crop.

It used to be in our farm bill we had a disaster title. When a disaster occurred, we, with that disaster title, could say to farmers: We want to help you. Now there is no disaster title in the farm bill, and each year when there is a disaster we have to reach out to try to create a disaster bill.

This country goes almost every place in the world to help when there is trouble. What about at home? What about when there is trouble on the family farm? I know that is far from the city lights and far from the cameras, but the fact is, that is real trouble for families whose dream is about to end because they cannot continue farming. Why? Is it because they mismanaged? Is it because they are not good farmers, because they can't grow a crop? No. It is because a drought came around and destroyed everything on their farm or it is because a flood came and washed it away.

In 2005, in parts of our State, there were over a million acres that could not be planted--think of that--could not be planted at all, and nearly another 1 million planted acres and all the seeds were washed away with torrential rain where one-third of a year's worth of rain fell in 24 hours. Think of that. Then you say to those farmers: You know what. Tough luck. You are on your own.

That is not the way this country has dealt with farmers. We have always believed there is value and importance in having farmers on the land farming and creating America's food supply. We have always said: We want to have a bridge across troubled times for you. When price depressions occur, when natural disasters occur, we want to create a safety net for you. We have always done that.

Now what happens with disasters, with no disaster title in the farm bill, we face a situation where, because of two years--2005, with substantial flooding, and in 2006, a protracted drought in some significant areas of the country--we face a prospect of losing a great many family farmers just because this country will have said--if we do not do what Senator Conrad and I and others want to do, this country will have said: It doesn't matter. The only farmers we will help are in the gulf region, those who were hit by a hurricane. Some of my colleagues have said it is tempting to name a drought. Give it a name, if that is what is required here. Give these natural disasters a name. We do with hurricanes.

My colleague is suggesting the right remedy. We have, apparently, some people saying we need to go to another piece of legislation. Perhaps there is the India nuclear agreement.

My colleague says, properly--and I was in the Senate when this exchange took place--my colleague says: Yesterday, I withdrew my amendment from the Military Construction bill--and he did--and I heard the discussion as a result of his withdrawing that amendment. I believe there is an understanding that the next piece of legislation we go to, which would be this afternoon, is the Agriculture appropriations bill. That will give him the opportunity--and me and others--to both introduce and speak to farm disaster aid that is long overdue, that should have been done long ago.

Senator Conrad has indicated that he would object to other procedures and other proceedings unless we reach an understanding of going to the Agriculture appropriations bill. I certainly support that and would be in the Senate with him, prepared to object, just as he would.

That is the background. That is the story. My colleague, Senator Conrad, is perfectly within his rights. He is absolutely accurate in terms of what we understood when we left the Senate yesterday.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, my colleague has sought unanimous consent to bring up the Agriculture appropriations bill. I recognize, and I know he recognizes, that we don't have the power of scheduling in the Senate. That is the basis of that request. Those who observe the process of legislating might wonder sometimes, if you are not doing anything, why are you not doing something?

Clearly we are not doing anything at the moment. We have no business pending. We are attempting to do a piece of legislation dealing with the agricultural disaster for family farmers who suffered weather- related disasters. That is on the basis of the discussion yesterday, where the leader of the Senate wanted to finish the Military Construction bill, and my colleague, Senator Conrad, withdrew his amendment dealing with farm disaster help in order to allow that bill to be completed yesterday. So the assumption was, with the back-and- forth my colleague read from the Record, that we would have the opportunity today for my colleague to offer an amendment to the Agriculture appropriations bill because the assumption and intent was to bring up the Agriculture appropriations bill first thing today. That has not been the case.

We came into session at 2:15, I believe, and we essentially are doing nothing. So someone watching these proceedings might want to ask the question: If you are not doing anything, why aren't you doing something? Are you not doing anything because there is nothing to do?

That is not the case. We are not doing anything, despite the fact that there are things to be done, because people object to doing things. That is a strange situation. What should be done? The Agriculture appropriations bill should be brought to the floor. That was the intention yesterday.

That bill is one I worked on last spring. I am a member of that agriculture appropriations subcommittee. I offered an amendment that my colleague Senator Conrad and many others worked on on a bipartisan basis. That amendment, dealing with farm disaster aid to farmers, was agreed to. It went through the entire process. But the bill has not been brought to the floor. It needs to be modified now because we have had a devastating drought in the middle of 2006. My colleague would modify, with his amendment, the original amendment and provide the disaster aid we want to provide to family farmers.

