Protecting Jobs From Government Interference Act

Mr. Speaker, we've all been back in our districts for the last month, and we've been talking to friends and neighbors back home about what America is truly concerned with, what is most important in the eyes of all Americans, and that is getting America back to work.

Our economy is stagnant. This administration is throwing up barriers, which is freezing assets because the folks that normally would invest in growth and hiring people are frightened about what's around the next corner, and they're sitting with all their money and they're not growing.

I met this morning with around somewhere between 12 and 14 of my neighbors in just a sit-down cup of coffee, where we sat around and we talked about the way that folks in central Texas view what's going on with the job market.

You know, in Texas we've been blessed. We haven't faced the kinds of unemployment numbers that other States have had. But we now are certainly seeing unemployment creeping up in our State also.

We had small businessmen and -women there, and they talked about the things that concern them. But yet we've had meetings with bankers who've explained to us that you can look at their deposits and see that American local investors are sitting on the sidelines and keeping their deposits in the bank and not investing in growth and not investing in capital structure, not building buildings, and certainly not hiring people. And so part of the discussion this morning from some very intelligent small business folks was, we think we know why; why do you say this is happening?

The answers I got were answers that we hear on the floor of this House every day.

But the one that I've been talking about now for almost a year, probably maybe even over a year, is the fact that we are seeing the administration doing through government regulations, which are basically laws passed by the regulators which change the playing field for people and our economy across the board at every level. It's not done by acts of this Congress. It's done by acts of bureaucrats in the Obama administration as they make rules and regulations that fit their view of the world and how they think the world should work. And these regulations regulate the drivers, the force builders that employ the American people.

Many of these regulations have become such a shock to the conscience of people who are in business that they say, ``My Lord, I'm not about to get invested in growth until I know whether I'm going to even have my business once the regulators are through with me.''

And then sitting on the sideline is the giant regulator program, which is the health care bill that this House passed last year and the Senate passed. We call it ObamaCare. Its 2,000 pages are multiplying very rapidly as the regulators, the people who are able to pass rules to set up the regulations that govern that bill, are imposing more and more burden on the individual employer and on those people seeking health care.

So what I heard today from some people who are presidents of small businesses, run small businesses--a Thomas Barrett, a very intelligent lawyer who is both a financial adviser and a lawyer for small and other sized businesses all over central Texas and is highly sought after for his opinion--they said it's the unknown that's driving the investment off the page in the United States. It's the unknown. We don't know what's going to happen next. Our taxes. What are taxes going to do? We've got taxes that will last for a while and then go back to a different tax automatically unless this House acts.

Then most importantly, and what we talked mostly about today, was all the new regulations that are coming up.

In the next 3 or 4 months, the Republican leadership in this House is going to do everything it can to turn back some of the craziness that's gone on in the regulatory world. I brought the Members here tonight just a few examples of some of the regulations, many of which we've been talking about all year. We've spent a lot of time talking about the cement industry; we've talked about Boiler MACT; we've talked about a lot of other things we're going to talk about tonight.

But it's just a general outline of some corrective measures that this Republican-led House is going to try and going to pass through this body to just start slowing down and changing the direction of what we think are some ill-conceived regulations by the executive branch, the Obama administration.

I want to start off with this poster right here, which just gives you a small example of what we're talking about. In July of this summer-- this is what we've called the ``regulatory summer''--these are regulations that have been proposed by various agencies. Many of them are household words like the Environmental Protection Agency; but there are plenty of others, the Labor Department--you could go on and on.

In July, 229 proposed regulations went into effect, 379 final regulations, and the cost estimated of these proposed and final regulations: over $9.5 billion to the economy in the month of July. That meant business, the job creators, took a hickey of $9.5 billion in 1 month, the month of July 2011. We have just finished August--270 proposed regulations, 347 final regulations: over $8.2 billion in August. So for this summer, just July and August, the 2-month total: $17.7 billion in costs to the people who create jobs.

Now, is it any wonder that the people who create jobs are sitting on the sidelines and saying, holy cow, how do I hire somebody? And I think the American people know why people in business hire somebody. They hire somebody because they think that person will make their business more prosperous, will make it work more efficiently, will make it do the job the business was set up to do. If you are in the roofing business and you put roofs on houses, you hire more roofers because you think you will be able to produce a better quality product faster and more efficiently, therefore enhancing the profit that those who have invested their capital and labor into that business--they can make a profit so that that business can thrive. You don't hire roofers when you don't need to put roofs on houses. I mean, that doesn't make any sense, and everybody with any kind of common sense knows that.

Now, if you've got a person who's got some business, whether it be big or small, and they literally don't know what the government is going to do to them tomorrow or, let's just say, in the next 2 months, following this track record, they could be looking at another almost $20 billion worth of additional costs to their business that could be coming up in September and October. Based upon the last 2 months, it's arguable that it's pretty close to $20 billion of additional costs that they were not anticipating and never thought was going to happen to them; and all of a sudden out of the clear blue, it drops in their lap.

Now, you will hear arguments like, wait a minute, there are these things that are environmental and other ways and people have known all along something about this was going to be done. And that may or may not be true. But the ramifications of what the regulators actually did are turning out to be horrendous costs to industries that right now are trying to get the ground under them stable so they can start hiring people again.

If you're on balancing ground sort of like this earthquake we had up here in Washington, which I am very fortunate that I wasn't in, when that ground is unstable, you don't know which way to turn. Well, the same thing goes for business. When the foundation underneath your business is unstable, you don't know which way to turn. Are you going to go out and hire somebody, give them a job, when this is what your life is right now and someone is creating that problem, that are actually by their actions making it unstable?

I would argue that questionable regulations, the imposition of additional costs, the unknown of what taxes are going to be tomorrow-- all these things create an unstable environment for the people who hire people. So this last regulatory summer is a perfect example of the earthquake that has shaken the foundation of the small businessman and the job creators in America.

The President of the United States promised us, the White House promised us, to save $10 billion in redtape, which is kind of the slang term for bureaucratic regulations, in 5 years. But the White House has put forward $17.7 billion worth of redtape in 2 months. The message has been lost somewhere. Where is it? When did what we were promised change into a three-for-one worse situation? We were promised a $5 billion savings for the job creators; and, in fact, we've created a $17.7 billion expense and uncertainty to the job creators, and we wonder why we are not creating jobs.

Mr. Kucinich was talking about his view of the world. He and I don't see

the world the same way, but the facts are when he was talking about we need to create jobs, we darn sure need to create jobs.

The role of the Congress today is finding ways to get this country back to work. If we put this country back to work, 90 percent of our problems will be much, much better. So the real goal of the Republican House this year, to finish this year out, is going to be trying to correct at least some of this instability created by these regulators, these unelected regulators. These are appointed people, not elected people. The heads of these agencies are appointed by the President. They are under the wings of the White House, if you will. They are part of the executive branch of government. And the legislature, this branch, the Congress, is going to, in the next several months, try to put some reins on these out-of-control regulators and hold them back. And we've got just some of them I am going to talk to you about that some of my colleagues are putting forward in the future.

The week of September 12, which is next week, I suppose, we're going to take up the Protecting Jobs from Government Interference Act, by Tim Scott of South Carolina. Now, the facts of this situation are very unusual in my way of thinking, and I think most of the people in the United States, when they heard this on television, they said, they can't do that, can they?

It seems the Boeing Corporation has a big operation up in the Washington State area, and they were wanting to build an additional plant to build whatever Boeing builds, whether it's aircraft or whatever it is--they wanted to do it in South Carolina. They have been negotiating and working in good faith with the citizens of South Carolina and the government of South Carolina. They have looked at alternative locations around the country to make a determination of what is best for their business in their situation today, and they determined that they were going to build a very important plant in South Carolina.

But the National Labor Relations Board, the NLRB, issued a complaint against the Boeing Company for the alleged transfer of an assembly line from the Washington plant to South Carolina. Yet not one union employee at the Boeing's Puget Sound facility, that's the Washington plant, has lost his or her job as a result of the proposed South Carolina plant.

Still, the NLRB is pursuing a restoration order against Boeing that would cost South Carolina thousands of jobs--these are new jobs in South Carolina--and deter future investment in the United States. This is the government telling Boeing how they can run their business at the base level of you can't move unless we tell you you can move; and if you choose to go to a right-to-work State instead of a union shop State, we're going to tell you, no, you can't do it.

