[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 148 (Tuesday, October 21, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12908-S12910]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                APPROPRIATIONS, ENERGY, AND CUBA TRAVEL

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me make a comment about the 
appropriations bills, then about the Energy conference, and then I want 
to talk a bit about the Department of Homeland Security and the ban on 
travel to Cuba.
  First, the appropriations bills.
  Our colleague, the majority leader, Senator Frist, talked just a bit 
about that today in response to questions by the Senator from Nevada. 
My understanding is the bills are all ready to come to the floor of the 
Senate. We were told in early September that we would, when returning 
from the August break, be on appropriations bills. We passed all 13 
appropriations bills through the Appropriations Committee in the 
Senate. Yet since we passed a continuing resolution, because we did not 
have the appropriations bills done by October 1, since that time we 
have not completed even one additional appropriations bill.
  I know the chairman of the Appropriations Committee wants to get 
these bills to the floor. But instead the leader is scheduling other 
issues. I am not suggesting the other issues are unimportant, but we 
have a responsibility to meet a deadline with appropriations bills; and 
the question is, Where are they, and why are they not being brought to 
the floor of this Senate?
  I do not understand it, nor do most of my colleagues.
  If the Committee on Appropriations has finished its work on the 
bills, why

[[Page S12909]]

are they not being debated on the floor of the Senate? If there is an 
intention to do one, big, continuing resolution, one large omnibus 
bill, and not have us consider on the floor of this Senate up to six 
appropriations bills, then the opportunity for a good many Senators to 
offer amendments and deal with these in a routine legislative way will 
be lost. I suspect that is what some are wanting to have happen. It is 
not something that looks like the legislative process as I know it.
  Mark Twain once said: The more you explain it, the more I don't 
understand it. That is the case with these appropriations bills. They 
are ready. They ought to be brought to the floor, and they ought to be 
a priority now. I hope the majority leader and others who are doing the 
scheduling here in the Senate will understand that and bring 
appropriations bills to the floor.
  Mr. President, let me now just talk for a moment about something else 
that is happening that concerns us. We have an Energy conference. My 
colleague Senator Bingaman spoke on the floor about this yesterday. We 
have an Energy conference. I am a conferee. I have not been invited to 
a conference meeting at this point because the Republicans have decided 
they will not allow Democratic conferees to be a part of the process.
  What they are saying is, they will give us the conference report 24 
hours ahead of time, and then we will have a meeting. Apparently that 
is now planned for next week. We were told it was going to be last 
Saturday, then perhaps a meeting this Monday. Now it will probably be 
next Friday, and a meeting the following Monday.
  In any event, there are a couple hundred pages of that report which 
have been agreed to by Republicans dealing with very important, very 
complicated pieces of legislation--the electricity title, the ethanol 
title--and yet we are told, despite the fact it is now agreed to and 
completed, that those of us who were never invited to a conference are 
not allowed to see the conference report.

