Floor Statements

Mr. President, last night the Senate confirmed David Johanson as a member of the International Trade Commission. I would like to take a moment to congratulate David on his confirmation. The ITC administers the Nation's trade remedy laws and provides Congress with independent analysis and information on matters relating to international trade. I am confident that the International Trade Commission will benefit greatly from David's intelligence, experience and extraordinary work ethic.

David has served as International Trade Counsel to the Senate Finance Committee since 2003, first under the leadership of Senator Grassley and now with me as ranking member. With his help, the committee accomplished much in those 8 years. Under President Bush, we renewed trade promotion authority and worked together to pass trade agreements with 14 countries agreements that helped to grow the U.S. economy, increase exports, and create American jobs. We also used that trade promotion authority to negotiate and pass our trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama.

Much of the focus of David's work on the Finance Committee has been on agricultural issues. These are often some of the most contentious issues in international trade, but David proved himself to be a tireless and effective advocate for U.S. exports. With his help, this Committee was able to reopen important international markets for American agricultural products, including the critical Chinese market.

In closing, David will bring 15 years of experience in the field of international trade law, an extraordinary work ethic, meticulous attention to detail and pragmatic creativity to his new role as a member of the International Trade Commission. We wish him well on this next phase of his career and thank him for all of the great work that he has done in the U.S. Senate.

Mr. President, on October 20, I paid tribute to the 20th anniversary of Justice Clarence Thomas' appointment to the Supreme Court. I entered into the Record following my remarks letters from several of his former clerks giving their own reflections. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record today letters from three other clerks: John Eastman, Jeffrey Wall, and Chris Landau.

Mr. President, on behalf of myself and 32 cosponsors--both Republicans and Democrats--I ask unanimous consent that the current matter be set aside and amendment No. 875 be called up and made pending.

Mr. President, I understand there is an agreement regarding the disposition of amendments already in place, but I believe this amendment deserves consideration and a vote.

It is a noncontroversial matter, as far as I am concerned. It would simply make permanent 10 separate appropriations riders relating to firearms. The House CJS bill did the same thing, but these changes have been taken out of the Senate substitute amendment.

Each of these riders has been in place for a long time--some more than 30 years. These clarifying provisions have been enacted year after year to preserve the rights of law-abiding gun owners and prevent encroachments on the part of the executive branch.

It does not need to be a yearly exercise. There is widespread support for each of these provisions contained in my amendment. Once again, they have never been the subject of any significant controversy. My amendment would simply make them permanent so we do not have to bring them up all the time.

This amendment would likely pass with more than 60 or 70 votes. I hope the leadership and the managers on the other side of the aisle will not simply accede to the wishes of a minority of Senators who are hostile to second amendment rights by preventing a vote on this amendment.

I ask again for unanimous consent to set aside the pending matter and call up amendment No. 875.

Mr. President, I hope to be able to work with my colleagues on the other side. This should not be a difficult exercise. It is just a smart thing to do. Once again, I am certain this amendment would have the support of a broad majority, a bipartisan majority, of my colleagues.

If the other side wants to prevent a vote--keeping in mind that the vast majority of the American people support these provisions--I hope they will be able to explain it to their constituents. I hope there will be a reconsideration of this amendment and that we can get it up and get this matter solved once and for all. I understand the distinguished Senator has to object, and I feel very disappointed in that, but sooner or later we are going to vote on this amendment, one way or the other.

Mr. President, 20 years ago this week Justice Clarence Thomas took his seat on the Supreme Court of the United States. With the expectation that these are only the first two of his decades on the Court, I want to offer a few thoughts about Clarence Thomas, both as a judge and as a person.

Clarence Thomas was born on June 23, 1948, in Pinpoint, GA. Poverty and segregation contributed to how he understands the past, present, and future of our country but, as he has often said, rising above and growing beyond difficulties is more important than the difficulties themselves. That is a powerful part of his life and the hope that his life represents for us all. Helping him on that path were his maternal grandparents, Myers and Christine Anderson, with whom he lived after the age of 7 and whose influence shaped his character. Few books have had a more poignant title than Justice Thomas' autobiography, My Grandfather's Son, for that is exactly what he was then and remains today.