What happened to the freedom of movement that our Founding Fathers created in this country? I mean, part of what makes us great is if you can't prosper in Texas, you can maybe prosper in South Dakota. In fact, people are right now, as we talk right now, people are taking businesses from one part of the country and going to another part of the country because of maybe newly discovered resources, maybe a better work environment, maybe a more intelligent workforce, maybe a better investment community, maybe better opportunities, maybe better tax structure. That's the free right of every American, is seeking prosperity for their company and for their family to go seek these places.

If we're going to tell Boeing they can't build a plant to create jobs in South Carolina, next they may be telling Sam Smith in Oklahoma, I'm sorry, but we need you to stay in Oklahoma, we don't want you to move to Texas, or we don't want you to move to South Carolina to go to work in the Boeing plant, which we just canceled. Is that the kind of world we have and we want this government to have? I would say no.

Do we want the people of South Carolina to have 1,500 new jobs? Yes. Is anybody talking about hurting the people employed at Puget Sound? No.

It's the issue of union membership that drove this whole thing, and we have given our States the right to choose whether they have a right- to-work State or they have a union State, and every State in this country has some difference in how they view that. It's part of the environment that State creates to bring business into the community.

What in the world is wrong with that, and when did that become Big Brother's job to tell somebody where they can and can't offer you a job? So are we now saying that the people of Washington State--and I have many friends there and I love very much, and I don't mean to be in any way defaming Washington State--but we have got a group of bureaucrats that are saying those are more important people than the people in South Carolina who want to work for Boeing for a good salary, because the government's telling them they can't do it.

The gentleman from South Carolina, Tim Scott, has got this bill, H.R. 2587, we're going to take it up next week, I understand, which is going to protect these jobs from this government interference. It would take the common-sense step, and it would prevent that National Labor Relations Board from restricting where an employer can create jobs in the United States.

Who would have ever thought we would have had to even address this on the floor of this House? This world that we have lived in, and, in fact, President John F. Kennedy in writing one of his dissertation papers at Harvard came up with a term ``The Great Frontier,'' which the whole concept of America was if you failed in one place, the great blessing of America is you can pack up and move to another place. At one time that was the frontier.

Now that frontier is in technology; that frontier is in science. That frontier is not just moved from one place to the other; it's moved from one idea to the other. That's the greatness of America. To have the government tell you where you can and can't locate is an abomination to the very spirit of the American Dream.

This one, we need to do it right away; we are going to do it. We hope our friends in the Senate are going to help.

We have the administration's new Maximum Achievable Technology Act, MACT, standards and Cross State Air Pollution, CSAPR, for utility plants, will affect electricity prices for nearly all American consumers. In total 10,000 power plants are expected to be affected. I can't tell you the number in other States, but Texas surprisingly fell under this act, which no one anticipated, and we actually had no input whatsoever--but that's a different argument which I have made before, but I know that we are talking about 17 to 19 plants just in Texas are being closed down.

These are coal-powered plants. We're talking about coal-powered plants in most instances here. The result to middle class America is an annual electricity bill increase in parts of the country anywhere from 12 to 24 percent, just by this one regulation that has been proposed dealing with coal-powered plants and greenhouse gas emissions. Well, Representative John Sullivan of Oklahoma has come up with a solution for this, H.R. 2401, the Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on the Nation.

One of the things that we think any regulator should be looking at as he is doing this type of work is how does this impact the jobs of the American people, how does this impact the economy of the area. If you have a State that has 20 power plants and the results of your mandatory and arbitrary ruling is going to shut down 12 or 15 of those plants, it doesn't take a genius to figure the price of electricity is going up.

Even if they go in and they make a conversion to some other form of power at great cost and expense, billions of dollars of additional money happen to be spent, even if they do that, you are still going to have down time when electricity is going to be scarce and the risk of blackouts and brownouts is going to be increased. Quite honestly, it hurts every industry and every person that depends on that electricity.

Has anybody looked into this and said here is how we figure this out and told us with transparency what effect this has? No.

So what Mr. Sullivan is trying to say is that we need to call a time- out;

and it would require a cumulative, economic analysis for specific environmental protection rules and specifically delay the final date for both utility MACT and CSAPR rules until full impact of the Obama's administration regulatory agenda has been studied.

Some of this stuff is done with computer projections, but the facts are it's kind of a shock and surprise to everybody that's in the business, and it's time that we call time out and rather than cost this country jobs, give these people a chance to continue to have good jobs for the American people to work in.

This is a good bill, and we're going to take this bill up the week of September 19.

The next bill that this Republican Congress is going to go take up is H.R. 2250 to deal with what's called boiler MACT. From hospitals to factories, colleges, thousands of major American employers use boilers that will be impacted by the EPA's new boiler MACT rules.

These new stringent rules will impose billions of dollars in capital and compliance costs, increasing the costs of many goods and services. College kids will tell you how expensive going to university is today. They don't need any more cost increase there, but it will increase the cost of higher education; and it will put over 200,000 jobs at risk, just what they have done under the boiler MACT rules.

So what are we doing with H.R. 2250? Representative Morgan Griffith of Virginia has proposed this. It's called the EPA Regulatory Relief Act and would provide a legislative stay for four interrelated rules issued by the EPA in March of this year. The legislation would also provide the EPA with at least 15 months to repropose and finalize new achievable rules that do not destroy jobs and provide employers with an extended compliance period.

In other words, if it's a problem, let's fix the problem without costing people jobs. Let's fix the problem with a reasonable amount of time for compliance so that it's not a knee-jerk reaction that is required by everybody to try to keep from going out of business because of EPA-imposed rules.

So basically, just like the last bill we talked about, this is saying stop this craziness, take a new look, let the people you're regulating have some input into the cost and the compliance and the job loss, and then let's restructure. If we've got to fix this problem, restructure it in a manner that makes common sense to keep the American men and women of this country working, keep the factories open and producing and the colleges and universities open and producing and not impose a short-term, heavy burden of an additional capital infusion in order to meet regulatory changes. Give them a reasonable amount of time that common sense says it would take to fix the problem instead of imposing this rammed-down-your-throat series of rules. October 3 is the week the Republican Congress will be bringing that before the American people and before this House.

This is one I've been working on for quite awhile. I hope through part of our efforts during these evenings when we've talked about the cement MACT issue, the imposition of new regulations on greenhouse gas emissions for the cement factories, and the fact that we've had the opportunity to very effectively drive cement production out of this country and offshore to China, India, and maybe Mexico where they don't regulate at all the emissions, and then we think that somehow it's going to fix greenhouse gases. It's kind of insane that cleaning it up over here and driving people offshore to where they don't clean it up at all is going to help anything. It's going to hurt something, but that's a different argument.

In the week of October 3, the cement MACT and two related rules are expected to affect approximately 100 cement plants in America. The cost is estimated to be somewhere between $3-4 billion for a $6-8 billion industry. Just do the math. That's a tremendous burden if these rules come into effect. These stringent requirements will be cost prohibitive, and the American cement industry, quite frankly, could be at risk across the board. We could wake up finding ourselves importing from other countries, by necessity, a product that we now lead the world on.

You know, concrete is the second most used building material on Earth. The only thing that's used more than concrete is water. So Portland cement, which is the base ingredient in creating concrete, is as important to the building of infrastructure buildings, and basically everything that we live with, as anything on Earth. And we are in that business and we produce cement in various States in this country. We produce the Portland cement process, and these regulations would shut down factories and basically cause these international companies-- because all companies, whether they are based here or not, trade internationally--to move someplace else. And you wonder why jobs are going overseas. Well, in this case, in the cement industry, jobs will be going out of the country for one specific reason--government regulations beyond reasonableness.

The Cement Sector Regulatory Relief Act sponsored by Representative Sullivan, my good friend from Oklahoma, will provide a legislative stay of these rules--hold off, brother, we need to look at these things--and provide the EPA with at least 15 months to repropose and finalize new, and here's the magic word, achievable rules that do not destroy jobs and provide employers with an extended compliance period. Once again, quit cramming it down our throat. Quit saying you've got to do it tomorrow. Give us time to implement reasonable rules. And as we look at these rules, let's analyze what they are going to cost us in the way of jobs and in the way of our economy, and take that into consideration as you plan out the reasonable way forward. You'll find that many of the things that we'll be taking up in the next couple of months, right there is the secret key ingredient. We're going to come up with rules that you can achieve without destroying jobs that will still, over a long term, if you give time to comply, will meet the requirements that are necessary that people think to clean things up if they need to be cleaned up.