This is not some notion out of left field. It is what this country has always done. If you have a devastating drought--and tens of thousands of farmers have seen their crops dry up in the field, and they have lost everything--the Congress has always said: We want to help you.

It is interesting to me that we go all over the world helping. I am proud that our country is there to say we want to help. But what about here at home, in the middle of our country, in the northern Great Plains in North Dakota, where farmers and ranchers had to sell their entire herds because there was nothing to eat? You cannot run a farm and you cannot keep a cow if you don't have feed. What about those folks who lost everything? Do we want to help them? I think so. It is what we have always done. But we have been blocked from bringing it to the floor of the Senate. We have things to do right now, and yet we are doing nothing because we have people blocking the attempt to bring up legislation we should be working on.

So my colleague, Senator Conrad, asked unanimous consent to go to the Agriculture appropriations bill, which we thought we were going to as of yesterday, and we believed that was the intent. If we cannot reach an agreement on that, let me ask consent of a different nature. My understanding today was they could not go to the Agriculture appropriations bill, or would not, or whatever, and they wanted to go to the India nuclear agreement.

Let me ask this: I ask unanimous consent that the Senate immediately proceed to the Agriculture appropriations bill pending the disposition of the Indian nuclear agreement.

Mr. President, the point is to say the following: We are not doing anything at this moment. There is much work to be done, some of it very important. We have a lot of farm families wondering: Will we be able to have money to run our farms, for spring planting, or are we going to be told by our bankers and lenders that we cannot continue?

There is an urgency to this. If it cannot be the case that we move to that this afternoon, then OK. If it is the case that there are objections to moving to the Agriculture appropriations bill today and someone says let's bring up the India nuclear deal, the question I raise is, Can we get an agreement following that, so that we have certainty? We are not asking for the Moon here. All we are asking for is certainty to be able to bring to the floor of the Senate and to have a vote on a disaster relief package that is supported by almost three- fourths of the Senate.

My hope is that the majority leader and others will agree with us that we need to find a time. Perhaps the time cannot be today. Can it be at a future date? As my colleague indicated, the Presiding Officer is constrained to object on behalf of the majority leader. I understand that. That may not even be his position. I know he has farmers and agricultural folks in his State as well. My hope is that, with the cooperation of the majority leader, we can lock in a determination of when we have business on the floor of the Senate that will allow Senator Conrad and I and others to offer the amendment to provide disaster aid. That is what we are asking.

This is not a puzzle for which there is no solution. This is very simple. We just need to understand, will there be an attempt to continue to block this or will there be an obvious opportunity for us to offer the amendment? If there is an opportunity, at that point I think we can lock in a time. My colleague, Senator Conrad, and I and others would be satisfied with that and we would know we will get to the point to pass this for the farmers in the Senate. That would be an enormous and beneficial thing to do on behalf of thousands of families who work very hard in this country. They get up in the morning and do chores. We don't use the term ``do chores'' around here. Nobody does chores in the Senate; that is, getting up in the morning, feeding cattle, dealing with the hogs, chickens, and the horses--doing chores. These are people who work very hard. I think it is important for us to recognize that this devastating drought hurt a lot of families very badly. We helped those families as a result of the loss of crops in the Gulf of Mexico as a result of Hurricane Katrina. I am pleased we did that. We should not limit help in the form of disaster aid to just those folks who lost crops due to a disaster named ``Hurricane Katrina.'' That is the point we are making.

I regret that we have not been able to get consent. My colleague has indicated--and I join him--that he would be constrained to object to moving on other issues until we get an agreement. When we get an agreement on when we are going to be able to vote on this amendment, at that point, then we can move on.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, first, thanks to my colleague who states well the reasons we are on the floor. I think we have said most of what needs to be said in support of those farm families who have struggled and who have been hit and devastated with something they could not have envisioned: a natural disaster, drought and flood in both cases in our State in successive years.

I mentioned earlier this is not unusual. Traditionally in our country when family farmers have been hit with a tough blow, this country has said: You are not alone. We want to help you. And we have passed some kind of disaster legislation. We have provided some kind of help to those families. They are the ones who live out on the farm alone. It is a tough life.

I was looking back yesterday at 70 years ago in our region, first in South Dakota and next in North Dakota, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt did a train trip and it was a drought tour. On that drought tour he went out to say to people: I want to see what is happening out here and I want to tell you we are going to help. That was 70 years ago. This isn't new. We are not asking for

something that has not been done before. It is something that has always been done.

