Regulatory Time-Out Act of 2011

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I appreciate the Presiding Officer's comments earlier in support of the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act of 2011. The Presiding Officer and I--both Democrats--joined by five Republicans and three other Democrats--are the prime sponsors of the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act of 2011.

The cloture motion on the motion to proceed was agreed to--the rules in the Senate are sometimes a bit impenetrable, but the cloture motion on the motion to proceed to the bill was agreed to last night with 79 votes out of 98. So there is clear interest in this body to debate one of the most important jobs bills we have seen in front of us, I say to the Presiding Officer, in our almost 5 years in the Senate. I have not seen in my time here another jobs bill be voted on this overwhelmingly, this bipartisanly, that was this important for putting people back to work.

Let me sort of expand on that. First of all, this Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act of 2011 has broad support from business and labor. It creates jobs without spending taxpayer dollars. In fact, this legislation raises revenue and reduces our deficit, clearly, because when people go back to work, people who are now on unemployment benefits--sometimes receiving food stamps, sometimes getting other subsidies, maybe trade adjustment assistance, which the Presiding Officer has been so involved in--instead, people going back to work will be paying taxes and not be the beneficiaries of those programs. So it is a plus both ways in terms of reducing our government's budget deficit.

Most important, it is in response to an enormous problem, an enormous economic threat, brought on by the Chinese Communist Party Government. Senators Schumer, Casey, Snowe, Stabenow, Sessions, Burr, Hagan, Collins and I have been working closely to bring this bill to the floor. I thank the majority leader, who usually sits at this desk, for bringing this bill to the floor to respond, purely and simply, to China's protectionist trade policies. This is not the United States turning inward and pointing fingers at other countries. This is a response to Chinese protectionism, to Chinese economic policies and trade policies that have been unfair, that cheat--the Chinese have cheated--and that cost us American jobs.

We know when a factory closes--we have had 50,000; Senator Sanders said earlier today, we have had 50,000 factories close in this country in the last decade or so, not all because of China. I do not blame them nearly for all that. But when a factory closes, we know what it does to a community, whether it is in Harrisburg, whether it is in Sharon, whether it is in Erie, whether it is in Cleveland or Akron or Canton.

I am encouraged by my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who support this bill who see how China's protectionist trade policies have undermined businesses, have disadvantaged manufacturers, and ultimately, most importantly, have cost American jobs. We all know the problem. For years, China subsidized its exports by adopting artificial, manipulated exchange rates not based on market forces. As a result, China's exports to the United States remain cheap, our exports to China remain more expensive. In other words, because they cheat on their currency, a product made in Wuhan and sold in Lima or Dayton, OH, will be cheaper because they have subsidized their production by weakening their currency.

At the same time, if a company in Lima or Dayton, OH, tries to sell into China, the cost of that item is 25 percent more because China has gamed the currency system. So by keeping the value of the renminbi, the RMB or the yuan, the words for the Chinese currency, by keeping the RMB artificially low, China incentivizes foreign corporations to shift production there because it reduces the price of investing in China and makes Chinese exports cheaper.

In this continued devaluation--I use the percentage 25 percent, some economists say it may be as high as 40 percent, but clearly it is that range--they are cheating, they are gaming the system 25 to 40 percent. Think about in Pennsylvania and Ohio, two States that have a lot in common. Think about a company, think of two gas stations on opposite corners. One buys its oil 25, 30 or 35 or 40 percent less expensively, pays a lower price than the competitor across the street. It is clear what is going to happen. The competitor that cannot get the break, get the subsidy, is going to go out of business pretty quickly.

It is that phenomenon that has caused serious harm to the U.S. economy and has cost America jobs. In 1993, the Chinese currency, the RMB, was valued at approximately 5.5 to 1 U.S. dollar. Then, from 1995 to 2005, it was valued at about 8.28 without change during that period. That can mean one of two things: a huge coincidence or blatant currency manipulation.

Our trade deficit with China in 1993 was about $30 billion, $40 billion--in that range. Today, we run a deficit 8, 9, 10 times that, of $275 billion--a bilateral deficit just in our relationship with the Chinese. According to a recent Economic Policies Institute report, since China joined the WTO, the World Trade Organization, in 2001, 2.8 million jobs have been lost or displaced in the United States as a result of the U.S. trade deficit--2.8 million jobs. That is hundreds of thousands in my State. It is tens of thousands in States as small as West Virginia. It is hundreds of thousands in States as large as Pennsylvania.

Currency manipulation is not the only reason China enjoys an enormous trade surplus, but it is certainly a big part of the reason. From 2005 to the middle of 2008, we started to fight back and were headed in the right direction, however slowly. The Senate overwhelmingly supported a measure offered by New York Democratic Senator Schumer and South Carolina Republican Senator Graham that would put tariffs on Chinese imports if the government did not let its currency appreciate.

All it did was it wiped clean the advantage China had created by manipulating its currency. That bill passed the Senate, but it did not pass the House. It was never signed by the President. But what it did do was get China's attention. Beginning in 2005, China began to do a slight currency appreciation, which allowed for a few years of modest progress toward letting its currency appreciate.

But then in the summer of 2008, China abandoned its feigned interest in fairness. It once again fixed the value of the renminbi against the U.S. dollar. Then, in June 2010, China vowed to allow its currency to float more freely against the dollar and other foreign currencies. The Peterson Institute for International Economics found that, despite the intervention appreciation, the RMB is even more undervalued today against the dollar than it was 1 year ago. That is the recent history of China's currency manipulation.

The Chinese, in other words, when they know people are watching, when they see the U.S. Government, with our very strong economy--even when we look weak internally and way too many people unemployed, we are the major economic force on Earth--when they see us doing something, they respond. They start to act a little better. It is a little bit similar to a naughty kid. When the parents are watching, they are going to act better. When the Chinese--we hope our kids do not break the law the way the Chinese do, international trade law, but when we watch them, they behave better. When we exert discipline on them, in other words, we are going to change this law the way they have gamed the system on currency, they begin to let the currency float and let it appreciate and do some better, more fairminded things.

New research by economists at MIT shows how much damage China's trade and export policies have done to our labor market and to our communities. The report shows China imports actually have effects on jobs but also increased use of Federal programs such as the Social Security and disability insurance program. Of course it does. When people get laid off, all kinds of things happen in their lives. They apply for food stamps. They may lose their home, causing, if they are foreclosed on, the values of homes in the neighborhood to decline, and the public schools do not have quite the support. They may not be able to hire one teacher as a result of a handful of people losing their jobs. All those things happen. So when the Chinese game the currency system and jobs are lost in Pittsburgh or in Dayton, then bad things happen in Pittsburgh and Dayton to those families, to those communities, to those States.

