[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 30 (Thursday, March 9, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1928-S1932]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
LEGISLATIVE PROCESS
Mr. DODD. Madam President, let me, if I may, respond to some of the
things that have been said. I see my good friend from New York is here
as well. I expect he may want to share some thoughts. I will not be
long. First, let me say to my good friends from Maine and Arizona, they
are truly wonderful friends, and I have worked on countless occasions
with both of them. I regret we are in this situation as well. I say to
my friends, this is a matter that is extremely important. We have all
worked very hard in a bipartisan fashion to bring up both this lobbying
reform and ethics reform package. So I am still confident, despite the
differences that occurred yesterday, that we are going to achieve that
goal.
I had hoped we would be able to finish it by this week so we would
not end up having an elongated debate about the subject matter. I do
not think it needs that much time. I am sorry that is not going to
occur.
Let me also quickly say to my friend from Arizona, much of what he
has said I agree with. I am a product of this place in many ways. I
have been here a long time. I sat here on the floor as a page back--I
think Jefferson was President when I sat on the floor here, that is how
long ago it was--watching Lyndon Johnson sitting as Vice President of
the United States, and with the all-night civil rights debates, and so
forth. So I am very much a product of this institution. My father
served here, and so I have great reverence for the Senate.
I too regret what has happened in many ways, that we do not spend the
time to work out matters, as we have done on this bill. I think this
bill has been a good example of how the Senate ought to function in
many ways. That is not to say we are all going to agree on every
amendment offered, but we created a process by which this can be done.
I am disappointed we come here on Tuesdays and leave on Thursdays.
There was a time when we used to come on Monday and stay until Friday,
and there was ample time during the week for consideration of matters.
Part of the difficulty is, today, when you know you have to come in
on a Tuesday at about 5 and leave on Thursday at about 5, then in order
to deal with all the matters in front of you, you start doing things or
offering things in a fashion you might not otherwise were there more of
an opportunity to deal with it.
I counted up last night. I suspect, if I am correct, that there are
about 60 legislative days left in this session. Assuming we will
probably adjourn sometime in September for the fall elections, we have
60 days left to deal with a variety of issues.
My colleague from Arizona is right. Look, the numbers are there. The
American public is not happy with how they see their national
legislative body
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functioning. There are many reasons for that, not the least of which is
there are issues out there which they confront every single day that
are staggering to them--their health care problems, employment issues,
the education quality in our country. We all know what the issues are.
We do not have to do a survey. They want to know whether we are going
to pay attention to the matters they grapple with every single day.
This is also an important issue because it has to do with how we are
perceived as a body. So I am not going to minimize this at all. I am
not going to stand here and suggest we are all--at one time or another
we have done things that I suspect if we had the chance to do them
again, we would do them differently.
I will let my colleague from New York address and express what his
intents were and what his purposes were, but he raised what, as my
colleague from Arizona said, is a very important issue. All of us know
that. We have had major hearings. My friend from Maine has had major
hearings on this question already. The Banking Committee has had
hearings. The other body has already passed, at least out of the
Appropriations Committee--my good friend Congressman Jerry Lewis has
passed--I think 60 to 2 was the vote, something like that yesterday, a
similar proposal dealing with this question about our port security.
So none of us minimalize this issue. This is not some extraneous
matter that has marginal importance to people here. It is timely. It is
important. It is critical. People are worried about it.
I would hope, because the hour of 2:15, or whatever the time for this
cloture vote is to occur, has not arrived, that there might still be an
opportunity for us to find some way to be able to say--next week, the
week after, whenever it is here--that we have a chance for an hour or
two to raise an important issue, have a good debate in the Senate--in
fact, the leader mentioned 2 hours; I think 3 or 4 or 5 hours--for us
to discuss an issue of that importance, and with that agreement being
reached, we then would agree there will be no other extraneous matters
brought up on this bill, and then we could move forward with it so we
do not end up tying ourselves in a knot with cloture motions and voting
against or for and whatever we are going to do here, delaying the
consideration of this bill.