  It is inexplicable to me. It is, in my judgment, a legislative 
process that is broken. I have told the chairman of the committee on 
this side, he would not stand for that in a moment. He would be on this 
floor pointing into the noses of those who are doing it to say that is 
not the way to legislate. To ask representatives of 49 Senators here in 
the Senate to simply sit by patiently while a conference occurs and 
while Democrats are excluded is an arrogance I think that is 
fundamentally wrong and unsound, and I think it threatens the future of 
an energy bill. It is the wrong way to get cooperation and the wrong 
way to write an energy bill.
  It seems to me there are good ideas on both sides of the aisle in the 
Congress, and they ought to be available in a conference, as 
conferences are usually held, to be able to improve and write a 
bipartisan energy bill. But, once again, quoting Mark Twain: The more 
you explain it, the more I don't understand it.
  The fact is, you can talk about this 100 different ways, and there is 
no justification for two people in the Congress to decide: We are going 
to convene in a room someplace, shut the door, and tell you what the 
energy policy is going to be for this country. It risks, I think, the 
ability to get an energy bill. I believe we need an energy bill for 
this country's future.
  Having said that, Mr. President, let me just talk about another issue 
that has gotten very little attention but ought to, in my judgment.
  The President gave a speech a couple of weeks ago saying he is going 
to crack down on travel in Cuba, because there is a law against 
traveling in Cuba.
  Inexplicably, Americans cannot travel in Cuba. This country is trying 
to punish Fidel Castro for his abuses, and I agree with that. But in 
order to slap Fidel Castro around and punish Fidel Castro, this 
administration is going to limit the American people's freedom to 
travel. Oh, the American people can travel almost anywhere else--to 
Communist China, Communist Vietnam--but you cannot travel in Cuba.
  The President gave a speech, I suspect aimed mostly at voters in 
Florida, saying we are going to crack down on casual travel in Cuba. He 
did not say ``casual travel.'' But I know it is casual travel because 
they are chasing retired schoolteachers who rode bicycles in Cuba. They 
are denying licenses to farm groups who want to go and promote and sell 
agricultural products in Cuba, part of which is now legal because of an 
amendment that I and then-Senator Ashcroft got passed in the Senate 
that became law. But they are trying to stop farm groups from promoting 
agriculture products in Cuba by denying licensees travel in Cuba.
  The President said we are going to have the Department of Homeland 
Security, which is designed to protect this country against a terrorist 
attack, exert its resources to clamp down on travel in Cuba. Here is 
what the Department's Web site says: ``The Department of Homeland 
Security will use intelligence and investigative resources to identify 
travelers or businesses engaged in activities that circumvent the 
embargo.''
  We are going to have the Department of Homeland Security, which is 
supposed to be protecting us from terrorists, now using investigative 
resources and also intelligence resources to try to track down people 
who are traveling in Cuba. They are doing that at the direction of the 
President.
  Well, let me just give as example one of the kind of people they are 
going to use their intelligence and investigative capabilities to track 
down: Joan Slote. Joan, as you can see from this picture, rides a 
bicycle. She is in her mid 70s. She is a Senior Olympian. She joined a 
bicycle tour of Cuba with a Canadian group.
  She had no idea it was illegal for an American to bicycle in Cuba. 
But she went there and came back and discovered she was fined $7,630 by 
the U.S. Department of Treasury. They slapped her around. Shame on you 
for bicycling in Cuba. We will fine you $7,630.
  I said to the Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets 
Control, which is called OFAC: You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. 
You are supposed to be tracking financial records of terrorists, and 
you are tracking little old ladies who ride bicycles in Cuba. They 
agreed, after some embarrassment, to reduce her fine to $1,900. Then 
2\1/2\ months after she sent them a check, she got a letter from a 
collection agency saying they were going to enforce collection, and 
they were going to begin to take her Social Security payments. This was 
after she had paid the fine.
  But there are more than just Joan Slote. Let me give other examples 
of whom they are investigating. Cevin Allen decides to take the ashes 
of his dead father to Cuba to sprinkle on the lawn of the church where 
his father ministered. It was his father's last request. They fine him 
for illegal travel to Cuba. That is who Department of Homeland Security 
now says they will use intelligence and investigative methods to track, 
people who travel illegally in Cuba, taking your dead father's ashes to 
sprinkle on the ground in Cuba.
  Marilyn Meister, a 72-year-old Wisconsin schoolteacher, she also had 
a bicycle trip to Cuba. She was fined $7,500. Donna Schutz, a social 
worker from Chicago, went on a tour, she was fined $7,600; Kurt Foster. 
Tom Warner, 77 years old, a World War II veteran, posted on his Web 
site the schedule for the February annual meeting of the U.S.- Cuba 
Sister Cities Association in Havana. He never even went to Cuba. But 
this administration, clamping down on Cuban travel, said Warner was 
``organizing, arranging, promoting, and otherwise facilitating the 
attendance of persons at the conference without a license.'' He did not 
attend the conference. And the conference was licensed by OFAC. All he 
was doing was posting information on his Web site. He was given 20 days 
to tell OFAC everything he knows about the conference and the 
organizations that participate in it. He has now hired a lawyer.
  What is going on? We are chasing Joan Slote who rode a bicycle in 
Cuba for thousands of dollars of civil fines, and now the President 
says we want to use the Department of Homeland Security to investigate 
and use intelligence resources to identify Americans who travel to 
Cuba. It is the most preposterous thing. Have they lost all common 
sense?
  I understand the President's announcement. That is pure politics. But 
ordering the Department of Homeland Security to use precious assets? Do 
you

[[Page S12910]]

know that we inspect less than 5 percent of the 7.6 million containers 
that come into this country every year on ships. Yet we are going to 
use Homeland Security assets to track little old ladies riding bikes in 
Cuba so we can slap a $7,500 fine on them? It is unbelievable to me. 
Yet nobody seems to be too concerned about it. We are going to hurt 
Fidel Castro by limiting the right of the American people to travel.
  We have enough votes to lift the travel ban. You can travel virtually 
anywhere else in the world. I happen to believe the best way to get rid 
of Fidel Castro is travel and trade. Just as we argue that is the case 
with Communist China, just as we argue that is the case with the 
Communist country of Vietnam, it is clear to me that the quickest way 
to change the Government in Cuba is travel and trade. That Government 
will not be able to resist the influences of travel and trade. It will 
undermine it.
  But a 40-plus year embargo has failed. It is time to understand that. 
It makes no sense. I am wondering how many of my colleagues really 
support this, having the Department of Homeland Security use scarce 
investigative and intelligence assets to identify travelers who are 
going to Cuba to ride a bicycle or perhaps to take their dead father's 
ashes to sprinkle on the church where he ministered. Is that what we 
should be doing? I think not. Yet the President gives a speech aimed 
directly at the center of the bull's eye of Florida politics and says: 
We are going to tighten up. We are getting tough. I will have the 
Department of Homeland Security investigate and use intelligence to 
track Americans who travel in Cuba. It is unbelievable.
  I hope we can get a vote on this. One of the reasons we may not is we 
may not get appropriations bills on the floor of the Senate because a 
half a dozen of them are through the Appropriations Committee and are 
not being brought to the floor. If they are here, we have a chance to 
offer an amendment. Without it, when they are put in an omnibus, there 
will be no amendments. So we will see. If there is in the future some 
omnibus appropriations bill that is cobbled together by the leadership 
in the month of October with appropriations bills that have not 
previously been considered on the Senate floor, we will not be able to. 
We will be prevented from offering amendments.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Michigan is recognized.

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