What has been our response when our trading partners use any means necessary--low labor costs, direct subsidies, currency manipulation--to compete? What has been our response? It has been inaction. We have not done very much. It has been adherence to the status quo, and we can no longer afford to do that. Some like the Presiding Officer from Pennsylvania and others of us around here have been beating the drum for a long time that these trade agreements are not fair, that they are not fair to the American worker and to Americans, particularly small manufacturers. Bigger manufacturers kind of take care of themselves. They kind of do it by moving production overseas. Small manufacturers usually cannot do that.

We know what it does to our workers--bad tax law, bad trade law, bad currency policy. This bill is a modest measure. It is not as sweeping as I would like to do. But it is a modest measure that gives our government the tools to fight back. With different parts authored by several of my colleagues, this bill came from two other bills we put together. The bill updates the processes and tools the government would have at its disposal when it comes to countries that are currency manipulators, that are in some ways repeat currency manipulators.

Senator Snowe from Maine, a Republican, and I, a Democrat, have worked on a part that would immediately designate unfair subsidies as an unfair trade practice. That means jobs for a number of industries: coated paper in southwest Ohio, tires in Finley, OH, aluminum extrusion, tubular steel in northeast Ohio. It means more American manufacturers, from autos to clean energy, can petition the government against unfair subsidies from importing countries.

That measure is combined with comprehensive measures to reform the structural deficiencies in our government's approach to combating currency manipulation. That part of the bill was spearheaded by Senators Schumer and Graham. It would improve oversight of currency exchange rates--and I would add Senator Stabenow was involved in that.

It would improve oversight of currency exchange rates. It would ensure that the Treasury Department properly identifies countries that undervalue their currency. Under the Omnibus Trade Act of 1988, the Treasury Department is required to formally identify countries that manipulate their currency for the purpose of gaining an unfair competitive trade advantage. In recent years, Treasury has found that certain country's currencies were undervalued. It was pretty clear and pretty obvious.

Reputable economists from the Reagan administration, from the Carter administration, for years respectable economists were saying these currencies were undervalued 25 percent, 35 percent, some have said as high as 50 percent. It was pretty hard for the Treasury Department to say anything other than these countries' currencies were undervalued.

However, based on the interpretation of the law's legal standard for a finding of manipulation, the finding of the word ``manipulation,'' Treasury has refused and continues to cite such countries as currency manipulators.

Our legislation is bipartisan. As I said, five Republicans, five Democrats are the primary sponsors. It got 79 votes. Three Democrats voted against moving the bill forward yesterday; 16 Republicans voted against it. So it has broad bipartisan support.

But what is amazing is the President of the United States, in either party--President Bush was negligent in finding of manipulation. President Obama has been negligent in finding manipulation. I will give some credit to President Obama in his move, in some cases, of actually doing real enforcement of trade rules and trade laws. It has turned immediately into job growth in the Mahoning Valley, a new steel mill, in Finley with tires, in southwest Ohio with paper. But the President and the Treasury Department have just neglected to do their duty; that is, interpreting and saying China has manipulated currency.

The biannual release of this statutorily required report to Congress is almost a Washington charade. Last year, Secretary Geithner even announced he would delay the report's release. I care less about the exact timing of this report than I do the administration's willingness to be open with Congress and the American people about what it is doing and why it is doing it. But here is why it is important.

Some argue the Commerce Department already has the authority to treat currency manipulation as an export subsidy and apply countervailing duties. But the Commerce Department has tended to also kick these decisions down the road, duck the issue of currency manipulation when it investigates other subsidies. The bill puts an end to that bureaucratic end-around.

I told a story earlier today on the Senate floor. I would like to repeat it, briefly. A trade lawyer representing a southwest Ohio paper company told me China did not even have a coated paper industry, the glossy paper magazines are typically printed on--did not even have that technology until a decade or so ago.

When they started those companies in China, they bought their wood pulp in Brazil, they shipped it to China, they milled it in China, and they sold it back here--at the high cost of transporting something as heavy as paper, as bulky as paper, for the price of paper; it is a pretty expensive move to ship it from Brazil to China to the United States. The cost of labor is only about 10 percent of the production of paper. Yet China has found a way to underprice Ohio paper and underprice paper made in other parts of the country.

It is pretty clear that is, in part, because they get a 25-, 30-, 35- , 40-percent basically add-on benefit for their price because of currency manipulation. That is why, in part, they are being able to do that. They are probably subsidizing their water, their energy and their land and their capital also, so that they can underprice us. That is why this is so serious.

Ohio workers have lost jobs because China has gamed the currency system. That is all we should need to know. American companies have folded, have gone out of business, because China has cheated on its trade policies, not following the rule of law in the World Trade Organization. That should be enough to get 100 votes in this body.

It got us 79 yesterday. Our bill makes it clear that countervailing duties can be applied when imported goods benefit from currency manipulation as an export subsidy.

The bill would establish new criteria to identify countries misaligning currency--and trigger tougher consequences for those who engage in such unfair trade practices.

We can no longer accept China and other countries doing whatever it takes to make their exports cheaper. We can no longer accept that China continues to mount a massive trade surplus in the United States.

It is time to enforce the trade laws, and it is time the WTO enforces its rules.

Critics claim this bill would ignite a trade war with China. Frankly, they declared a trade war at least one decade ago. If it is not a trade war, critics assert this bill is not compliant with our World Trade Organization obligations.

I have listened to many multinational companies argue our bill will provoke retaliation by China. My question to these detractors is, How can China impose retaliation against something that is, in fact, WTO legal? But since receiving PNTR status and the benefits of WTO membership, China has taken money from American consumers and investors without fully opening its markets to American businesses and workers.

The results are record trade deficits and millions of lost jobs in Ohio and across the United States.

These arguments come from the same proponents of giving China PNTR status and WTO membership, so China would adhere to a rules-based trading system--and they predicted and promised in 2000, when it passed, that China would adhere to a rules-based trading system. They have not been. People care about our exports to China, as do I. Remember, currency undervaluation makes exports harder to sell also. Yes, our exports have grown in China. But while U.S. exports to China have increased to China, they have not come close to balancing imports from China. Imports from China have grown faster--in fact, about three times as many as we export to China.

Look at our trade deficit with China versus the rest of the world. In 2000, China represented 26 percent of our total trade deficit. Last year, it was just over 70 percent. In the space of 10 years, look how this changed. That is the whole story.

Currency is a big factor that cannot be denied. While many multinational companies don't say it, I think it is clear that even the most ardent proponents of China PNTR are feeling a bit of buyer's remorse because of China's aggressive protectionism.

Others, in criticizing this bill, will say there is nothing we can do to bring back the jobs we have lost--that Americans don't want to work at those jobs anymore anyway. That is a pretty naive view of American manufacturing. My State is No. 3 in manufacturing. California, which has three times the population, and Texas make more than we do.

If we don't act, we are not just talking about jobs in textiles or steel or tires, which are important; we are talking about jobs in clean energy, semiconductors, and auto supplies.

A trade war? WTO compliance? Retaliation? We welcome this debate. I want colleagues to come to the floor--some of the 19 who opposed moving this bill forward, when they say China will start a trade war and talk about WTO compliance and retaliation. The fact is China has been playing that trade war for 10 years.