I will leave it to my colleague from New York to explain what his
intentions are, what he would like to do. But having talked to him, I
believe he is going to suggest we have something like that. I realize
that causes some heartburn for others. But nonetheless, my hope is that
we can get away from this, get back to where we were yesterday morning,
moving rather smoothly through a process that Senator Collins and my
colleague from Connecticut, Senator Lieberman, and Senator Lott and I
were trying to create, with having one amendment going back and forth
from either side, and getting down to a number where we actually had a
good possibility of concluding the consideration of this bill by this
evening.
That may not happen now because of the delay here. But my appeal
would be to the Republican leader--I just heard the Democratic leader--
to see if in the next hour or so we can't come to some agreement here
to get back on this bill. Let's avoid the cloture votes and get through
this legislation. Let's keep it a clean bill, if we can, despite the
temptation to bring up other issues. Set aside some time for this
debate, and discuss it here on the floor, dealing with the port
security issues. That way I think we have satisfied our roles to deal
with timely questions, to deal with this important matter, and avoid
the kind of acrimony that can truly cause this place to crater again.
Again, I say I will let my friend from New York explain what he did.
But I understand his motives to at least bring up this very important
matter, and one that all of us care deeply about. We are hearing about
it from our constituents.
Again, to my friend from Arizona, for whom I have the greatest
respect and admiration--I have loved working with him over the years on
many matters--I too worry. If more committees conducted themselves as
the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee does--my
Committee on Banking, by the way--with oversight, looking at issues--I
think the Armed Services Committee is doing a pretty good job on a lot
of these issues. That is the role of the Senate: to be engaged in the
debate, the discussion, to provide the time here on the floor, with
that Monday through Friday, so we have a good opportunity here to
discuss the important issues of the day.
Again, the leadership has to work this out. A lot of us are at fault
because we ask the leaders, we say: I can't be around on Friday. I
can't be here on Monday. Can you wait until 6 o'clock on Tuesday? All
of a sudden, you are arriving on Tuesday and leaving on Thursday night.
No other job in America allows you to come for a couple days a week in
order to do business.
So I am sorry in a way we are finding ourselves in this truncated
situation. I regret we are in this situation, but we can get out of it
as well. My hope would be we would find an opportunity to provide a
window to discuss port security, which is critical, and clean this bill
up. Let's deal with the issues before us. My friend from Maine said it
well earlier: We need to get back on this question. I agree with her on
that point. That appeal is out there. I will leave it up to the leaders
to decide how to proceed, but I hope that will be the case.
Madam President, I see my friend from New York.
Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I thank my colleagues, particularly my
good friend from Connecticut, as well as the minority leader, for
laying out our position. Before I begin, I do want to thank the Senator
from Maine, the Senator from Connecticut, his colleague, the other
Senator from Connecticut, as well as the Senator from Mississippi for
their hard work on this issue. Nobody gainsays the importance of doing
ethics reform. I certainly have been a member of the Rules Committee
and involved in it. The bottom line is very simple: Doing ethics reform
and dealing with the Dubai issue are not mutually exclusive. We can do
both. We can do both this week. The motion made by the minority leader
makes that perfectly clear. The two are not mutually exclusive. Nothing
would make us happier on this side of the aisle than working out an
agreement where we would be given time to debate this amendment,
separately or as part of the bill, whichever would be the majority's
preference, and then move back to the very important, thoughtfully
worked-out legislation on ethics reform.
We have to deal with the Dubai ports issue not in April or May but
now. That is not only what the American people want, it is important to
every one of us. I come from New York. We went through 9/11. Ever since
that day, ever since the next day, when I put on this flag which I wear
every day in memory of those who were lost, I have said: We have to do
everything we can to make sure it doesn't happen again. That doesn't
mean it should be No. 16 or No. 17 or even Nos. 3 or 4 on the list. It
should be No. 1.
When we heard that Dubai Ports World was going to take over our
ports, it naturally raised alarms, not because the country was an Arab
country but because the country had had a long nexus with terrorism.
The more you look at the deal, the worse it gets. That is the problem.