October 3 is when we are going to take that up. Sometime in the month of October or November we will take up another bill.

Oh, by the way, when you're talking about jobs in these Portland cement factories, these jobs are good jobs. These are labor jobs, but they are trained labor jobs. They are good jobs that pay somewhere between $65,000 and $85,000 each. Now, that's a good American job that ought to be done by an American, not by someone from China or from India because we have driven these industries out of our country.

Coal ash. H.R. 2273, these are anti-infrastructure regulations commonly referred to as coal ash rules that will cost hundreds of billions of dollars to fix, according to the existing regulations, affect everything from concrete production to building products, like wallboard. The result is an estimated loss of well over 100,000 jobs.

So, you know, at the end of this last month, we had no job gains. Not one job was created. That's what the report said. Well, just in the things that I've read to you so far as a result of these regulations, if all of this took place next month, just the numbers we've given, we're talking about 500,000 jobs so far that these bills that this Republican Congress is going to take up and try to get some reasonableness in this regulatory process.

It's time for this Congress to not surrender the lawmaking-- rulemaking is lawmaking--authority to regulators without overseeing what they are doing and making sure that they are not harming our economy and harming what is going on in America and the jobs that everybody needs. We can't afford to lose more jobs. We have to keep the people working who have jobs, and then we've got to enhance these businesses in such a way that they feel that they are not going to be threatened by surprise regulations; and, therefore, they are willing to say, I have got stable ground under my feet and I can start to expand and hire again and start to invest my capital which right now is sitting in the bank into new and better products, services, factories, et cetera.

So this coal ash bill that will cost this country 100,000 jobs, H.R. 2273, the Coal Residual Reuse and Management Act, sponsored by Representative David McKinley of West Virginia, will

create an enforceable minimum standard for regulation of coal ash by the States, allowing their use in a safe manner to produce products and protect jobs. It's just basically saying let the people who have this coal ash--and it's in certain States more than other places--use this coal ash and regulate this coal ash in such a manner that it does enhance the environment without destroying American jobs.

Once again, the Congress has got to act, and the Republican Congress is prepared to act.

Now, here comes my favorite of the crazy regulatory acts. The EPA is now proposing rules to regulate dust. Now, I live in Texas. We've got more highway miles than any other State in the Union, plenty of paved roads, but we've also got what we call farm roads and ranch roads. And in the western part of the State, those farm roads are covered with what we call caliche, which is a pulverized limestone, and over in the eastern part, they're covered with certain types of gravel. Some of it's river gravel and other things.

When a farmer drives up to his house on his driveway, it's usually got some kind of gravel or caliche on it and it kicks up dust. The EPA is now saying you can be fined for driving home every night on your gravel road. Now, what is your solution? Well, it's easy. Go out and spend $20,000 and pave your driveway--5 miles of driveway. So put pavement on it. Oh, but make sure you put a certain kind of pavement because it's got to have pavement that doesn't kick up dust. Arguably, if you use asphalt, it won't kick up dust, or concrete won't kick up dust--or not as much--but you might kick up a little more dust if you do what they call ``squirt top,'' which is what most farm roads are, which is tar with gravel spread on it. Until that gravel sets, it kicks up dust.

So even if you went to the expense to build a farm road that was a paved farm road, your paving method might kick up enough dust to get them to fine you and take money out of your pocket anyway. And the EPA now wants to regulate dust. California does this already. I asked one of my California colleagues, How do you keep from getting fined in California while having the dust regulations? Here's what they said: Water down your roads every day so it doesn't have dust. Mud is okay. Dust is bad.

Okay. Now that may be great for California. I don't know what the water situation is in California. But it hasn't rained in Texas. Some kids are about to go off to school and haven't seen rain in Texas, it hasn't rained so long. But seriously, I landed at the airport and looked out at this waterfall up here on the east coast, and said, Holy cow, we don't know what that looks like back home. Why don't they move all this water on the east coast down to Texas, where it hasn't rained, to my knowledge, in 6 months. And half of my neighboring county of Bastrop is burning to the ground because it's so dry and so hot, and we haven't had a rain in so long. We may be the only State in America that's praying that a hurricane will hit our coast so we can get some rain.

Are you going to tell that farmer that the only way he's getting that water that he's feeding his animals is through shallow wells that may have gone dry on him, or deep wells he has to drill to get to additional water under the ground, or windmills that are pumping that water, if you are out West, which are not that deep, and a lot of them have gone dry--his precious water that his livestock and his family needs to survive, he's got to take it out and squirt it on his road so he can get home at night?

Now, does that make economic sense to the American people? I don't think so. But then if you sit in the big EPA building in Washington, D.C., and have never even seen one of these roads and probably never been outside this Beltway, it may make perfect sense to that person in this paved world that we live in inside the Beltway. But it doesn't make sense to the average person that's trying to make a living all across the rural parts of the United States. And not just rural, but all across the United States where, unfortunately, we kick up dust. By the way, plowing kicks up dust. So then you can only plow when the fields are wet. Did you ever plow when the fields are wet? The only person who would sit in the EPA office and think that the farm products magically appear at their grocery store would know that you can't get off in a muddy field and plow effectively. Yes, you can turn up some moisture at the right time, and you can keep dust down, and farmers do. They don't want their top soil blowing away like it did in the Dust Bowl. They've learned their lesson about that, and they're doing the best they can, and I would commend them for doing it.

I went to school in Lubbock, Texas, back in the 1960s, at the end of what we call the Dust Storm era. And because of modern farming methods and so forth, they still have dust storms up there, but they're nothing like what they had in the fifties, nothing like what we had in the sixties, and I would argue that because of good modern farming methods, we keep the dust to a minimum. But we still sometimes have half the State of New Mexico blow through the panhandle of Texas.

Now, who are you going to fine? The State of New Mexico? The New Mexico farmers? The Texas farmers where it lands? Who's going to be responsible for all that dust that's out there in the air? Well, the EPA says somebody is, because they set regulations, and that would be a violation of these regulations. The biggest shortage of anything in this town is common sense. This is the most nonsensical rule of anything that's come down.

One of our new freshman Congressmen, Kristi Noem, is a smart lady. She knows rural America. She knows the ridiculousness of this set of EPA rules. She's come up with a farm dust bill which we will take up this winter to make EPA start using some common sense. The President was asked a question about this in one of his meetings here recently at a town hall. He sent this farmer on a bureaucratic wild goose chase and he never got anything in return. So as a result of that, that farmer, his efforts which--that wild goose chase produced nothing that was satisfactory--Representative Kristi Noem of South Dakota has H.R. 1633, which would protect American farmers and jobs by establishing a 1-year prohibition against revising any national ambient air quality standards applicable to coarse particulate matter--that's dust--and limiting Federal regulations of dust which are already regulated under State and local laws. In other words, let the States take care of it.

Let me tell you something. This is not one of those Texas brags. We had dust storms when I went to school where girls didn't wear dresses in the spring because it would pick up pea gravel the size of a dime with those 60-mile-an-hour winds coming across the plains and it would blow that gravel so hard against their bare legs, if they had on dresses it would literally cut them off if they tried to walk to class. Now that's an act of God. Nobody created that wind. And certainly pea gravel is about as big a particulate matter that would be flying around anywhere. But the Federal Government doesn't control the wind, and it never will. We've got to get some reasonableness back into what's going on.

Finally, because I've been talking about this now for over a year, and in my office we are tracking every regulatory agency, and every day we're seeing new and bizarre concepts of what we need to do from regulatory agencies--we're seeing bugs shut down major highway projects. When the President laughed and he said he learned that shovel-ready jobs are not really shovel-ready jobs, he should have gone on to tell you why many of those shovel-ready jobs weren't shovel ready, and it was because of regulations created by the regulatory agencies that stopped legitimate road and bridge projects that were funded. I have one in my district right now that is funded and the dozers are on the ground, ready to move, and that project is shut down by one of these many, many regulations. It's the same across the country.