The American people have been patient as the administration continues a strategy of talk without action. But our patience is up, as more U.S. businesses are undercut and more U.S. jobs are eliminated.

This bill is about economic competitiveness, where everyone is competing in the market by the same set of rules.

I have been to maybe 150 manufacturing plants in my State in the last 3, 4 years. I know American businesses can compete and American workers can compete. Let's make the playing field level, and S. 1619 will help us do that.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank Senator Levin. There is no better team in any State in the country than Senator Levin and Senator Stabenow. With all the troubles they have had in that State with manufacturing, as has my State, they are always on the right side of these issues and advocating for local companies, especially small companies that feed into the auto supply chain, and for the workers of those companies. So I am appreciative of his leadership for so many years.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 15 minutes.

Madam President, I wanted to come to the floor today because 2 days ago I got the results of an inspector general's report that I requested 18 months ago having to do with the endangerment finding of the EPA. While it is a little bit complicated, I will go back and put this in perspective.

Back in the 1990s, we were asked by the then-Clinton administration to ratify a treaty called the Kyoto treaty. This was a treaty that was aimed at the reduction of greenhouse gases--anthropogenic gases and this type of thing. Well, it didn't pass. It went down 95 to 0 because of two reasons: We all declared in this body we weren't going to ratify any treaty that, No. 1, was damaging economically to the country; and, No. 2, we would treat developing countries differently than developed nations. Of course this missed on both those criteria.

After that happened, it became popular by some of the more radical environmentalist groups who enjoy the overregulation we have so much of in this country to seek the introduction of different bills. We had the McCain-Lieberman bill of 2003 and again in 2005. We had the Warner- Lieberman bill and several others--the Sanders-Boxer bill--and then, I guess, the last one was a House bill called the Waxman-Markey bill.

Anyway, these bills were all aimed at what we can do in this country in order to restrict our use of CO2. Obviously--and there is no disagreement on this--if we in the United States unilaterally reduce our CO2, it will not affect the CO2 emissions worldwide because this isn't where the problem lies.

Even when I asked Lisa Jackson, the Obama-appointed Administrator at the EPA, for whom I have a great deal of respect, if we were to pass any of these bills I just mentioned--that would have the effect of the Kyoto treaty but only on the United States in reducing anthropogenic gases--would this have the effect of reducing CO2 emissions, she said, no, because, as I pointed out, this would only affect the United States.

I would take the argument one step further and say it would have the effect of increasing, not decreasing, emissions because, as our manufacturing base has to find power to generate itself, they have to go where that is. Anyway, I only wanted to bring that up because that effort is still going on today.

With all these bills that have been before us--and at the time of most of them the Republicans were in the majority and I was the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee which had jurisdiction over this subject--I was the one who stood on the floor of the Senate to defeat these bills, and it became easier as each bill came along because people recognized that while the science is in question, the economics are not.

It had been determined by a number of sources--including a branch of the Wharton School of Economics, MIT, and CRA, or Charles River Associates--that the range of the cost of a cap-and-trade bill is always in the range of between $300 billion and $400 billion a year.

It is confusing when we talk about these large numbers. Peoples' eyes glaze over. They do not understand, and even I have a hard time understanding how this affects me and my 20 kids and grandkids out in Oklahoma. So I have a system--and I recommend it to my friends in the Senate--that I take the number of family income tax returns that are filed each year--get a current figure--and then I do my math. So this range between $300 billion and $400 billion, when we reduce it down to what it would cost each family, is in excess of $3,000 a year. Even if we were to pass something like this, it still wouldn't reduce the emissions, and that is what we need to get over.

Anyway, when President Obama saw this, he saw there was no way in the world the Senate or the House would pass a cap-and-trade bill. So he decided to do it just by regulation, and we have been talking about overregulation in the Senate. Sometimes we are inclined to think the antibusiness attitude of this administration is just in overtaxation and this type of thing. That is not true. Overregulation is also a killer. In this case, we are talking about the overregulation of something we cannot sustain.

So in order for the President to be able to do through regulation what he could not do through legislation, he had to have what they call an endangerment finding; that is, the Environmental Protection Agency had to come up with a conclusion that CO2 is dangerous to our health. It is called an endangerment finding.

I was getting ready to go over to a meeting in Copenhagen they have every year. These people who are promoting these programs have these meetings, and I was getting ready to go over there, and we had Administrator Jackson before our committee. I remember looking at her and saying: I am leaving for Copenhagen tomorrow. Shall I assume you are going to have an endangerment finding as soon as I leave town? She didn't answer, but she smiled. She smiles a lot. Anyway, that is what happened when I left.

An endangerment finding has to be based on science, and that is where this inspector general's report came in. Again, this is new stuff, just 2 days ago. I had requested 18 months ago that they look into the endangerment finding to see if this, in fact, is based on science. Of course, they came out with

this report, which was just released. It confirms the endangerment finding, which was the very foundation of President Obama's job- destroying regulatory agenda, was rushed--and I am using their words, ``rushed, biased and flawed.'' It calls the scientific integrity of the EPA's decisionmaking process into question and undermines the credibility of the endangerment finding.

Keep in mind, we have to have an endangerment finding before we can start regulating all this stuff. Well, the inspector general's investigation uncovered the EPA's failure to engage in the required recordkeeping process leading up to the endangerment finding. That is a requirement by law. So they did not comply with the law at that time. It also did not follow its own peer review procedures. Peer review is something that is required, and they didn't do it.

Administrator Jackson readily admitted way back in 2009 that the EPA had outsourced its scientific review to the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Now, this is interesting because they are going back to say: All right, you guys. You do the peer review on the very thing you have developed. Well, it doesn't work that way, and I think at that time we were complaining about that. So the EPA still refused to conduct its own independent review of the science, as the EPA inspector general found. Whatever one thinks of the U.N. science, the EPA is still required by its own procedures, by law, to conduct an independent review.

Of course, I have long warned about the IPCC process and what they have been doing in the past. In fact, it was 6 years ago that I sent a letter to Dr. Pachauri, the head of the IPCC, specifically raising the many weaknesses of the IPCC's peer review process. But Dr. Pachauri dismissed my concerns, and here is what Reuters said in their article on how Dr. Pachauri responded to my request. I am quoting now from Reuters:

In the one-page letter, [Pachauri] denies the IPCC has an

alarmist bias and says ``I have a deep commitment to the

integrity and objectivity of the IPCC process.'' Pachauri's

main argument is that the IPCC comprises both scientists and

more than 130 governments who approve IPCC reports line by

line.

Now, that is what he said, as reported. As I predicted, it all came apart for the IPCC. On the Senate floor last year I highlighted several media reports uncovering serious errors and possible fraud by the IPCC. This is the United Nations we are talking about. They are the ones that started all this.