First, we find out that the review done by the CFIUS committee was
cursory, quick. They didn't even call the port authorities, such as New
York, New Jersey, and ask about it. The letter that my friend from
South Carolina first procured, Senator Graham, given to Senator Reid
and myself, lays out very clearly how an operator of a port can have a
great deal to do with security. Then not only did we find out that the
review was cursory and casual, it seemed that the wheels were greased
to let this deal go through. Everything was quick. Everything was
secret. Everything was quiet.
A group of us--myself, my colleague from North Dakota, both
colleagues from New Jersey, my colleague from New York, both colleagues
from Connecticut, many others from the metropolitan areas--said: We
have to do something. We have to move because we can't wait. The
bipartisan legislation that we introduced said: Put the deal on hold.
Do the 45-day review.
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Make sure the report goes to Congress. We get to see it; a
nonclassified version goes to the American people. And then we get the
right, if we choose, to disapprove.
The 45-day review was going forward, but none of the other conditions
have been met. Right now the law would be such that the 45-day review
would go forward. We wouldn't know how thorough it would be because it
would be secret. The Congress and the American people would never know
the results of the review, and the President would get to say ``yes''
or ``no.'' The President has already said ``yes.'' If the President had
said: I am going to take a new look at this after the 45-day review, it
might give us some hope. But he didn't. It is Alice in Wonderlandlike--
verdict first, trial second.
Then, this weekend, a few more things occurred. The head of Dubai
Ports World was on national television in America on a CNN show. And
when asked by Wolf Blitzer, chief correspondent in Dubai, how many
containers do you inspect here in Dubai, he answered: I don't know.
When asked what kind of security guarantees do you have about the
employees who might work on the perimeter or with the cargo manifests,
he didn't even care. He simply said: We have to make our British
shareholders happy. That has been the whole trouble with this process.
That has been the trouble with the CFIUS process. It seems that
economics and diplomacy trump security.
In fact, I have been around the CFIUS process for a while, being a
member of the House Banking Committee and now the Senate Banking
Committee. I have been on the Banking Committees for every one of my 26
years in Congress. Basically, it was passed before I got here, but the
CFIUS process was basically done to give national security cover and
allow economic deals to go forward. Because in the 1980s and the 1990s,
the greatest concern we had was not security but economics. After 9/11,
all that changed, but the CFIUS process did not.
Many of us have come to the same conclusion that Jerry Lewis in the
House came to, and I guess 62 of the 64 Appropriations Committee
members, bipartisan, in the House Appropriations Committee, that this
deal should be stopped.
We don't have the luxury of waiting. That appropriations bill may not
get over here until April, the supplemental. It may not be voted on
until May. The deal will be consummated and done. And then they will
say: You can't undo it. There will be constitutional and legal
problems.
We have to act now. There are a variety of ways to act. I have chosen
one. There is no monopoly on that. Maybe there is another. And
certainly there are a variety of procedures. We can vote, as Senator
Reid offered, as a separate standing bill today, tomorrow, early next
week. We can do it as part of this bill. We can make an arrangement and
make it somewhere else. But the voice of the Senate must be heard.
Lobbying reform is important, yes, but so is security. Lobbying reform
has some time urgency, given everything we have seen, yes, but not more
time urgency than this deal which might engender our security.
Let me be clear: We can do both. This Chamber can walk and chew gum
at the same time. We can spend some time debating this, go back to
lobbying reform and accomplish both our goals. But let me make one
thing clear: We will use whatever parliamentary means we can to make
sure there is a vote on this issue. In recent months and years, the
Senate has changed. It is much harder to offer amendments. The tree is
filled up. There are agreements that amendments cannot be germane.
Cloture is filed. Our job, my job, as I represent 19 million New
Yorkers, is to see that they are secure, above all. Therefore, I
believe that we must vote on this amendment soon, quickly, and move on
to other business.
I tell my colleagues, certainly this Senator from New York and, I
think, many of my colleagues, will do everything we can to make sure
that there is a vote on Dubai Ports World, a meaningful vote that ends
the deal before it is too late.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I have listened to the thoughtful
comments this morning. I understand there is some controversy, some
passion and anxiety about all of this. It is not partisan. There is
nothing partisan about an amendment dealing with the Dubai Ports World
issue. This is a significant issue. As my colleagues have said, the
bill that is on the floor is also a significant issue. Both need to be
dealt with. Both should be considered by this great deliberative body.