Clarence Thomas was an honor student in high school and the first person in his family to attend college. He graduated cum laude from Holy Cross College with a degree in English literature and in 1974 received his law degree from Yale. After serving as Assistant Attorney General of Missouri under then-Missouri Attorney General John Ashcroft and a stint with the Monsanto Corporation, Thomas accompanied Senator John Ashcroft here to this body as a legislative assistant specializing in energy issues.

President Reagan appointed Clarence Thomas first to be an Assistant Secretary of Education and then Chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. He remains the longest serving chairman in EEOC history. After he left for the judiciary, EEOC employees used their own personal funds to purchase a plaque for the lobby.

Here is what it said:

Clarence Thomas, Chairman of the U.S. Equal Employment

Opportunity Commission . . . is honored here by the

Commission and its employees, with this expression of our

respect and profound appreciation for his dedicated

leadership exemplified by his personal integrity and

unwavering commitments to freedom, justice, and equality of

opportunity, and to the highest standards of government.

President George H.W. Bush appointed him to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in 1990 and to the Supreme Court in 1991.

So much can be said about any life and career, let alone one that is already so full and rich. Analysts and pundits, admirers and enemies, lawyer or layman, nearly everyone has at least an impression of Justice Thomas, and nearly as many have an opinion. The Internet and library shelves are rapidly filling with commentary, analysis, biography, and even psychoanalysis. I will not attempt to do anything so sweeping, but simply offer a few observations about Clarence Thomas as a judge and as a person.

Professor Gary McDowell wrote at the time of Justice Thomas' appointment that the ``true bone of contention here is . . . the proper role of the Court in American society, and the about the nature and extent of judicial power under a written Constitution.'' That is the bone of contention in every judicial confirmation because the debate over judicial appointments is really a debate over judicial power.

In general, the judicial power provided by Article III of the Constitution means that Federal judges interpret and apply written law to decide cases. The main source of judicial appointment controversy is about how judges should do the first of these tasks, how they should interpret written law such as statutes and, especially, the Constitution.

Legislatures choose the words of statutes, and the people choose the words of the Constitution. Judges may not pick the words of our laws, but they do have to figure out what those words mean so that they can decide cases. The dispute over judicial appointments is over whether the meaning of our laws comes from those who make our laws or from judges who interpret them.

There are innumerable variations and applications of these two general approaches. After all, we lawyers spend three or more grueling years learning how to make words mean whatever we want, to split a single legal hair at least six different ways, and to make the simple masquerade as the profound. But at its core, the battle over judicial appointments is about whether statutes mean what the legislature meant, and whether the Constitution means what the people meant. The alternative is an increasingly powerful judiciary, able to change our laws by changing their meaning.

Justice Thomas refuses to go there. Shortly after he became an appeals court judge in 1990, he was speaking to a friend and reflecting on his new judicial role.

He had, as I described a minute ago, worked in the legislative and executive branches and was actively involved in the process of developing policy and making law. Now, he told his friend, ``whenever I put on my robe I have to remind myself that I am only a judge.''

Only a judge. That statement almost does not compute in 21st century America. Judges today are asked, and many gladly accept the invitation, to solve our problems, heal our wounds, revise our values, reconfigure our rights, and even restructure our economy. We have traveled far from Alexander Hamilton calling the judiciary the weakest and least dangerous branch to Charles Evans Hughes saying that the Constitution is whatever the judges say it is.

That is the wrong direction for Justice Thomas. His view that he is only a judge means that while judges alone may properly play the judicial role, that judicial role is part of a larger system of government, which operates within a much larger culture and society.

Liberty requires that government, including judges, stay within their proper bounds and allow people to make their own decisions and live their own lives. Justice Thomas' view that liberty requires limits on government, including on the judiciary, parallels the very principles on which our country was founded and which are necessary for us to remain free.

But for him this is more than theoretical. James Madison had said that if men were angels, no government would be necessary and if angels governed men, no limits on government would be necessary. Justice Thomas not only knows those as axioms, but literally as life lessons. Growing up in poverty and segregation, he experienced the dark side of human nature. Studying and working in government, he knows the damage it can do when government exceeds its proper limits.

The Senate knew from the beginning what kind of Judge Clarence Thomas would be. While still EEOC chairman, he had written about a judiciary ``active in defending the Constitution but judicious in its restraint and moderation.'' At the Judiciary Committee hearing for his appeals court appointment, he said unambiguously that the ultimate purpose of both statutory construction and constitutional interpretation is to determine what the authors of the law intended. And he would later write in a concurring opinion on the Supreme Court: ``Though the temptation may be great, we must not succumb. The Constitution is not a license for federal judges to further social policy goals.''