ABC News, the Economist, Time magazine, and the Times of London-- among many others--reported that the IPCC's research contains embarrassing flaws--using their language--and the IPCC chairman and scientists knew of the flaws but published them anyway. Media reports uncovered a number of non-peer-reviewed studies that the IPCC used to make baseless claims, including that global warming would--and listen to this; this is the IPCC stuff that has totally been rebuked--melt the Himalayan glaciers by 2035. Didn't happen.

It had 40 percent of the Amazon rainforest endangered by global warming. It didn't happen.

Melt mountain ice in the Alps, Andes, and Africa. It didn't happen.

Slash crop production by 50 percent in North Africa by 2020. It is something that is not even going on.

These embarrassments led to a number of these same publications to demand that the IPCC come clean on the review process of the IPCC.

I am going to read this to let everyone know how serious this is.

The Financial Times, talking about the IPCC:

Now it is time to implement fundamental reforms that would

reduce the risk of bias and errors appearing in future IPCC

assessments, increase transparency and open up the whole

field of climate research to the widest possible range of

scientific views.

Time Magazine has always kind of been on the other side of this issue. We might remember, Time Magazine had on their cover this last polar bear standing on the last cube of ice and we are all going to die. Time Magazine, when they talked about the glaciers all melting, said:

Glaciergate is a black eye for the IPCC and for the climate

science community as a whole.

The Economist:

This mixture of sloppiness, lack of communication, and

high-handedness gives the IPCC's critics a lot to work with.

Newsweek came out:

Some of the IPCC's most-quoted data and recommendations

were taken straight out of unchecked activist brochures,

newspaper articles, and corporate reports--including claims

of plummeting crop yields in Africa and the rising cost of

warming-related natural disasters, both of which have been

refuted by academic studies. Just as damaging, many climate

scientists have responded to critiques by questioning the

integrity of their critics, rather than by supplying data and

reasoned arguments.

That was in Newsweek. So their analysis was that they are doing all this stuff, and they resort to name-calling and this type of thing because they don't have a logical response for it.

Last year--and keeping in mind this is after I requested the inspector general's report and before; and still 1 year ago in a speech I made right here I said:

There is a crisis of confidence in the IPCC. The challenges

to the integrity and credibility of the IPCC merit a closer

examination by the U.S. Congress. The ramifications of the

IPCC spread far and wide, most notably to the Environmental

Protection Agency's finding that greenhouse gases from mobile

sources endanger public health and welfare. EPA's finding

rests in large measure on the IPCC's conclusions--and EPA has

accepted them wholesale, without an independent assessment.

At this pivotal time, as the Obama EPA is preparing to enact

policies potentially costing trillions of dollars and

thousands of jobs, the IPCC's errors make plain that we need

openness, transparency, and accountability in the scientific

research financed by the U.S. taxpayers.

That was a year before the IG report came out, and it is almost exactly what the IG report said just this last week.

Two months before that speech, I asked EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to delay the EPA endangerment finding based on Climategate. She told me--and I have a lot of respect for her, by the way. I have professed that many times. She is one whom normally I will ask her a question, and she will come out and give an answer, even though it may be an unpopular answer with her boss, President Obama. She said:

I do not agree that the IPCC has been totally discredited

in any way. In fact, I think it is important to understand

that the IPCC is a body that follows impartial and open and

objective assessments.

She is saying essentially the same thing:

Yes, they had concerns about e-mail. I do not defend the

conduct of those who sent those e-mails.

Here, they are talking about Climategate. We all remember those secret e-mails going back and forth between the principals to somehow fraudulently manipulate the science. She goes on to say:

There is peer-review, which is part of the IPCC process.

There are numerous, numerous groups of teams and independent

researchers all a part of coming up with IPCC findings, such

that even the IPCC has said that while we need to investigate

and ensure that our scientists are to a standard of

scientific conduct that we can be proud of, we stand behind

our findings.

So they are all whitewashing the work of the IPCC--again, that was before the IG report came out--but it didn't work because there are magazines throughout the world, publications which generally were on the other side of this argument or their side of the argument. The Guardian, for example, talking about Climategate and how they are a disgrace, said:

Pretending that this isn't a real crisis isn't going to

make it go away.

The Daily Telegraph said:

This scandal could well be the greatest in modern science.

This is what they are talking about with Climategate.

The Atlantic Monthly:

The stink of intellectual corruption is overpowering.

Let's remember, the economic ramifications of global warming regulations imposed upon the EPA under the Clean Air Act will cost American consumers somewhere in the range of $300 billion to $400 billion a year. This is not to mention the absurd result that EPA readily admits they need to hire 230,000 additional employees and spend an additional $21 billion to implement its greenhouse gas regime if they are not given wide discretion to circumvent the law, and all this economic pain is

for nothing--no gain at all. As the EPA Administrator admitted before our committee, it would have no effect on the overall release of anthropogenic gases.

Also, of note, what happened to the EPA's vow in 2009 that the Agency would commit to high standards of transparency because ``the success of our environmental efforts depends on earning and maintaining the trust of the public we serve'' or Obama adviser John Holdren's promise that the administration would make decisions based on the best science possible because, as the President said, ``the public must be able to trust the science and scientific process informing public decisions.'' Given what has come to light in this report, it appears the Obama EPA cannot be trusted on the most consequential decision the Agency has ever made.

I have already called upon the committees in the Senate--this would be my committee of which I am the ranking member, the Environment and Public Works Committee--to have an investigation. My gosh, I don't ever recall in the years I have been here an IG report coming out where there weren't numerous hearings to find out and to probe into why they came up with the decisions they made.

I have tried for 10 years now to pursue this thing with the various bills that were introduced to do legislatively--to implement the requirements. Then, when we see they are unable to do it--and if we look around this Senate, there are only about 30 votes now. They don't have half the number of votes to impose cap and trade. They don't have it. It is not here. That is why the President is trying to do it through regulations.

It is kind of interesting, if we put this in perspective. This supercommittee they keep talking about, the 12 people--6 Democrats, 6 Republicans, 3 from the House, 3 from the Senate--their goal is to find $1.5 trillion in 10 years. We have a President in his own budget--and this isn't Democrats or Republicans or House or Senate. This is the President. His three budgets he came out with have just under a $5 trillion deficit. That is inconceivable.

I can remember coming down here in the mid-1990s, when President Clinton was in power. The first $1.5 trillion budget we had, I complained this is not sustainable. Now it is $1.5 trillion over and above what it costs to run America. Obviously, that can't be done.

So when we stop to think about the fact that it should be fairly easy to find $1.5 trillion, that would just be his deficit for 1 year to find $1.5 trillion.

This is kind of hard to follow. But if they were successful in implementing what they could not do by legislation and have a cap and trade, that would cost a minimum of $300 billion a year; or, multiply that by 10, that would be $3 trillion.

So we have this supercommittee out there trying to find $1.5 trillion; at the same time, they are advocating increasing the cost to America by $3 trillion. It is not believable.

I think it is very important, and I am on the floor now trying to gather support for having a hearing. We can't have an IG report talking about the flawed product of the EPA, of the IPCC, of the United Nations and not have some kind of investigation. I hope we will be able to do that.