But this is not about partisanship at all.
I understand partisanship. I regret that there is too much of it in
this town. I left the House many years ago, decided I was going to
leave the House. I did run for the Senate, but I was done with the
House of Representatives. What did it for me was when they established,
through then-Congressman Gingrich--I guess it is all right to say his
name--something called GOPAC. And they word-tested through polls and
then sent out a missive to everyone in his political camp that said:
Here is the way we deal with this. When you are describing your
opponent in a political election, use the words ``sick,'' ``traitor,''
``pathetic,'' ``antifamily,'' ``antiflag.'' That was sent all over this
country by an organization that said: This is the way you should engage
in politics. Here are the words you should use to describe your
opponents. And we poll tested them. They work. Describe your opponents
as sick, pathetic, traitor, antiflag. That was sent around the country.
That is what polluted the House of Representatives. I had been there
long enough when I saw that sort of thing.
I love the Senate. I respect the Senate. I like being here. It is a
great privilege to serve in the Senate. I regret there is probably too
much partisanship here as well. I don't think we have had the kind of
partisanship that infected the House beginning in the late 1980s, but I
realize that this body and the House and the President, for that
matter, are not in good standing with the American people these days.
That circumstance exists because the American people take a look at us
and they say: Here is what we face in our daily lives, and you are not
addressing it. You are doing nothing about it. Why aren't you sinking
your teeth into the significant issues of the day? The issue that faces
me when I pull up to the gas pump, why aren't you sinking your teeth
into that issue?
Someone stood up in North Dakota recently from a human service
nonprofit organization and said: I just had an 81-year-old woman come
in looking for a job. She just lost her last job. Do you know what her
last job was at age 81? Cleaning office buildings starting at 1 a.m.
Then they cut back that employment, so now she needs another job
because her Social Security is $170 a month. So at age 81 she is
looking for a second job to clean buildings. Why aren't you doing
something about that? Why isn't the Congress addressing that?
An hour ago, this Government announced that last month's trade
deficit was $68.5 billion in 1 month, the highest in the history of the
human race. What does that mean? It is not just 68.5 billion dollars,
it is jobs, massive numbers of jobs moving overseas, and it is the
selling of this country piece by piece; at a rate of $2 billion a day
we are selling America. Why don't we sink our teeth into that? Stem
cell research, reimportation of prescription drugs, why don't you sink
your teeth into that, they wonder.
At least part of the reason in the Senate that we can't sink our
teeth into these issues is because we are prevented from offering
amendments to do so. My colleague has offered an amendment on a
controversial issue, I understand. The issue of whether a United Arab
Emirates company called Dubai Ports World should be managing America's
seaports. Should they manage some of America's largest seaports? Is
this issue controversial? I suppose it is. Is it urgent that the
Congress address this? Of course, it is urgent. The House
Appropriations Committee, controlled by the President's own political
party, yesterday by a vote of 62 to 2 slapped an amendment on an
emergency supplemental appropriations bill designed to provide money
for the Department of Defense and for Hurricane Katrina recovery. They
slapped an amendment on there to stop this ports deal. Good for them.
So there has been offered in
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the Senate an amendment to stop the ports deal. All of a sudden the
Senate is stopped, dead cold in its tracks. Why is it that a proposal
such as this becomes a set of brake pads for the Senate? Who decides it
should shut things down because someone offers an amendment to stop
this takeover of the management of U.S. ports by a company from the
United Arab Emirates? Why wouldn't we vote on it? How about yesterday
when it was offered, after people got over being upset that we had to
deal with it, how about voting on it and then moving ahead?
The underlying bill by Senator Collins and Senator Dodd is a bill we
should do.
I am enormously pleased with their leadership. That has not been easy
to bring that bill to the floor. Senator Lieberman, Senator Lott, the
two I have mentioned should be commended. Look, this is leadership.