The President has threatened to veto agricultural disaster aid when it has passed the Senate twice before. There were amendments I added in the Senate Appropriations Committee providing disaster help for farmers. It proceeded through the Senate. It went to conference. I was a conferee. The President threatened the veto and he got the House conferees to resist it and knock it out.

We asked the President to do a drought tour, to go out and see the middle part of the country. Go to the Northern Great Plains, the epicenter of drought, and take a look at ground that is not growing anything. It is just bare ground where crops used to exist. The President was not able to do that.

I want to quote Franklin Delano Roosevelt who 70 years ago on a train did do that drought tour. Here is what he said in Huron, SD, from the back platform of a train. The drought inspection trip was the occasion for Franklin Delano Roosevelt to be on the back platform of a train, speaking to the citizens of Huron, SD, and the family farmers in the surrounding area. He said:

No city in an agricultural country can exist unless the

farms are prosperous. We have to cooperate with one another

rather than trying to buck one another. I have come out here

to find you with your chins up, looking toward the future

with confidence and courage. I am grateful for the attitude

you are taking out here. As I said, it is a question of

working together.

Then he was in Devils Lake, ND, on his train trip. He said:

Today out here I don't ask you to have courage and faith.

You have it. You have demonstrated that through a good many

years. I am asking, however, that you keep up that courage

and especially keep up that faith. If it is possible for

government to improve conditions, government will do it.

That is Franklin Delano Roosevelt 70 years ago. He said:

I assure you, the interests of these communities are very

close to my heart. I won't forget the day I have spent with

you. We hope that nature is going to open up the heavens.

When I came out on the platform this morning, I saw a rather

dark cloud and I said to myself, Maybe it is going to rain,

but it didn't. All I can say is I hope to goodness it is

going to rain good and plenty.

He said:

I will tell you, my friends, I am not going to let up until

I can give my best service to solving these problems.

Seventy years ago Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a man who knew family farmers, a man who knew America's workers, got on the train and went to take a look at what had happened, at the suffering in the Northern Great Plains as a result of that drought and said: We are going to help.

This is not new. My colleague Senator Conrad and I are not asking for something that hasn't been done. In fact, in more modern times, the agriculture bill, known as the farm bill, has always included, until the recent decade or so, a provision called the disaster title that could be triggered when there was a disaster. That is not the case now. So each year we have to come to the Senate to ask for a separate disaster aid package, to try to reach out and help those who otherwise are going to be thrown off the farm and told they can't continue. Is it their fault? No, it is not their fault. Bad managers? No, not bad managers. Spend too much? No. It was a drought that came and destroyed everything they had, and where, in some parts of the country, a flood came and wiped out everything that existed on their farm. It is not their fault. It is the best of this country then to reach out and say: We want to help you. We think you are important to this country.

I mentioned yesterday a fellow named Rodney Nelson from my State who writes prose. He is a cowboy poet. He lives near Almont, ND, and he wrote a piece once that I have not forgotten. He asked in that piece: What is it worth? I think it is important for us to ask the question, What is it worth? What is it worth to have a kid who knows how to weld a seam? What is it worth to have a kid who knows how to work livestock? What is it worth to have a kid who knows how to grease a combine? What is it worth to have a kid who knows how to fix a tractor? What is it worth to have a kid who knows how to build a lean-to? What is it worth to have a kid who knows how to teach a newborn calf how to suck milk out of a bucket? What is all that worth? What is it worth to have a kid who knows how to plow a straight line?

There is only one university in America, only one, where they teach all those skills, and that is the family farm. Some people say it doesn't matter. It does to us. That is why we are here. This is not about a handout. It is about a helping hand during a time of trouble, during a drought and a flood. It is the best of what this country can do, and it is what this country should do. I hope, before this day is out, we will have an agreement by which we will have an opportunity to offer this amendment, get a vote on this amendment, after which clearly it will pass the Senate, and we will be on the way to getting this to the President.

My hope is that the President will not block it. He previously said he would veto legislation such as this, but I think, since he said that, things have changed. My hope is that he will recognize that change.

There has been a lot of discussion about change in this country in recent days, particularly in the last week. Change has a lot of meaning to it. Change is a word that we hope the President will embrace with respect to this issue. Twice previously he has blocked disaster aid for farmers who suffered a disaster as a result of weather-related problems. Twice previously he has blocked it. We hope he recognizes the change necessary to decide that now we need to help those family farmers.

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