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

Mr. President, my main purpose is to address the China currency bill, particularly in regards to the remarks of Speaker Boehner and Chairman Bernanke. But there are two other points I wish to make on previous speakers' comments. First, Senator Webb's amendment.

It is a very important amendment. What it says, of course, is that in cases where commercial technologies are developed with the support of U.S. taxpayers, it prohibits companies from transferring the technology to countries that force proprietary transfers as a condition of doing business. We have seen this over and over.

China, which does not play fair up and down the line, basically gets away with economic murder. One of their techniques is to say to a big American company: We will allow you to sell a ton of stuff to us. You will make lots of money. But in return you must give us your proprietary technology--basically your family jewels.

It is outrageous, and in the long run it weakens America's ability to grow and create jobs. The companies do this because in the 5- or 10- year period in which they have signed the contract, they get a lot of revenue. But it certainly hurts American workers, and it certainly hurts these companies in the long run. But the CEOs probably figure they will be long gone before that money is made. So I want to support Senator Webb's amendment.

In regards to my good friend from Utah who proposed an alternative, I would say this: We have tried for a decade to get multilateral action. That involves getting China's acquiescence. It is not going to happen. Multilateral action--like saying to the Chinese: Please--has not worked. It will not work. Our legislation is much stronger. It can pass. It got a large vote here this week. It has bipartisan support.

I know Speaker Boehner--I will talk about this in a minute--has said he will not take up our bill. But there is going to be huge pressure for him to do so, as I will elaborate later.

So to my good friend from Utah--and I have tremendous respect for him, and I do not doubt for a minute his good intentions, his integrity, his hard work and desire to see things happen. To say to the Chinese: Please negotiate, is a strategy for weakness, is a strategy for failure, and multilateral action will not succeed. The Chinese understand only one thing--I will yield in a brief moment to my colleague for a question or a comment, whichever he prefers.

But the Chinese only understand one thing: being tough; telling them, if they do not discontinue these actions we are going to take action unilaterally on our own. I have been doing this for years. I can tell you, China's policies get worse and worse and worse. As one of my constituents said to me: Uncle Sam, when it comes to China, is Uncle Sam.

To have a policy that involves large multilateral actions and says to the Chinese: Come and negotiate with us, makes no sense at all.

I yield for a brief moment on my time to my colleague from Utah--for a minute or so.

I thank my colleague, and I understand his good intentions and desire to get to the same place, which is to get China to behave fairly. I certainly will look at his bill.

I simply say this: Growing up in Brooklyn, we had to deal with a lot of bullies. The only time bullies give in is when you stand up to them. The proposal my colleague has made does not stand up to China.

The nations of the world have made their opinions clear. Recently, Brazil did. China doesn't care. They will only

care if there are sanctions, tough sanctions that give consequences to their unfair--and usually illegal by WTO standards--action.

Now I want to talk about Speaker Boehner's remarks and Ben Bernanke's remarks.

Last night was a milestone in the Senate. For years, the Government of China has been willfully breaking the rules of free trade without provoking a formal response from the U.S. Government--until yesterday. The full Senate for the first time went on record that it wanted to consider formal action to confront China's currency manipulation. It was a lopsided vote, a bipartisan majority of both parties, with 79 Senators in favor. We will spend the next few days debating the particulars, but make no mistake about it, when it comes to China's unfair trade practices, there is a consensus to act in the Senate.

It can be hard at times here to get 79 votes to turn the lights on. When the majority leader and the minority leader vote together to move forward on a major jobs-boosting measure, we should not delay in moving forward. But then today, less than 24 hours after the Senate saw the overwhelming vote in favor of moving forward to finally confront China with real action, the Speaker of the House of Representatives suggested he would not take up the bill if it passes the Senate. He called it dangerous. The Speaker's argument is behind the times. The only thing that would be dangerous would be to continue turning the other cheek while China mounts its assault on U.S. jobs, U.S. wealth, and U.S. manufacturing. Up and down the line, they oppose fair practices. They are mercantilists, maximizing their wealth at the expense of American workers, American companies, and American jobs.

Critics like the Speaker say the bill could start a trade war with China. Well, I have news, Mr. President: We are already in a trade war with China, and it is not going that well. American companies are fighting for survival in the United States and around the globe, battling subsidized Chinese exports with a built-in price advantage of 20 to 40 percent.

We cannot raise the white flag on American jobs, American wealth, and American manufacturing. We can compete successfully against Chinese competition at home and in China and around the world but only--only-- if we level the playing field. Our bill helps level that playing field.

There is already a trade war going on, I say to the Speaker. China is cheating to gain unfair advantage. It is about time we do something about it. As Mr. Samuelson said in his article in the Washington Post, the only thing worse than a trade war--and I believe that won't happen because China has more to lose in a trade war than we do, and if they are one thing, they are smart, and they won't cut off their nose to spite their face. They may take a few sanctions, but they won't create a trade war. The only thing worse than even a trade war is continuing our present policies where, 5 and 10 years from now, America cannot get up off the ground because of unfair Chinese policies.

The House Speaker seems to want to sit out this fight. He seems to want us to take a hands-off approach to China. He says, ``This is well beyond what Congress should be doing.'' I am aghast at that notion, that the Speaker says that fighting for American jobs against unfair practices China foists upon us is well beyond what Congress should be doing. What should we be doing? There is nothing else Congress should be doing except rising to defend American jobs.

If he doesn't believe these practices are unfair, he should just listen--the Speaker should--to Chairman Bernanke. This is what he said this morning:

The Chinese currency policy is blocking what might be a

more normal recovery process in the global economy. It is . .

. hurting the recovery.

He is the top economist in the land. It is hurting the recovery, I say to the Speaker. That is what Ben Bernanke said. Does the Speaker really think it is beyond what Congress should be doing--to confront something that is hurting the recovery, that everyone who studies it says is unfair, that nobody has come up with a solution to? Multilateral negotiations? Give me a break. China won't budge. We know that.

I find it ironic that the Speaker wants a hands-off approach on China's unfair currency practices considering he, along with the rest of the Republican leadership in both the House and the Senate, just sent a letter a couple weeks ago seeking to meddle in U.S. currency policies. Just 2 weeks ago, the Republican leadership in the House and Senate sent a letter to Chairman Bernanke trying to influence his handling of monetary policies in a highly inappropriate way. It was nothing short of a breach of a protocol that has long been observed, which is that you don't put political pressure on the Federal Reserve because they need to handle monetary policy in an economic way, not a political way. A former Fed official called that attempt to politically meddle in the Fed's independent policymaking outrageous. Politico wrote that the letter was ``an audacious move against a central bank that prizes its political independence.'' A leading economist said that ``it crosses a line that shouldn't be crossed.''