They have brought a bill to the floor that is important. We need to do
it. But there is nothing that suggests that just because an amendment
was offered dealing with Dubai Ports World, it ought to shut down the
Senate. It didn't shut down the House yesterday when Congressman Lewis
offered it to an emergency supplemental appropriations bill. They just
voted. Why have we not voted? Senator Frist, I guess, has decided we
won't vote on it. So we will stop the Senate cold in its tracks. We
will pull down on the side of the road and hang out for while.
Does that make any sense to anybody? This doesn't make sense to me.
Seventy, seventy-five percent of the American people--polls tell us--
think that it is stark raving nuts to have a company owned by the
United Arab Emirates manage our major ports. I know we have some people
who are the elitists in Washington and who think they know better than
all of the American people. They think they have greater wisdom and the
American people just don't get it. These elitists think that the
American people are isolationist xenophobes and cannot see over the
horizon. So we have people in Washington who think this deal with Dubai
Ports World is fine. It is not fine with me. It is not fine with 70, 75
percent of the American people.
If we get a vote on it in the Senate, it will not be fine with an
overwhelming majority of the Senate. The question is, Will we be able
to do in the Senate what the House did? That is, have an opportunity to
vote on this proposition: Should a company owned by the United Arab
Emirates be managing America's ports?
Well, it is interesting to read some of the things that have been
written in recent days about this. United Arab Emirates, to the extent
they have cooperated with us since 9/11, good for them. We hope they
will continue. But there are questions about the extent to which they
were involved in 9/11--yes, two of the hijackers were from there; yes,
a substantial amount of evidence exists that the financing for the 9/11
plots went through financial institutions in the UAE. Dr. Khan from
Pakistan was moving nuclear materials that were being pirated and
shipped around the world to North Korea and Iran and other countries,
and that was accommodated by the UAE ports.
Interestingly enough, the 9/11 Commission report--I have cited the
page in a previous discussion--talks about when we knew where Osama bin
Laden was in 1999. We knew where he was, because our intelligence
pinpointed his location. They readied the cruise missiles to shoot at
this location. Overnight, they decided they had to withhold and would
not do it. Why? Because George Tenet later said we might have wiped out
half of the royal family of the UAE, who were visiting Osama bin Laden
at the time.
The 9/11 Commission report puts it a bit differently. It says UAE
royal family members were there. But it is written and spoken by the
head of the CIA. The reason the attack wasn't launched when we knew
where Osama bin Laden was that he was being visited by the royal family
of the UAE.
My point is this: That country has had some ties to terrorism. It was
one of three countries to recognize the Taliban government, which
accommodated Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. It has ties to terrorism.
When the American people learned about CFIUS and all these goofy
acronyms and the work these folks have done in secret that says it is
OK for a company such as this, owned by UAE, to manage our ports, the
people of this country ask: Why is it that a country such as the United
States cannot manage its own seaports? If we are so concerned about
national security--and we are--and if we are threatened by terrorists
consistently--and we are--and if seaports and airports are two of the
important elements of national security--and they are--and if you go to
the airport and try to board a plane, they will have you take off your
shoes and belt, and as you go through the metal detector you will see a
6-year-old kid spread-eagle and being wanded because we are concerned
about security, and if that is the case, why then would we turn to
seaport security and decide this? With 5.7 million to 5.9 million
containers coming in every year to our seaports, we have decided it is
OK for a Middle Eastern country--the UAE--with its history, to manage
our seaports through a company owned by that government. Does that make
sense?
My former colleague, Fritz Hollings, who used to sit at this desk,
used to talk about seaport security a lot. We don't have any seaports
in North Dakota. But we went back and checked the Record: I came to the
floor 13 times from 2001 until the end of 2005 to talk about seaport
security--13 times. Almost every time I was here, Senator Fritz
Hollings was also here talking about seaport security. We offered and
offered and offered amendments to heighten and increase inspections and
seaport security. Now we inspect only 4 to 5 percent of the containers
that come in; 96 percent are not inspected. Does that make any sense?