We can't do today what FDR did. It's great to talk about what FDR did. I don't think it accomplished a whole lot in getting us out of the Depression, but that's my opinion. But the facts are you couldn't build a Hoover Dam today. Just up and go out there and start building a Hoover Dam. My Lord, just to build an electric power plant,

the number of regulatory agencies and permits that you would have to have would cover the walls of this Chamber before you even get to break ground. I've seen those rules put on walls. It's an amazing number of rules. We are a world of government control of everything. That's what these regulatory acts are about.

Finally, this Congressman, John Carter, because of looking at this stuff now just for the last year or so, I really and truly think the best thing we can do to give the stability to the employers who employ people is to basically ban the implementation of any new Federal regulations from now through January 31, 2013, guarantee a 2-year window for businesses to hire without any fear of new costs from regulations, and certain exceptions would be allowed for the military or foreign affairs or internal agency management and personnel rules. So they'd still be able to have regulations that fit in those categories and make sure that we keep our foreign operations and our military operating. They have to make rules to operate under. We would exempt those particular things. But the rest of them, we would say: Timeout. Continue your studies. Continue your discussions. I would encourage you to extend an arm out to business to say, This is what we're looking at. Let's hear what you think.

Let's start putting ourselves together with the idea that people are part of this environment, too.

People are really what makes up this country. Without people, we're just a barren land. People, to live, need to have a job, and the people who create jobs need to have a reason for hiring people and giving them a job. People who have ideas--the great driving force of America, the new idea. We just have so many examples of new ideas just in the high- tech industry and the communications industry, the revolution that has taken place just in the last 10 years of new ideas. Those new ideas come from the freedom to think and the belief that you can take that idea and put it into reality without somebody stepping on your toes and preventing you from doing it.

These regulations and this control from Washington, D.C., this cradle-to-grave mentality that seems to be running inside this beltway and the creation of these regulatory rules is putting the brakes on our economy and putting fear in the hearts of American entrepreneurs and businesspeople and employers who want to make their business better by hiring those good people that we're graduating from our colleges and universities, those good people that are trained in trained skills that we need to put to work in America, and we'll put them to work in real jobs, not government-created jobs with borrowed money but real jobs that produce something and create wealth and make us and continue to keep us the most prosperous Nation on Earth.

It doesn't come from government; it comes from the people. The people are the wealth of this Nation--their ideas, their entrepreneurship, the investment of their own personal capital, and their willingness to take a risk on America because they know America is great. And to people who don't think we're great or think that they're smarter and can be inside this beltway and make rules that can do a better job of telling you how to run your life or how to drive home on your farm road than you know, I say, Get out of the way.

That's what this fall is going to be about. We're going to be bringing these things up. And these are things that are going to be discussed and talked about and voted on this fall because we Republicans believe that the right path to create jobs and create wealth in America is to get the regulators to start thinking in terms of creating jobs, not destroying jobs; enhancing businesses, not negating businesses; and to put America back to work.

And if we put America back to work, all the rest gets better: the debt goes down; the tax revenues go up; the country has more to pay back the people we owe, which ought to be our first priority. We can get our financial house back in order. We can get our credit rating back that was taken away from us, and we can start operating like America has always operated. The business of this country is business; and as much as that was criticized back in the twenties, that statement is true today just like it was then. It's the American people that give the American people jobs, not the government.

Let's put the brakes on these regulatory things. We're going to do that this fall. I look forward to it. Pay attention to it. Members of this House and anyone around the country who has an interest, pay attention to it. Give us your input because we are bound and determined to level out and stabilize that playing field that business creates jobs on so that we can put America back to work.

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for your time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.

(Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

For years, the understanding in this country has been, if you show up for work every day and work your heart out and do your best, what you get in return is a good wage, good benefits, and a future that's secure as long as your company's secure, but it seems like that version of the American Dream moves another continent, another ocean, another day away each day that goes by.

Outsourcing is destroying the middle class in the United States of America, and this bill is the outsourcers' bill of rights. It says to an employer, if you want to use as an excuse the collective bargaining and union activities of your employees and you want to pick up and move to Central or South America or Asia, here's the way to do it.

This bill draws a map of jobs outside--rather, it draws a map as to how to take jobs from inside the United States and move them outside the United States. If an employer, under our law for decades, says that I'm gonna shut down and move my plant or my office because you dared to try to organize a union or you've spoken up

for the rights of the workers, that's illegal. The purpose of this bill is to remove the only effective remedy to combat that illegality.

If this bill became law, here's what would happen:

An employer who says, I'm tired of employees speaking up for their own rights. I'm tired of union organizing. I'm tired of collective bargaining. I'm moving to Malaysia, it would still be illegal under this bill for the employer to say that, but there would be nothing the labor board could do to stop that; because if the employer formed a shell company in Malaysia and took all of the money and put it in the shell company, and the labor board said, Well, you've got to pay backwages to the people you just laid off, there would be no money to pay the backwages.

This is the outsourcers' bill of rights. We don't need an outsourcers' bill of rights. We need a working person's bill of rights in this country. We need a bill of rights that says, if you hold up your end of the bargain, the American Dream will no longer move out of your reach.

This is a bill that overreaches, it undercuts the middle class of this country, and it should be defeated.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds.

The record should reflect the fact that there is an allegation that Boeing, in the case that the gentleman mentioned, because of reasons of union discrimination moved those jobs. There is nothing in this case that says, if a company uses a legitimate business reason other than discriminating against worker rights, they can't do so.

At this time I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to a lifelong advocate for the working people of the United States of America, my friend from New Jersey (Mr. Payne).

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to a very persuasive voice against outsourcing, my friend from New Jersey (Mr. Holt).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 20 seconds.

The previous speaker's claim that the National Labor Relations Board is dictating where jobs go in America is utterly incorrect. If any company said, We want to move from State A to State B because we think the State tax structure in State B is more favorable to us, they have an absolute right to do so. The issue is whether they can move because they want to discourage and undercut the right of collective bargaining. If they want to destroy collective bargaining, they can.

At this time, Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to a very persuasive voice for the working families of America, the gentlelady from Hawaii (Ms. Hirono).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds.

The gentleman from Virginia just said that this bill restrains companies from growing jobs. Here's what it restrains. It restrains from saying to a worker who dares to stand up and bargain for themselves and fight for themselves, ``You're fired.'' That's what it restrains; and it should restrain that, because that's our law.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to one of the most passionate voices for working Americans in the modern history of this country, my friend from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to a daughter and sister in a union family who doesn't forget where she came from, the gentlelady from New York (Mrs. McCarthy).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 20 seconds.

My friend who just spoke indicated that this decision, or attempt by the NLRB, would destroy jobs in South Carolina. That's not accurate. On page 8 of the NLRB's complaint, it says the relief requested by the NLRB does not seek to prohibit respondent, Boeing, from making nondiscriminatory decisions where work will be performed, including work at its North Charleston, South Carolina, facility.

At this point I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey), a strong, progressive voice for working people in the United States.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the most effective leading voice for working people in America today, the senior ranking Democrat on the Education and Workforce Committee, my friend from California (Mr. Miller).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds.

We don't have a czar controlling executive pay in this country. We have executives acting like czars outsourcing jobs around the world and ruining the middle class. That's the problem in the United States.

It is my privilege at this time to yield 3 minutes to the Democratic whip, who strongly understands the value of collective bargaining, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the leader who's leading the fight against outsourcing and for collective bargaining, the minority leader of the House Democrats, the gentlelady from California (Ms. Pelosi).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 10 seconds.

I'm sure the gentleman did not mean to imply that those of us who take our side are not patriots. We think patriotism includes the right to freely and collectively bargain, and we stand for it.

I am pleased at this time to yield 1 minute to a widely respected advocate of the people of the State of Washington, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee).

(Mr. INSLEE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to a person who understands the international implications of economic growth and collective bargaining, my good friend from California (Mr. Berman).

I thank my friend.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to a passionate voice to fight the ravages of outsourcing in our country, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings).

Mr. Speaker, at this time I am pleased to yield 1 minute to a gentlelady who favors job creation over outsourcing, the gentlelady from Hawaii (Ms. Hanabusa).

Mr. Speaker, at this time it is my honor to yield 1 minute to a gentlelady who has been a fierce advocate for jobs for New York City but, more importantly, for all of America, the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Clarke).