Let me get this straight. The Speaker and the House leadership feel it is OK to cross the line and try to strong-arm the Fed but it is not OK to have the will to stand up to China. This is totally inconsistent, and it is hard to figure out how you could do one thing one week and say another the next week--unless, of course, the House leadership's goal is to hold back our economic recovery. I fear to think that. I fear to think their goal is to make sure the economy is so bad that they might do what our Republican leader said was his No. 1 goal: unseat President Obama. I shudder to think that the millions of American households without jobs, with people looking and searching to find a way to provide some dignity for their families, have to be political fodder for a goal to hold the economy back. I don't want to embrace that conclusion, but it is hard to see another explanation for, on the one hand, trying to twist the arm of the Fed when it comes to U.S. monetary policy but when it comes to fighting back against China, to say: Hands off. That is totally inconsistent.

I also find the Speaker's position on this China currency measure strange because if he blocks this measure, he is effectively thwarting the will of his own Members in the House, where there are 225 cosponsors--61 Republicans at last count--for a measure similar to the one being debated in the Senate right now. It is clear there is a consensus in the House very similar to the one here in the Senate. So I urge the Speaker to heed his own Chamber and put this bill on the floor. Don't thwart your own Members who want to support this measure. Give it an up-or-down vote. Even if the leadership doesn't want to vote for it, they should at least allow the will of the House to go forward. They should not suppress the collective will of their Chamber because at the end of the day you have to ask yourself which side you are on.

Two major candidates for President on the Republican side support this legislation. John Huntsman, who just got back from China--hardly known as a radical--said he would sign this bill. I haven't talked to him, but I can tell you, having worked on this issue for 6 years, I am sure that former Ambassador Huntsman is totally frustrated with the Chinese, and he knows that, unfortunately, the legislation introduced by his fellow Utahan doesn't address it and that the Chinese don't react when you ask nicely. They don't react when you ask, period. They only react when there are consequences that are harmful to them if they continue the unfair, anti-free-trade policy.

For some inexplicable reason, the Republican leadership in the House is siding with the Chinese Government. This is not the time to go soft on China. The top economist in the country tells us China is holding back the recovery. Many other economists say that China, in its currency policies, is thwarting and distorting world trade. I have seen some list it as one of the causes for the international recession we have. We know--we know--it costs America in jobs.

I want to relate what I did yesterday. Just one company in upstate New York--and I remind some of the editorial writers and pundits who say this will just move jobs from China to Bangladesh, that they are 5 years behind

the times. We are not talking about jobs that are in labor-intensive industries such as toys, clothing, or furniture. Those are gone, and they are not coming back. They are talking about top-end, middle-size, and smaller size American manufacturers and producers who have to fight with one hand tied behind their back because of Chinese currency.

This company, which makes a ceramic that is put in generators, electric generators, prevents pollution. They have a great ceramic tool. They are doing fine. But a few years ago, China stole it; they just took it. The head of the company told me he didn't mind because his growth was so large just from selling these in the United States and Europe that if China wanted to sell them in China, where they are building lots of powerplants, so be it. But now China is not only producing them for consumption in China--his product--it is producing them to export to America, and this gentleman said he cannot compete with them head to head. But when China gets a built-in 30 percent advantage on intellectual property that they stole, how is he going to survive?

That story can be repeated over and over. Of course China is holding back our recovery. Of course China's policies lose us millions of American jobs and hundreds of billions of dollars of American wealth. And finally this body, in a strictly bipartisan way, with five lead Republicans and five lead Democrats as cosponsors--and we have criticized both Presidents Bush and Obama for their failure to act-- this body gets some resolve, and the Speaker says no.

Do you know what, I don't believe his ``no'' is going to stand. This is an issue the American people know has to happen. This is something they care about--Democrats and Republicans. Look at the polling. There is no partisan divide; it includes both liberals and conservatives. You don't have to have a Ph.D. in economics to know that China is cheating us and playing unfairly with us.

I believe the pressure from Members on both sides of the aisle in the other body and, more importantly, from the American people and manufacturers all over the country could work, could get the Speaker to reconsider his view. And I plead, pray, and hope that it does because there is no greater step we can take to restore jobs in America than to pass this important bill, get it enacted into law, and see, for once, our top-notch American companies be able to compete evenly--a fair fight--with Chinese manufacturers.

I thank the Chair, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise in support of amendment No. 680 that we have filed. I am concerned that the bill before us will have only marginal effects on China's manipulation of its currency. My amendment offers a different approach, one which I believe

will be more effective over the long term.

Let me first say, I strongly agree with the sponsors of this bill about the need to send a strong signal to China, and other currency manipulators as well, that massive intervention in the currency markets to gain trade advantage will no longer be tolerated. For the international economic system to work, every country, including China, needs to play by the rules.

Similarly to many of my colleagues, my frustrations with China's trade and economic practices go far beyond currency manipulation. For example, China's failure to protect intellectual property rights, China's industrial policies, their limitations on American investment, and their unfair support and subsidization of State-owned and State- assisted enterprises are all very serious problems we need to address.

So while today we are focusing on currency manipulation, I look forward to working with Senator Baucus to examine potential solutions to these problems through Finance Committee hearings on China, which I hope we will hold soon.

The sponsors of this bill assure us that their approach is WTO consistent and will not result in a trade war with one of our largest trading partners. Given the importance of these questions, I wrote Secretary Geithner and Ambassador Kirk to request the administration's views. While they assured us they are reviewing the bill, to date, they have not publicly weighed in one way or the other. It seems to me they need to weigh in. Given that they know the Senate is debating the legislation this week, I think this is very unfortunate. If the administration is going to have any impact on this debate, I would urge them to comment soon.

Even though I have supported similar legislation in the past, I have continuing reservations about this approach. Fundamentally, we must remain focused on one question: Will this legislation actually solve the currency problem with China? After careful consideration, I have come to the conclusion it will not. While well-intentioned, the bill is too focused on unilateral remedial actions. As a result, I fear the bill will only have a marginal effect on China's practices, while at the same time potentially targeting many U.S. exporters for trade retaliation by China.

For example, the Congressional Budget Office scored this bill as generating $61 million in revenue over 10 years. To put this in context, in 2010 alone, the United States imported almost $365 billion of goods from China. Given the scope of the problem, I find it difficult to believe that unilaterally imposing an additional $6 million in antidumping and countervailing duties a year on Chinese imports will compel China to change its currency policies or have any meaningful impact on our trade deficit with China.

Many of the other remedial provisions in this bill require the U.S. Government to take other unilateral actions against China, many of which may actually harm U.S. exporters directly or expose them to potential retaliation by the Chinese. To succeed over the long term, I think we must go in a different direction.

My amendment does just that. My amendment strikes the unilateral provisions while retaining the core of the bill that actually advances our shared goal of combating Chinese currency practices. I agree with my colleagues that the exchange rates and International Economic Policy Coordination Act of 1988 is simply not working. Administration after administration refuses to exercise its authority and deem China a currency manipulator. This is enormously frustrating to all of us, especially since candidate Obama campaigned against China's current currency practices, and after being elected had his own Treasury Secretary testify before Congress that China is, in fact, manipulating its currency. Yet they refuse to act.