In my opening statement at Justice Thomas' hearing, I said that ``I am confident that Judge Thomas will interpret the law according to its original meaning, rather than substitute his own policy preferences for the law.'' That is the kind of judge America needs, and that is what Justice Thomas has consistently been for the past two decades.

Those who opposed Justice Thomas' appointment, and who continue to criticize his service, take the opposite view. They believe that the Constitution is a license for Federal judges to further social policy goals. When I look at the social policy goals these folks want to further, I am not surprised. Their political agenda is, to put it mildly, unpopular with the American people and, therefore, unsuccessful in legislatures. The only way for them to win is to impose their agenda through the courts and that requires judges willing to do the imposing. Justice Thomas is not their kind of judge.

Those whose political fortunes depend on political judges went to extraordinary lengths to keep Justice Thomas off the Supreme Court. When their efforts failed, they have gone to great lengths to belittle and smear his service on the Court. For years, they said that Justice Thomas was simply parroting his fellow originalist, Justice Scalia, since they vote the same way so often. As recounted in the book Supreme Discomfort, Justice Scalia said that this criticism is nothing but a slur on both him and Justice Thomas. He said: ``The myth's persistence is either racist or it's political hatred.''

Liberals never even mentioned, let alone criticized, that Justice Thurgood Marshall voted even more often with fellow activist Justice William Brennan. Why the double standard? Because liberals like activist judges such as Marshall and don't like restrained judges such as Thomas. The real point, after all, is not that two Justices agree but what they agree on.

Or some take pot shots at the fact that Justice Thomas asks few questions in oral argument. Needless to say, if he did speak up more often, these same folks would nit-pick what he said. Justice Thomas has said that the purpose of oral argument is for him to listen to the lawyers, not for the lawyers to listen to him.

Other critics just call him names. In 1992, the New York Times called him the youngest, cruelest justice for his dissent in an Eighth Amendment case. Fast forward to this year, with Slate writer Dahlia Lithwick calling him cruel and saying that he wrote ``one of the meanest Supreme Court decisions ever.'' Anyone who knows Justice Thomas knows that he just does not care how papers or pundits feel about his opinions. The way many of them report or comment on his work, it's doubtful they even read his opinions.

No, Justice Thomas does not care how critics feel, he cares only whether he gets each case right and applies the law impartially. Justice Thomas believes that our system of government and our written Constitution define his judicial role and that he has no authority to do otherwise. He is both principled and independent.

These are not attacks on Clarence Thomas the man, or even on Clarence Thomas the Justice. Many times, they are really attacks on the kind of Justice that he represents. Many times, they are attacks on the idea that the Constitution is fixed and sure rather than malleable, that the Constitution belongs to the people rather than to judges, that the Constitution trumps politics.

I believe today what I said in Justice Thomas' hearing, that these opponents actually fear that he will in fact be faithful to the Constitution and to federal laws as we enact them, rather than to their political agenda. Frankly, I am pleased to say that he has confirmed that fear because Justice Thomas has steadfastly kept the Constitution, rather than any political agenda, as his guide. The truth is that he is writing some of the most persuasive, profound, and powerful opinions on the Supreme Court today.

As a Justice, Clarence Thomas has had a significant impact on our country and on the law. As a person, Clarence Thomas has similarly had a profound impact on people's lives. These certainly include the dozens of women and men who have served as his law clerks through the years. I invited some of them to write letters offering their own reflections and I will ask unanimous consent that these letters be printed in the Record following my remarks. I urge my colleagues to read them. Some of them include erudite analysis of Justice Thomas' approach to judging. You don't get to be a Supreme Court clerk, after all, without at least the potential for erudition. But every one of them includes personal anecdotes and memories about how Justice Thomas continues to impact their lives.

Federal judges in general, and Supreme Court Justices in particular, receive dozens and even hundreds of invitations to speak at events of all kinds. Justices appear at grand podiums in the great halls of the nation's most prestigious academic institutions. Justice Thomas, however, is more likely to be found speaking at schools known little beyond the communities they serve.