This administration has not been willing to support the substantial
enhancement that is necessary for real security at our seaports. One
day, God forbid, there may be a terrorist attack that comes from
America's seaports. We are spending somewhere close to $10 billion a
year now on the issue of antiballistic missile protection, thinking
that a rogue nation or a terrorist will acquire an intercontinental
ballistic missile, put a nuclear weapon on the tip of it and shoot it
at us at 15,000 miles an hour. That is the least likely threat America
faces. A much more likely threat is a ship pulling up to a port at 2 to
4 miles an hour, up to the dock in a major American city, full of
containers, one of which might have a nuclear weapon in it. Then we are
not talking about 3,000 casualties; we are talking about 100,000 or
even 300,000 casualties.
So is seaport security important? It is critical. We need to deal
with it. We need to send a message to this administration and to all
those involved in what is called CFIUS the Committee on Foreign
Investment in the United States--that we don't improve security at our
seaports by deciding we should have the UAE wholly owned company manage
our seaports. Mr. Chertoff said it will actually improve security to
have the UAE company managing America's seaports. That is so
unbelievable that it is almost laughable. But you should not laugh when
you are talking about national security issues.
This proposal is going to improve security at our seaports? Hardly.
The reason the American people are concerned about it, the reason the
Congress is concerned is that we understand this will diminish
security. This will erode security at our seaports. Security is already
too weak, and it must be dramatically strengthened.
Now, we are here in the Senate chambers with virtually nothing
happening. The same thing happened yesterday afternoon. The bill is on
the floor of the Senate and the Senate rules are such that you can
offer amendments to that bill and they don't have to be germane prior
to any cloture motion; they don't have to be relevant to the bill.
I will give you some examples of the problems of the Senate, the way
the Senate works these days. I was promised--and others were as well--
that we would have a vote on the issue of reimportation of prescription
drugs. Reimportation would drive down the price of prescription drugs
in the United States because we pay the highest prices in the world,
and the same drug, made by the same company, put in the same bottle,
made in the same manufacturing plant, is sent to Canada and is sold for
one-tenth of the price. I recently sat on a hay bale talking with an
old codger who is about 85-years-old.
[[Page S1932]]
He said: My wife has been fighting breast cancer for 3 years, and we
have driven to Canada for 3 straight years, every 3 months, to get her
medicine, and we have saved 80 percent on her medicine bill; the same
pill I could have gotten on the North Dakota side of the border, but it
is priced much higher in the United States.
So for several years now, we have had proposals that are bipartisan
to allow for reimportation, but we have been prevented from having an
opportunity to vote on it on the floor of the Senate, despite the fact
that the majority leader at midnight one night made a commitment to do
it. He thinks he didn't. It is written in the Congressional Record and
somebody can look at it and see whether or not the commitment was made.
But we didn't get a vote on it. So it is frustrating.
The Senate is a place where you ought to get a vote. The complaint
now, I guess, is that the amendment was offered. It wasn't offered in
violation of the rules. The rules allow it to be offered. Perhaps if
somebody says let's not vote on it this afternoon but tomorrow, or
let's vote on it next Tuesday, my guess is they can make an arrangement
to have that happen. But this is a voluntary rest for the Senate.
Deciding not to move forward with the bill is a decision by the
majority leader. He has decided that he doesn't want to vote on an
amendment offered under the rules and which deals with a very relevant
issue that was voted on yesterday in a House Committee by the majority
party on a piece of legislation that had nothing to do with the
amendment. It was OK in the House to do that.
But the majority party in the Senate, even though it was offered
under the rules of the Senate, said: No, no, if you are going to force
us to talk about and vote on this issue of whether a UAE company should
be managing America's ports, we are going to stop the process, stop
progress of the Senate, and we are going to sit around and look at each
other. That doesn't make any sense. Let's run the Senate the way it
ought to be run. If you have amendments, let's debate the amendments
and vote on the amendments. This isn't rocket science. If somebody
offers an amendment, you have a debate. If you think the people are
talking too long, get an agreement on restricting the debate, or get a
time agreement and, at the end of the debate, you vote and count them.
You don't weigh them; you just count them. It is very simple.