I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, when one listens to the back-and-forth in this debate, there's a lot of different points and I'm sure some confusion that flows from that. But the debate's really pretty simple, and it's about one question: If a group of people working at a business in this country chooses to try to organize a union and bargain collectively for their wages and their working conditions, and the employer is discomforted by that and the employer comes in and says, ``I don't like the fact you're trying to form a union and bargain collectively and assert your rights, so I'm moving to Malaysia. I'm out of here,'' should that be legal or not? We believe emphatically it should be illegal.

To say to American workers that they dare to speak up for themselves, they dare to assert their rights, they dare to bargain collectively, therefore their jobs could be moved overseas is wrong. It is illegal today to do that.

Now, in the Boeing case, a judge will decide whether or not Boeing did that. If the judge decides that Boeing didn't, the case is over. If the judge decides that Boeing did, then there will be remedies that would lie against Boeing.

But this is what this case is really about, this issue is really about, this bill is really about in the lives of daily Americans. How many of our constituents are sick and tired of making a call about their credit card or some other account and realize that the person in the call center at the other end is in Asia and has no idea what they're talking about?

If you want more outsourcing, if you think the problem in America is that too many jobs are being created here and we do more for other countries around the world, then this is your bill. But if you've had it with outsourcing, if you want jobs to be created in America, what we ought to do is defeat this bill and rapidly bring to the floor the jobs plan the President of the United States stood in this Chamber last week and proposed.

Let's stop creating jobs around the world and start creating jobs around America. Let's stand up for collective bargaining, and let's defeat this bill.

Statement of Professors From Colleges and Universities Across the

United States on HR 2587

HR 2587, currently being considered by the House of

Representatives and endorsed by a majority of the House

Committee on Education and the Workforce, would amend the

National Labor Relations Act to take away from the NLRB the

ability to remedy unfair labor practices involving the

removal of work or the elimination of jobs by requiring

employers to undo their unlawful actions. As scholars of law

and labor policy, we are deeply concerned about the far-

reaching impact this bill would have on employees' basic

rights to organize, to bargain collectively, and to engage in

other concerted activities protected by the NLRA.

The language of the proposed amendment to the Act is

sweeping. It provides that the Board shall have no power to

order an employer (or seek an order against an employer) to

restore or reinstate any work, product, production line, or

equipment, to rescind any relocation, transfer,

subcontracting, outsourcing, or other change regarding the

location, entity, or persons who shall be engaged in

production or other business operations. This language has

been justified by the bill's sponsors and critics of the

Board as a response to the NLRB Acting General Counsel's

actions in issuing a complaint against Boeing Corporation. As

such, it would prevent the Board and the courts from

directing Boeing to restore work to its employees in

Washington State in the event that the company is found to

have illegally moved the work in retaliation for those

workers' exercise of legally protected rights.

But that unprecedented interference with a pending legal

proceeding for the benefit of a particular employer is not

all that the bill would do. If enacted, HR 2587 will

eliminate the ability of the NLRB and the courts to

effectively remedy any discriminatorily motivated decision to

transfer work from employees or eliminate their jobs not for

legitimate business reasons, but because the employees have

engaged in union or other NLRA-protected activity. It will

also eliminate any meaningful remedy for an employer's

refusal to bargain with a union in circumstances where it is

required to do so before transferring or contracting out work

performed by workers the union represents.

The Board has long held that moving jobs from one facility

to another or shutting down a particular operation to avoid

unionization or to punish workers for engaging in protected

activity violates a basic policy of the Act, that of

insulating union activity from economic reprisal.\1\ The same

is true of discriminatorily motivated decisions to

subcontract or outsource work.\2\ The standard remedy for

such a violation, regularly affirmed by the Federal Courts of

Appeals, is an order to the employer to return the work that

has been unlawfully eliminated or removed.\3\ In the

interests of economic efficiency, however, the Board will not

require restoration of work if the employer can show that it

would be ``unduly burdensome'' to do so.\4\

An order to restore work that has been eliminated or

removed is also the standard

remedy in cases where the employer's actions were taken in

violation of its duty to bargain. In unionized workplaces,

employers have a legal obligation to bargain over certain

decisions affecting where and by whom bargaining unit work is

performed. If the employer acts unilaterally, without first

bargaining with the union until the parties reach agreement

or are at impasse, the Board routinely orders the employer to

rescind the unilateral action and restore the work until the

duty to bargain has been satisfied, subject again to the

``unduly burdensome'' standard.\5\

If HR 2587 becomes law, the Board will be precluded from

ordering this common-sense relief. Employers will be able to

eliminate jobs or transfer employees or work for no purpose

other than to punish employees for exercising their rights

and the Board will be powerless to direct the employer to

return the work regardless of the circumstances.

Without the ability to order a unionized employer to bring

back work that has been unilaterally transferred or

outsourced in violation of the duty to bargain, the Board

will also be unable to insure that employees, through their

union, are able to engage in meaningful bargaining over such

decisions.

We are dismayed that a single complaint, not yet tried by

an administrative law judge argued to the Board, or ruled on

by the courts, should be the basis for so fundamental a

reversal of long-standing law. The legal theory on which the

Acting General Counsel's complaint against Boeing is based is

thoroughly consistent with existing law. Contrary to the

claims of critics, the Acting General Counsel is not seeking

to dictate where Boeing assigns work, but only to insure that

such actions are not taken in retaliation for workers'

exercise of rights protected by the NLRA. In fact the

complaint itself specifically states that ``the Acting

General Counsel does not seek to prohibit Respondent from

making nondiscriminatory decisions with respect to where work

will be performed, including nondiscriminatory decisions with

respect to work at its North Charleston, South Carolina,

facility.''

But as we have shown, the impact of HR 2587 would go well

beyond overruling the Acting General Counsel's actions in the

Boeing case. If enacted, it will give tacit permission to

employers to punish any segment of their workforce that

chooses to unionize or to exercise the right to strike by

eliminating their jobs. It will allow unionized employers who

find it convenient to ignore their duty to bargain with the

union before transferring or eliminating bargaining unit work

to act unilaterally without concern for legal consequences.

Employers will be able to eliminate lines of work, hire

subcontractors, switch jobs to non-union facilities or

transfer them out of the country in violation of the NLRA--

secure in the knowledge that the Board will be unable to

order it to undo those actions.

In the Committee report regarding the bill, the majority

states, ``To ensure employees can continue to exercise their

rights under federal labor law, the NLRB will continue to

have more than a dozen strong remedies against unfair labor

practices to protect workers and hold unlawful employers

accountable.'' However, the report does not list those

remedies and we are at a loss to identify them. The Board's

remedial power under existing law is already severely

restrained. The Board cannot impose sanctions. It may not

seek to punish wrongdoers. It cannot impose fines; it cannot

require anything that would amount to a new contract between

the parties. If the bill passes, the Board will have no

effective response to basic unfair labor practices.

The Committee majority seeks to justify the reducing of

employee rights and Board authority by claiming that it is

merely strengthening the employer's right to make basic

business decisions, including where and how to invest its

resources. We reject the premise that restoring work to those

who would perform it were it not for the employer's unlawful

action violates an employer's basic entrepreneurial rights.

The policy of restoring victims to the position they would

have been in had it not been for unlawful conduct is common

throughout our legal system, and it represents no more than a

recognition of simple justice.

endnotes

\1\ See, for example, Frito-Lay, Inc. 232 NLRB 753 (1977)

(employer violated the Act by shutting down plant and

transferring the work to another facility in response to a

union organizing campaign); Lear Siegler, Inc., 295 NLRB 857

(1989) (same).

\2\ See, for example, Century Air Freight, 284 NLRB 730

(1987) (employer's subcontracting of trucking work violated

Act because purpose was to avoid bargaining with union). See

also Aguayao v. Quadrtech Corp., 129 F. Supp. 2d 1273 (C.D.

Cal. 2000) (granting the Board's request for an injunction

stopping an employer from moving its California operations to

Mexico in retaliation for union organizing).

\3\ See, for example, Mid-South Bottling Co. v. NLRB, 876

F.2d 458 (5th Cir. 1989) (affirming appropriateness of Board

order directing bottling company to reopen a distribution

facility closed because employees voted for union

representation); Woodline Motor Freight, Inc. v. NLRB, 843

F.2d 285 (8th Cir. 1988) (upholding Board order requiring

employer to restore trucking operations transferred to

another facility after employees engaged in union organizing

campaign); Statler Industries, Inc., 644 F.2d 902 (1st Cir.