So I agree the Congress must tighten the criteria and establish a more objective approach to identifying fundamentally misaligned currencies and designating fundamentally misaligned currencies for priority action.

I supported this goal in the past and continue to today. I also agree we need to hold the Secretary of the Treasury and the U.S. Trade Representative accountable. So I have retained the requirements under this bill that they report to and testify before Congress on their progress. But to succeed over the long term we need to adopt a fundamentally different approach.

We have had some success in the past. For example, during the Bush administration, from 2005 to 2008, negotiations pushed China to appreciate its currency by 20 percent. Unfortunately, the Obama administration has had no such success.

My amendment builds on this successful model but also takes it a step further. First, my amendment directs the Secretary of the Treasury and the U.S. Trade Representative to initiate negotiations in the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund to develop effective remedial rules and actions that will mitigate the adverse trade and economic effects of fundamentally misaligned currencies designated for priority action under this bill, and that will encourage priority action countries to adopt appropriate policies to eliminate the fundamental misalignment of their currencies.

The WTO and the IMF were designed to handle complex issues like currency, so we should start there and work with our allies to devise long-term and effective solutions. Working with like-minded countries, we should be able to agree that when individual members advance their nationalistic interests so aggressively through currency manipulation that they threaten the whole global economy and their own long-term interests, and their actions need to be addressed.

Many of my colleagues may argue that negotiations in the WTO and IMF will not work. My amendment addresses that potential problem in its second section. It provides that if the Secretary of the Treasury and the U.S. Trade Representative cannot make progress to effectively mitigate the adverse effects of fundamentally misaligned currencies within the WTO and the IMF within 90 days, then the administration shall enter into plurilateral negotiations outside of the WTO and IMF to develop agreements with our friends and allies who are also committed to open and fair currency policies.

These negotiations will need to develop mechanisms to mitigate the adverse effects of priority action country currency policies, and to encourage those priority action countries to abandon their interventions into their currencies.

We have seen multilateral approaches work in the past in combating some of China's unfair trade and economic practices. For example, China changed course on both its aggressive indigenous innovation policies and on efforts to hoard its rare earth materials primarily due to multilateral pressure against the Chinese. These important issues have not been solved and require additional efforts.

But by working with our friends and our allies, we effectively convinced the Chinese Government to take a more constructive approach. Let's build on the successes we have witnessed in recent years. Let's work together to counter, in a systematic and comprehensive way, the efforts of those priority action countries that derive trade advances through current policy.

To be clear, I am not suggesting that the United States violate any of its international obligations. That point is made clear in the amendment. But I am suggesting that the solution to the currency problem cannot be achieved unilaterally, and our negotiators must reach out to our allies to aggressively counter the behavior of China and others. So far the administration has failed to lead on the currency issue. My amendment requires that they do so.

The third section of my amendment helps maintain pressure on the administration to take concrete action. It requires the Treasury Department and the USTR to report to Congress every 180 days following enactment of this bill. In these reports the administration must identify: one, the countries with which the United States is conducting negotiations to mitigate the adverse effects of priority action currencies, and in what international fora or negotiating configurations those negotiations are taking place; two, the remedial rules and actions under discussion in those negotiations; three, any remedial rules that have been adopted and any remedial actions that

have been taken pursuant to those negotiations; and, four, what, if any, additional authority the Secretary or the U.S. Trade Representative needs from Congress to conduct these negotiations and to effectively mitigate the adverse trade and economic effects of fundamentally misaligned currencies or to implement coordinated actions with other countries.

Finally, my amendment sets up a process to immediately take advantage of ongoing international trade negotiations by establishing a new priority negotiating objective of the United States for ongoing and future trade agreements. This new objective requires that each party agree to not fundamentally misalign its currency in a manner that would result in a priority action designation and agree to work together to mitigate the adverse trade and economic effects of fundamentally misaligned currency by non-parties such as China.

For example, if the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations are to tackle 21st-century trade and investment issues, as the USTR continues to promise, I think this plurilateral negotiation would be a great place to start to address the challenges of fundamentally misaligned currencies. Working with this group of like-minded countries, we should be able to agree amongst all nine parties that no party will fundamentally misalign its currency.

We should also be able to agree to work together to counter the actions of other countries whose interventions in currency markets destabilize the global economy. We have seen multilateral engagement work in other areas. If we are truly going to solve this currency problem, we need to look at what other efforts have actually produced some results in moving the Chinese off a mercantilist policy course and improve the conditions for American businesses and workers competing against the Chinese.

We can all agree that China's massive interventions in its financial sector and currency have disrupted global trade and that its efforts to benefit China at the expense of others has harmed many countries and workers, including many in our own United States. But I believe rather than merely sending a message to China, we must try and find real, long-term solutions and empower and direct our negotiators to reach out to our friends and allies around the world and finally solve the problem.

If existing institutions are not working, we must modify them. If that is not possible, we must look to create new effective international agreements. The challenge that China's currency interventions present are not just to the United States but to the international economic community. We, the Congress, must demand that the administration launch these critical negotiations so we can avert further damage by currency policies of countries like China.

So I call on my colleagues to join me and to not just send a message but to take actions that could, in fact, produce results. In the end, China itself, as well as its neighbors and trading partners, will benefit from a more open, transparent, and fairly exchanged currency regime. What is at stake is far more than making a statement. We need to actually alter the international agreements and the rules of the game to address the problems of today and tomorrow.

So I urge my colleagues to support this amendment when it comes up. I hope we can get it up once we come to the final agreement on how to proceed on this bill.

I yield the floor.

Well, I appreciate that. My colleague has always been very fair and gracious to me. I feel the same way toward him. I understand his deep feelings about this matter. I respect and appreciate them as well. But I am not talking about necessarily negotiating with China directly, other than what we can do. I am talking about dealing with nations that literally are feeling the same way we do, and gradually multiplying our effectiveness by working together--not just sending a message but getting the whole world to start saying: Yes, the United States is right; yes, this group of nations is right. And we can do that even outside of the international organizations that currently exist.

But I would like my colleague to look at that amendment and see--I think he will see some real good in it. I think it will get us farther down the pathway of doing what he knows needs to be done, and I know needs to be done, without necessarily causing a major trade war.

So I just bring that up to my colleague for that purpose, respecting him and what he is trying to do. I think this plural lateral approach I am talking about goes far beyond the IMF and some of the other worldwide organizations; it means really doing effective diplomatic work to bring worldwide pressure to get people to live within certain monetary constraints.

I thank my colleague for yielding.

Madam President, I ask the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, I rise to speak this afternoon about the legislation that is before us, the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act, which got an overwhelming vote yesterday. There are not many times when a piece of legislation on a specific topic gets the kind of overwhelming support to move forward as we saw yesterday in the vote that took place, and now we are considering the bill.