Apparently the majority leader wants to run this body like the House
Rules Committee. They would have kind of a Rules Committee on the floor
of the Senate that says you can offer this amendment, but you cannot
offer that one. They have been doing that for a long while now. This
body is run by people who want to emulate the House Rules Committee and
prevent people from offering amendments that are perfectly allowable
under the rules of the Senate. We are told, if you offer an amendment
under the rules, we are going to shut the place down. We are going to
stop and complain. So now that the majority party has decided that it
doesn't want to move, it complains that we are not moving. A very
strange complaint. They can fix this in 5 minutes.
I said the other day it doesn't take me 45 days to figure out the UAE
ports issue. We have a 45-day review period--paradoxically requested by
the company rather than our country. Our country should insist on that
because it is our security. But the company asked our country to do a
45-day review. My point is I don't need 45 days, or even 45 minutes, to
figure this out. Nor do most Americans. This deal erodes America's
security. It should not take us 5 minutes to get this place back on
track.
The underlying bill is important. It is brought to us by four pretty
distinguished legislators. Let's proceed with that bill. How do you do
that? Let's vote on this amendment in the next half hour or so and then
move ahead. If you say there is a scheduling issue, then let's not vote
on this amendment today and give us time on Tuesday. That would be all
right.
I want to make one other point. I don't know how this is going to
turn out, but I am on the Appropriations Committee, and on the
emergency supplemental bill, when we mark that up, I intend to offer
the identical amendment that a Congressman offered in the House
Appropriations Committee so that we can have a vote on it and go to
conference with the House on the emergency supplement with identical
amendments. I think the Senate should pass an identical amendment in
the emergency supplemental, no matter how this comes out, as a
backstop. I intend to offer that in the future when we mark up the
emergency supplemental bill.
Madam President, I wish to take an additional minute to talk about
the news this morning about the $68.5 billion trade deficit, and then I
will yield to my colleague from Connecticut, or whoever wishes to
speak. The news is once again devastating: our trade deficit last month
was $68.5 billion, which is the highest in our history. This relates to
a trade policy that is fundamentally bankrupt and a Congress and a
President that are not only asleep at the switch but have their heads
buried deeper in the sand every month. And the trade deficit widened
substantially with China again. I will not go through all the stories
about unfair trade. But if this Congress and the President continue to
ignore this issue, at some point, this country's currency will suffer a
fate that I don't want to see. It will have enormous economic
consequences.
This is a strategy that is unsustainable. It is hurting Americans and
is shifting Americans' jobs overseas and selling part of America. By
the way, this is related to the Dubai Ports World deal because all of
this offshoring and outsourcing and globalization and the decision that
anybody could do anything, anywhere, and there really are no rules. And
the minute somebody says maybe there ought to be rules, they are
xenophobes and isolationists. And I will talk about that at another
time.
If this $68.5 billion is not a wake-up call, if this doesn't wake up
the Congress and the President--and it likely won't--then I suggest
this coma is probably irreversible, and I worry about the future of
this country.
This country needs to stand up for its own economic interests.
Whether it is trade with Japan or trade with China, trade with Europe,
trade with Canada, trade with Mexico--we have very large deficits with
all of them--and if we don't find a way to address this issue, this
country's economy will not remain a vibrant world-class economy in the
long term.
Again, we are in this deep sleep, or probably a coma, wanting to
either deny or ignore the central facts of a trade policy that is
awful. It is trading away American workers, trading away the middle
class. We are hollowing out the center of this country. We are saying
to this country's workers: If you can't compete with Chinese wages, if
you can't compete with Indonesia, Bangladesh, or Sri Lanka wages, shame
on you; your job is gone.
I have gone on at length talking about Huffy bikes, Radio Flyer,
little red wagons--a whole host of products and companies that have
moved offshore.
By the way, the thank-you for moving offshore from this Congress is
to give them a big tax break. We voted to end this tax break four
times, four amendments I have offered. All four have lost. I will
continue to offer those amendments because I still believe that the
last thing we ought to do is offer tax breaks to those who shut their
American plants and move their jobs overseas. It is pretty unbelievable
we do that, but it is part of the willingness to both ignore the
circumstances of our trade deficit and the willingness to believe that
a completely bankrupt strategy remains workable.
I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Vitter). The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Vitter). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
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