1981) (approving Board order directing employer to restore

office jobs relocated to another facility in order to

frustrate union organizing activity).

\4\ Lear Siegler, Inc., supra, 295 NLRB at 861.

\5\ The Board's authority to order such a remedy in refusal

to bargain cases was expressly affirmed by the supreme Court

in Fibreboard Paper Products Corp. v. NLRB, 379 U.S. 203

(1964), which upheld a Board order directing an employer that

contracted out the work of its maintenance employees without

first bargaining with the employees' union to resume

maintenance operations and reinstate the employees. The Court

said the order restoring the status quo ante ``to insure

meaningful bargaining'' was well-designed to promote the

policies of the Act and had not been shown to impose an undue

burden on the employer. Id. at 216.

Institutions and affiliations listed for identification purposes only

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

I thank the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Scott) for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this yet another closed rule and in even stronger opposition to the underlying bill.

The difference between the two parties could not be any clearer. While Democrats continue to push for legislation that will create American jobs, Republicans continue to attack American workers.

After more than 250 days, the majority, House Republicans, have no jobs agenda, nothing. Instead, they have brought forth job-destroying legislation that could cost up to nearly 2 million jobs, and they have voted to end Medicare, cut Social Security and slash Medicaid.

Today, sadly, is no different. Instead of bringing the American Jobs Act to the floor, the Republican leadership gives us H.R. 2587, the ``GOP Job Outsourcers' Bill of Rights.''

Mr. Speaker, it is no secret that my Republican colleagues detest the National Labor Relations Board. They have made that crystal clear in the past few months with their amendments to cut the NLRB's funding and undermine its authority.

But today they have sunk to a new low. The bill before us guts the very fundamental rights of American workers to fight for better wages and working conditions, and it makes it easier for companies to outsource American jobs overseas.

Not a single hearing was held on this bill, not one. No objective assessments were done by the GAO or the Congressional Research Service, not even any evaluation on the impact on wages or job security of the millions of American workers who will be touched by this legislation.

If this is the Republicans' idea of a job-creation plan, they are even further off base than I thought.

I would like to think that my Republican colleagues haven't thought through the wide-ranging repercussions of this bill. So let me take a moment to educate them.

Companies in the United States are free to move their operations as they see fit, as long as it's not in retaliation for workers exercising their right to organize, to demand better benefits and safer working conditions, or to ensure a full day's pay for an honest day's work.

And the plain fact is, if a company is allowed to retaliate against its workers simply for exercising their lawful rights, every worker in every other State, including South Carolina, will lose some of their fundamental rights. A year from now, if Boeing decides to move production from South Carolina to China, to retaliate against workers who try to organize a union, the NLRB would have no power to order those jobs to be kept or transferred back to the United States. For many American workers today, the NLRB's authority to restore or reinstate work that has been unlawfully transferred, outsourced, or subcontracted away from workers exercising their lawful rights is the only remedy they have to keep their jobs.

By eliminating the power of the NLRB to order work be restored or reinstated, a CEO may simply eliminate the work and thereby the worker. That CEO may even explain to the workforce that he eliminated the work because it was pro-union. Even worse, H.R. 2587 would apply retroactively to any complaint that has not been resolved by the time of enactment, including the Boeing case.

This is a terrible, terrible, terrible precedent. Congress has no business sticking its nose into an ongoing legal proceeding. We have no business changing the rules of the game in the middle of the game.

Republicans have sent a clear message: if you aren't a CEO of a Fortune 500 company, you shouldn't have any rights in the workplace. For the millions of hardworking middle class workers who are struggling to support their families and pay their bills, H.R. 2587 is a slap in the face.

Democrats will not stand idly by as this Republican Congress tries to dismantle the rights of American workers. American workers have fought hard and earned these rights. They have sweated and bled and sometimes died to secure them. I am proud to stand with those workers and their families.

I find it sad that this Republican leadership, a leadership that routinely fights to protect tax loopholes for corporations that shift jobs overseas, is now bringing this horrible anti-worker bill to the floor.

I urge my colleagues to reject this far-reaching legislation and get back to work to bring real and meaningful job creation bills to the floor. Stop this assault against American workers.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I just want to clarify a few points. I would remind my friend from South Carolina that he and every single Republican in this House voted for the Republican line budget, which basically destroys Medicare as we know it, voucherizing the entire system.

I also will remind him that it is his party's leading Presidential candidate right now who is advocating eliminating Social Security. And now we have a bill on the floor that my Republican friends are supporting that will make it easier and more likely that U.S. corporations will ship U.S. jobs overseas.

Stop the assault on American workers.

At this time I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Lynch).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Lynch).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

I want to make it crystal clear that this Republican bill does not protect or create jobs. What it does is it forces American workers to fight over existing jobs by giving up their legal rights and underbidding each other. This is about a race to the bottom.

The problem I have with my Republican friends is their economic policies are all about lowering the standard of living for working families in this country. We should be trying to increase the living standards for American workers.

I yield myself an additional 30 seconds.

Rather than bringing up a bill that makes it easier and more likely for U.S. corporations to send U.S. jobs overseas, they ought to be bringing to the floor the President's jobs bill that he talked about here in the United States Congress about putting people back to work. He came up with a series of bipartisan initiatives that will help stimulate and jump-start this economy. Rather than doing that, which will put people back to work, we're debating an anti-worker bill that's going to make it more likely that U.S. corporations will ship U.S. jobs overseas.

It is wrong, and I would urge my Republican friends to stop your assault on American workers.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Sutton), who believes that it is wrong for the Republicans to pass legislation to make it easier for U.S. corporations to ship U.S. jobs overseas.

Mr. Speaker, let there be no mistake. The Republican bill creates open season for CEOs to punish workers for exercising their basic rights.

My friends on the other side fight tooth and nail to protect all these corporate tax loopholes that actually encourage companies to move their jobs overseas. We can't touch them. They fight with passion on the floor to protect them.

But when it comes to protecting American workers, they're AWOL. I don't know what it is that they have against American workers, but this bill undermines the rights of American workers to be able to stand up and ask for a decent wage for an honest day's work. It undermines their ability to ask for benefits like a good retirement benefit. This is about taking away rights and powers of workers.

Granted, these workers don't give big PAC checks. They're not the leaders of the Fortune 500 companies. But these people are the backbone of our economy. We should be standing up for American workers in this Congress. We should be fighting to protect American jobs to keep them in the United States.

This bill makes it easier, in fact, more likely that corporations and companies will retaliate against workers who stand up for their rights by sending their jobs overseas to places like China. Why in the world are we doing this?

We should be trying to find a way to empower workers in this country. It shouldn't be about a race to the bottom. And it shouldn't be about States competing for existing jobs.

This is a bad bill. This is a bad precedent. And quite frankly, again, it is typical of what the Republican agenda is all about when it comes to the economy. It's about a race to the bottom. It's about lowering the standard of living for American workers while protecting the big CEOs, the heads of the Fortune 500 companies. Their rights are always protected. But when it comes to the little guy, my Republican friends are on the opposite side.

Mr. Speaker, I now yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

I yield the gentlewoman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, I remind my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that it's September. When are you going to bring a jobs bill to the floor? When are you going to bring legislation that's going to help put people back to work during this difficult economy?

At this time I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).

I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, we should be talking here on the floor and debating and considering an infrastructure bill to put people back to work. We should be taking up the entirety of the President's jobs proposal that he delivered in a speech a week ago. We should be taking up things that will actually help this economy and put people back to work. Instead, we are dealing with a bill that will make it easier and more likely for U.S. corporations to ship U.S. jobs overseas. And this is a bill that creates a new race to the bottom for American workers' rights, wages, benefits, and working conditions, and it is bad for this economy.

Why do my Republican friends continue to insist that the only way to deal with our economic problems is to lower the standard of living and the quality of life for American workers? Why are all the tough choices being made on the backs of American workers?

We can do much better in this country. We need to be focusing on jobs, not on this stuff.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman talks about creating a healthy business climate. I don't know how we're creating a healthy business climate by passing a bill that makes it easier and more likely that U.S. corporations will ship U.S. jobs overseas.