When you go across Pennsylvania, if you drew a line down the middle of our State and moved to the east, a lot of communities were devastated by flooding. Other than that issue, the No. 1 issue for the people of our State--and I think the people of the United States in total--is the issue of jobs. In their frustration, they look to Washington for action and for solutions. Too often what they see when they turn on the television set or read about what is happening here, they see a lot of fighting, a lot of bickering, a lot of back and forth and, frankly, a lot of politics but not enough action on the question of jobs.

What we have before us is not some esoteric bill about currency, although it is somewhat about that. Obviously, it truly is not that. This is a bill that speaks directly to the frustration Americans feel and I know the people of Pennsylvania feel. There are not many places in Pennsylvania I can go where I talk about this issue of China for many years cheating on currency and us losing lots and lots of jobs because of it. Hundreds and thousands of jobs are lost because of that. There are not many places in our State where I can go to talk about that where the point of view that I express doesn't receive unanimous support.

This is a very real issue for people. This isn't far off. They know that, just as in other aspects of life, especially on something as consequential and significant as international trade--most people understand that when we are involved in that kind of endeavor, we have to play by the rules. Every country should play by the rules. When we have a country as big and as significant in the international economy or the international marketplace as China not playing by the rules, cheating time after time after time, giving their workers and their industries an unfair advantage, I think most people know what that means. It is not just a question of fairness and playing by the rules; it is the impact of that cheating, as Americans lose jobs and have lost jobs. So we have to take action. The time is up. We have been talking about this for years. We have been pleading with China in one way or another, urging them, pushing them, but the time for that is over. The time to act is now.

This is a prudent piece of legislation. It does a couple of things. Basically what it does is to at long last help American manufacturers and our workers by clarifying that our trade enforcement laws can and should be used to address currency undervaluation. It also provides an opportunity for us to improve oversight by establishing objective criteria to identify misaligned currencies and imposing tough consequences for offenders. So it doesn't put into place a new rule for international trade; it just says that if you violate the rules, there are going to be consequences and that our Treasury Department and our Commerce Department are going to take action no matter what administration is in office, a Democratic administration or a Republican administration.

I can point to a number of Senators in both parties--and I think I am one of them--who have been urging this administration and the prior administration to take stronger, more decisive action. For a variety of reasons, they haven't done that. That is not to say they haven't been working on it and not to say they haven't been pushing their counterparts in China, but I think we have been far too timid in the approach we take because, again, this isn't some far-off issue. This is about American jobs and whether we are going to stand by and allow more and more--tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands more--American jobs to be lost in the next decade as we have seen hemorrhage from our society in the last 10 years. One of the causes, one of the substantial factors in that job loss--not the only but one--is the cheating China does on its currency.

It is as if we are telling our workers and our companies: Look, we are going to have a foot race with Chinese companies and Chinese workers, and we are going to have this competition, as we have every day in the international marketplace, but China is going to start at the--if this is a 100-yard dash, they are going to start at the 20- or 25- or 30-yard line and then we are going to start the race and see how we do.

It is completely unfair to our workers. It undermines their ability to compete even if they are working as hard as they can, even if they have a high skill level, even if the company has invested time and training in those workers, has invested capital in the

equipment and the technology. Sometimes it doesn't matter what the company does to improve its production, to improve its efficiency. It doesn't matter what the workers do. They can go to school and learn and prepare and get trained. But if they are at a 15- or 20- or 25-percent disadvantage--by the way, those are the lowest estimates. This has been a problem of above 30 percent or higher at times. But no matter what the percentage is, we know there has been a lot of cheating and we know it is costing us jobs. So it is time for action.

This morning at the Joint Economic Committee hearing, we had Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. I asked him about currency, and I actually read to him some statements he has made in the past about currency and about the adverse role China has played, the role about which I am as frustrated as any American. I asked him about that. The summation of his comments has been reported already, but in addition to commenting about the impact on our workers and our companies, he talked about the impact of China's currency policies on the global economic recovery. So this isn't just an adverse consequence for America, for the United States, this is an impediment to a full and robust recovery around the world. So this isn't just limited to the impact on our workers and our companies, it has worldwide reach, worldwide impact, and worldwide consequences.

So the United States is unwilling, so far, to crack down on China's currency and to crack down on what I would assert is manipulation. Some will say: Well, it might be something different than that, but I think it is basic manipulation--cheating. I think it is a step we have to take now, to have rules in place for how we react to their cheating and then to have very tough consequences. That is what is in the bill.

Unfortunately, this inability to respond appropriately or assertively or aggressively is one of many, I would argue, pieces of a flawed trade strategy that have been a prevailing point of view over the course of two administrations. We are going to have some debate about trade coming up, and we are going to see some interesting alliances, some interesting coalitions here. But our flawed trade strategy--if we can even call it a strategy--has failed over many years, failed our workers and failed our companies.

We will get to the debate on the trade agreements later, but at least today and this week we can finally make progress on an issue that has cost the American people lots and lots of jobs.

Let me give my colleagues a sense of what could happen if we are able to pass this legislation. In a report dated June 17 of this year from the Economic Policy Institute--one of the many think tanks across Washington of various points of view that have studied this issue--and I am broadly summarizing, but one of the many conclusions they reached about this issue is that if China revalued its currency by 28.5 percent--now, many would say it is a bigger problem than a 28.5-percent or 28.5-percent advantage their workers and their companies have--if they revalued to that level, at 28.5 percent, the growth in our gross domestic product in the United States would support 1,631,000 U.S. jobs. If other Asian countries also revalued their currency, then 2,250,000 American jobs would be created. So even if someone could prove those numbers are off by 10,000 or 20,000 or even if we could debate the number being off because some might reach different numbers--but I have seen numbers that high, and I have also seen numbers in the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of jobs.

So any policy we can enact here--in this case, being appropriately tough with China on the cheating they do on currency--if passage of legislation such as this, the one we are considering, leads to the creation of 1.6 million jobs just as it relates to having China play by the rules, why wouldn't we pass legislation to do that?

People are saying over and over to us, please do something about jobs. And sometimes the response is, well, we are trying, but we can't get agreement or we are trying, but we don't have all the solutions. We finally have a piece of legislation that will create jobs for sure and has broad and substantial bipartisan support.

We should pass this bill because it will send two messages that are badly needed right now from us to the American people--No. 1, that we are focused on job creation in the near term, not 10 years from now but in the next year or two. So it is a very specific answer to their request of us as their elected representatives that we focus on enacting legislation that will create jobs. Secondly, the message we will send to the American people is that we finally get it. Finally, Democrats and Republicans can come together on a very serious issue of great consequence to families who have been devastated by job loss; that we are finally coming together, Democrats and Republicans, working together to have a unanimous vote on a job-creation bill.

It is that simple. Anyone who tries to make it more complicated than that is probably trying to mislead because it is that simple. We need to focus our attention in the days ahead to get this legislation passed and to finally take action in a way that is directed at job creation in a bipartisan way.

Madam President, I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.