After more than 200 days in the majority, House Republicans have passed no bills, none, no bills to create jobs, moving instead on job destroying legislation that could cost up to nearly 2 million jobs, with more to come.

This week, to make matters worse, we're taking up this legislation that will encourage the shipping of jobs overseas and a bill that will weaken the middle class. Instead of creating jobs and strengthening the middle class and protecting workers' rights, the Republicans are making it easier for corporations to send American jobs overseas. And it allows employers to punish their employees for simply exercising their rights to organize, to demand better benefits and safer working conditions, and to ensure a full day's pay for an honest day's work. I mean, that's what this bill does.

You know, in 2000, the National Labor Relations Board was able to force a company to bring jobs back to the United States from Mexico, as the company was charged with shipping jobs to Mexico in retaliation against workers seeking to organize a union. Under this Republican bill, American workers would lose this protection.

Again, their plan for the economy is all about lowering the standard of living, lessening the quality of life for American workers, while protecting those who are most fortunate in this country, those who head up the big companies.

We should be debating on this floor today the President's job bill. If my Republican friends don't want to vote for it, they don't have to; but that's the legislation that should be brought before the Members of this Congress today, not this bill, a bill that punishes American workers. Enough. You've been punishing American workers since you took the majority. Enough is enough.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Then I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, let me state for the record that this bill is not a retaliation against right-to-work States. I'm not a big fan of right- to-work States in terms of how they treat workers and those who want to organize unions; but this bill is really about protecting workers from corporations that retaliate against them simply for demanding their rights and organizing for their rights.

The Republican bill changes the rules mid-trial to benefit a particular Fortune 500 company, Boeing; but this bill has wide-ranging repercussions for American workers. This bill does not protect or create jobs. It just doesn't. It forces American workers to fight over existing jobs by giving up their rights and underbidding each other. It's a race to the bottom.

The Republican bill makes it easier to ship U.S. jobs overseas. There's no question about that. And the Republican bill creates an open season for CEOs to punish workers for exercising their rights. Again, this is a further assault on the rights and protections that workers have fought so hard for for so many decades, and this bill undermines the duty to bargain in good faith. This is an anti-union bill--there is no question--among other things.

The bill also encourages law-breaking and intimidation by employers. It removes a key disincentive against employers who unlawfully threaten employees with job loss during organizing drives.

The Republican bill creates a new race to the bottom for American workers' rights, wages, benefits, and working conditions. We're going in the wrong direction with this bill.

This bill is one more assault on American workers, on the American middle class. Time after time after time the Republican leadership has stood up for Big Business and against the American middle class. Higher gas prices--Republicans protect Big Oil tax breaks and do nothing to help the average consumer. Health care coverage for

our kids through the age of 25--Republicans side with the health care companies that put profits over patients.

With this bill, Republicans are promoting job creation overseas by allowing companies to move overseas in retaliation of workers who are exercising their own legal rights. Not only that, this bill goes back in time and applies this bill retroactively. This is just like changing the value of a touchdown in the middle of the Super Bowl simply because you don't like the score of the game. This bill would be a joke if it weren't so serious.

I would urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, this is not about protecting right-to-work States. Really, this is not even about unions. This is about the rights of workers in this country. This is about protecting American jobs. This is about urging companies to invest in the United States and not making it easier for them to create jobs overseas.

We're in a difficult economy right now, Mr. Speaker. We should be debating on this floor the President's job bill. Every day we should be doing something about jobs. And, instead, here we are in September. My Republican colleagues have done nothing. They've done nothing except continue an assault on middle class families.

Today, it's workers. They're going after Medicare in the Ryan budget. Their leading Republican Presidential candidate is talking about eliminating Social Security. All the protections, all the rights that middle class families have fought for and have won that are essential to a decent quality of life they're trying to take away. Enough.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this closed rule and ``no'' on this bill.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield?

I'm just curious. When are we going to debate a bill on this floor that helps create jobs? Why don't you bring the President's plan to the floor and let's have it out?

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 372, I call up the bill (H.R. 2587) to prohibit the National Labor Relations Board from ordering any employer to close, relocate, or transfer employment under any circumstance, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 2587.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 2587, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

The Protecting Jobs From Government Interference Act is a commonsense proposal that will prevent the National Labor Relations Board from dictating where an employer can and cannot create work. Upon the date of enactment, this limitation will apply to all cases that have not reached final adjudication by the full Board.

Now, more than ever, the American people are looking for leadership out of Washington and some common sense. They want to know their elected officials are willing to take on the tough issues and make the difficult decisions needed to get this economy moving again. They need to believe Congress has the courage to tear down old barriers to new jobs, regardless of the political cost. After 31 straight months of unemployment above 8 percent, we cannot afford to cling to the status quo any longer.

This legislation represents an important step in the fight to get our economy back on track. It tells job creators they don't have to fear an activist NLRB reversing important decisions about where to locate a business. It offers workers peace of mind by ensuring no Federal labor board can force an employer to ship their jobs across the country. And it tells the American people we are serious about getting government out of the way of small business owners and entrepreneurs who are desperately trying to do what they do best, create jobs and opportunities for our Nation's workers.

On April 20, the National Labor Relations Board sent a shock wave across our struggling economy. In a complaint filed against the Boeing Company, the NLRB demanded that this private company relocate work already underway in South Carolina to Washington State. The Board has more than a dozen remedies available to protect workers and hold employers accountable. Regrettably, the Obama NLRB exercised the most extreme remedy and, as a result, put the livelihoods of thousands of South Carolina workers on the line. Equally troubling, countless workers across the country now fear they could be subject to a similar attack in the future.

Make no mistake. Every worker deserves strong protections that ensure they are free to exercise their rights under the law. This legislation preserves a number of tough remedies for the Board to punish illegal activity. This Republican bill simply says that forcing a business to close its doors and relocate to another part of the country is an unacceptable remedy for today's workforce.

If the NLRB is allowed to exercise this radical authority, it will have a chilling effect on our economy. Businesses, at home and abroad, will reconsider their decision to invest in our country and create jobs for American workers. We have already heard stories of Canadian business leaders doing just that. No doubt, these difficult choices are being discussed on shop floors and boardrooms across the country and outside our borders.

Last month, this Board unloaded a barrage of activist decisions that undermine workers' rights and weaken our workforce. If the President will not hold the Board accountable for its job-destroying agenda, Congress will. It is time we forced the NLRB to change course. This is a sensible reform that will encourage businesses to create jobs right here at home.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the chair of the Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee, the gentleman from Tennessee, Dr. Roe.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to a wonderful representative of the people of Tennessee and the American people, a member of the committee, the gentleman from Tennessee, Dr. DesJarlais.

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to a member of the committee, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Rokita).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to another member of the committee, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Bucshon).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to another member of the committee, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Gowdy).

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire of the time remaining?

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

Then at this time I will yield 2 minutes to another member of the committee, the gentlelady from Alabama (Mrs. Roby).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Westmoreland).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to another member of the committee, the gentleman from Nevada, Dr. Heck.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to a member of the committee, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Ross).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Crawford).

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire again about the time remaining?

I will inform my colleague from New Jersey that I am expecting another speaker; so at this time I will reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, it is apparent that we have two speakers, a gentleman from Virginia and one from Texas who apparently are not going to be able to get here on time; so I will be closing when Mr. Andrews has exhausted his speakers.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

There is always an interesting debate on the floor. This has been another example. We have some fundamental differences in how we view the problems and, more importantly, the solutions facing our country.

Both sides recognize that we have high unemployment, historically high, with 30 months of unemployment over 8 percent, 14 million Americans out of work. Both sides want the economy to grow and people to get back to work. But one side believes that more regulations--by the last account some 219 in the pipeline coming from this administration--more regulations, more spending money that we don't have, more government interference will somehow get Americans back to work; and the other side, Mr. Speaker, believes that employers, the private sector, small businesses, entrepreneurs, middle-size businesses and large businesses create jobs, put Americans to work.

Now, the National Labor Relations Act, as has been discussed, has been around for a long time. Neither side is suggesting that Americans don't have the right to organize and to bargain. I beg to differ with my colleagues on the other side. That's not what this is about.

But what we have here is a case where the act creates a board which, by

its nature, changes back and forth, depending upon who's in the White House, so that it has more Democrats one time and more Republicans another. And so I would argue and have argued that for some time, the board, in enforcing the act, is causing some whipsaw of the economy. I'll concede that.

But right now with this board, I would argue that, as one of my colleagues on the other side said, there was an agenda over here. I agree, there is an agenda. The board has an agenda.

There is a rainfall, a torrent of rulings coming out of this board that strike at the heart of American job creators that create jobs. One of those rulings--and I agree that it's an interim ruling. It's a ruling by the acting general counsel. One guy looks at the actions that a major American company has taken to create more jobs, to spend a billion dollars, build a plant in South Carolina, hire over a thousand people. One guy says, No, I don't think so. I think, says he, this is a transfer of work and it's in retaliation; I think that.

So it's been pointed out this is an ongoing process. And one of my colleagues in the committee said, Well, nothing bad has really happened here. Let's let this play out.

No, no. I beg to differ.

Go to Charleston, South Carolina. Talk to those thousand employees about their future and the uncertainty that this brings. Talk to the companies who are looking at creating jobs, starting businesses in this country and are looking at this ruling and the threat this poses and reconsidering their actions.

So, Mr. Speaker, I believe we have a choice. We can stand, we can sit, we can watch, or we can step up and try to help Americans get back to work in America by stopping this action and the threat that it poses to companies across America.

So I encourage my colleagues to vote for this legislation. Let's get Americans back to work in America.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit.

I appreciate the words of my colleague from New York, but if he and others on the other side of the aisle are looking for a way to stop jobs from going overseas, I've got really good news for him. H.R. 2587 is a step in the right direction.

Right now, the National Labor Relations Board is exercising an extreme remedy that has a chilling effect on job creators here and potential job creators who would like to come here from abroad. And right now, Members of Congress have an opportunity to say, ``Stop.''

But don't take my word for it. Listen to the employers, themselves.

Recently, the National Association of Manufacturers asked thousands of American manufacturers a simple question about the Boeing complaint, which was: Could this NLRB complaint negatively impact your decisions on hiring or workforce expansion plans?

Sixty-nine percent of those manufacturers who responded to the survey said, yes, this complaint could negatively impact decisions to grow their businesses and hire new workers.

At a recent hearing of the Education and the Workforce Committee, former NLRB Chairman Peter Schaumber described an encounter with 60 Canadian business leaders. Mr. Schaumber told us, ``A few with whom I had an opportunity to speak with afterwards expressed real concern about doing business in the United States as a result of the agency's complaint against the Boeing Company.''

Thanks to the NLRB's actions, efforts by manufacturers to hire workers are being undermined, and international employers are concerned about doing business here in the United States. This is the hostile environment to new jobs and economic growth that is created by this decision, and it must end.

So, as I noted earlier today, we can stand by or sit by, or we can stand up and do something about it. My friends had ample opportunities to offer amendments in committee. They chose not to do that. It was a procedural step. I understand that. It doesn't go to fix the hostile environment that has been brought forward by this activist NLRB.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the motion to recommit and ``yes'' on the underlying bill.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 372 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Because the one Republican amendment submitted to the Rules Committee was not germane and because the Democrats chose not to offer any amendments at all, House Resolution 372 provides for a closed rule for consideration of H.R. 2587, the Protecting Jobs from Government Interference Act.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of this rule and the underlying bill. The underlying bill would amend the National Labor Relations Act to prohibit the NLRB from ordering any employer to relocate, shut down or transfer employment beginning the date of passage. Since the NLRB filed suit against Boeing, I have been reminded of an old saying: ``A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.''

What you see now is exactly that, Big Government killing jobs under the guise of protecting workers. Let me be clear. Despite what opponents will say, this is not a union issue. This is a classic example of government overreach which will, in the end, destroy American jobs and encourage companies to look elsewhere in the world.

With unemployment at 9.1 percent and an economy which is best described as fragile, we do not have the luxury of being able to afford this action. Plain and simple, my legislation will remove the NLRB's ability to kill jobs.

The government, especially an unelected board, does not need to be involved in the business decisions of the private sector. In fact, it cannot be. We already live in a country where our corporate tax structure is the second highest in the world, and we cannot add another strike against us.

Today, the NLRB's overreach threatens 1,100 jobs in my hometown of north Charleston. Let me say that again: 1,100 jobs already created and filled. Who is to say tomorrow it does not preclude another company from looking to expand, not just in South Carolina, a State where our unemployment rate is at 10.9 percent, but anywhere in the country. This instability is the last thing our job creators need right now.

Once again, Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this rule and the underlying legislation. This commonsense solution will help spur job creation and, more importantly, it will remove impediments to job creation.

I encourage my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the rule and ``yes'' on the underlying bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

There are a couple of comments I would like to make on my good friend's comments.

For one thing, not a single union employee, not a single employee in Washington State--Puget Sound, Washington State--has lost their job because of the new line of work being done in North Charleston, South Carolina.

Another comment that my good friend made had to do with Medicare and what the Republicans are doing to Medicare. Let us not forget the fact that without any question the legislation that has the greatest impact on Medicare and its funding for the future happens to be the national health care plan passed by the Democrats where they stripped $500 billion, $500 billion, out of Medicare to pay for the debacle known as national health care.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Joe Wilson.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Phil Roe.

Mr. Speaker, I would certainly love to hear a single case, a single specific comment, a single specific fact to undergird your comments, I would say to my friend from Massachusetts.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee, John Duncan.

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

I would just say to my good friend, Mr. McGovern, that there's no doubt about it that the President's jobs plan does one thing. And it's consistent with what the NLRB would do as well. It doesn't simply ship American jobs overseas. It ships American companies overseas so they do not have to play in the quagmire pit called the regulations that this President and the Federal Government have imposed on businesses.

To quote from the conservative Chicago Tribune: The NLRB's worst decision, however, is its unprovoked ``hit'' job on Boeing. There's no question that whether you're a conservative, a liberal; whether you are a passionate believer in the future of this Nation and this world, here's one thing we all have in common: the decision for the NLRB to attack America's greatest and largest exporter is wrong and indefensible.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Mulvaney).

My good friends on the left continue to talk about shipping jobs out of America. I want to make sure that everyone still recognizes the fact that the great State of South Carolina is still a part of the United States of America. In fact, when you think about it, you must scratch your head when in fact the Washington State employees now

have more people there working than they had when we opened the plant in North Charleston. In fact, if you're talking about creating American jobs in American States--U.S. States--South Carolina--you would simply look at the fact that 1,100 employees have been hired in North Charleston. You would think about the fact that the compounding impact of those jobs in North Charleston could create up to 12,000 new American jobs in our States.

So the fallacy of the left is nothing more than rhetoric.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Jeff Duncan.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 90 seconds to the gentlewoman from Tennessee, Mrs. Diane Black.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Kansas, Mr. Mike Pompeo.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi, Mr. Steve Palazzo.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Robert Hurt.

Mr. Speaker, I advise my colleague from Massachusetts that I have no remaining speakers.

I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, my good friend from Massachusetts continues to talk about the President's jobs plan that is nothing more than a brand spanking new stimulus plan spending $467 billion by increasing taxes on everyone, including the middle class. I cannot find it in my heart to say to Mr. McGovern that the President's plan has any opportunity of passing in this House, because the bottom line is simply this: we ought to spend our time focused on the things that we have in common. It is time for the games to stop.

We should look at the President's plan and pick out those parts of the plan that we agree with. We should start by talking about having an opportunity to work on corporate tax reduction, flattening the tax rate for corporations. We have the second highest tax rate in all of the world, and this environment creates an unlevel playing field for America's job creators.

I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Our President wants an up-or-down vote on this one package.

We believe that the fastest and most effective way to show the American people that partisan politics is over and that we're now focused on the American people, we will take those parts, those aspects of the President's bill that we agree with, like regulatory reform like we're doing today, and simply say to the American people that we're listening. We will take, without any question, an opportunity to debate the necessity of reducing the corporate tax structure to make America's corporations more competitive.

Mr. Speaker, I sincerely hope we can move past the politics and the games which so often sidetrack things in Washington and pass this important legislation here today.

This is not a question of pro-union--I agree with you--or anti-union. It is a question of right versus wrong.

The NLRB has plenty of tools at its disposal to protect workers and hold employers accountable for unlawful labor practices. There is simply no reason it should have the power to dictate where a private business can establish its workforce.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.