Or speaking to young people who are trying to get their lives back on track. On June 17, 1997, Justice Thomas gave a most memorable graduation address. The institution was Youth for Tomorrow, a residential program for at-risk youth founded by former Washington Redskins head coach Joe Gibbs. The website of this wonderful program states its mission: to provide these young people the opportunity and motivation to focus their lives and develop the confidence, skills, intellectual ability, spiritual insight and moral integrity to become responsible and productive members of society.

June is the busiest month of the Supreme Court's term, with Justices and clerks working longer and longer days to complete opinions for the term's hardest cases. This graduation was on a weekday, and Youth for Tomorrow is located out in Prince William County. But none of that mattered to Justice Thomas. On that day, just one young man received a high school diploma.

That's right, Justice Thomas was the commencement speaker for a high school class of one. When that young man says that Justice Thomas was his high school graduation speaker, he really means it.

Justice Thomas applauded the decisions that the young men in the Youth for Tomorrow program were now making. He was proud to come to them as a speaker, he said, rather than to have them come before him as a judge.

Let me close by returning to the words of that plaque placed by EEOC employees.

Through turbulence and calm, highs and lows, controversy and consensus, Justice Clarence Thomas continues to exemplify personal integrity and unwavering commitment to freedom, justice, and equality of opportunity, and to the highest standards of government. He may be only a judge, but Justice Clarence Thomas is truly a force for good in our country.

I now ask unanimous consent that the letters to which I referred be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, today I wish to speak about the passing last month of Orem Mayor Jerry C. Washburn, one of Utah's finest public servants and a man who was beloved by those who had the pleasure of knowing and serving with him.

Mayor Washburn passed away September 26, 2011, after a long and courageous battle with cancer. Of Utah's many great public servants, it is difficult to find one finer than Jerry. His legacy of compassionate care and service to others will endure forever in the heads and hearts of his family, friends, and many constituents and admirers.

Jerry Washburn lived in his city of Orem for over half a century and served as its mayor for 11 years. He was elected to four terms and was the longest serving mayor in Orem's history. The reason for his political success is the same as it was for his success in all his endeavors. He was unfailingly kind and friendly to everyone he met, and he had a wonderful ability to put people at ease. He listened respectfully to all opinions and appreciated a thoughtful exchange of ideas. Mayor Washburn also was a natural leader, and he was highly respected by national, State, and local officials. He had an excellent relationship with the Orem City Council and city staff.

During his time in office, Mayor Washburn presided over Orem with a steady hand and a gentle touch. He continually worked to build others and to strengthen the community by supporting a diverse array of projects and programs. His focus as mayor was preserving and enhancing the quality of life in Orem. In this endeavor, he helped keep Orem as one of the safest cities in America and ensured that it remained ``Family City USA.'' Mayor Washburn also worked hard to support Orem's many businesses and a strong economic base.

But Jerry Washburn's service and influence were not limited to Orem. He enjoyed his association with other leaders and organizations. He served as chairman of the Utah County Transportation Planning Organization and as chairman of the Utah County Board of Health. The mayor also was a founding board member of the Utah Lake Commission, served as president of the Orem Chamber of Commerce, and was a founding member of the Commission for Economic Development in Orem. He was also a successful businessman, owning a car dealership in Orem and serving on the regional board of a Utah bank and as director of a local credit union. He was accomplished both politically and professionally.

Jerry Washburn's motive for serving was simple. He wanted to help others and the community and State that he

so dearly loved. His credo was: ``If not me, who? If not now, when?'' He never sought rewards or recognition, but his service was so stellar that it did not go unrecognized. In fact, he received the Boy Scouts Silver Beaver Award, the Arthur V. Watkins Outstanding Citizen Award, and the Brigham Young University Emeriti Alumni Award.

Jerry Washburn was also an active member of the Church and Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Demonstrating his faith and commitment to God, he served his fellow church members--without financial remuneration--in a variety of leadership positions. His was a life based on an abiding love of his family, his church, and his fellow man. Perhaps that is why in the political arena--known more for discord than harmony--Jerry Washburn had few, if any, enemies and so many friends. He loved and respected people, and they loved and respected him in return.

In one of his last discussions with trusted colleague and confidant, Orem City Manager Bruce Chesnut, Mayor Washburn said, ``No matter what happens, I'm ready.'' Well, Mr. Mayor, the City of Orem, the State of Utah, and the Nation were not ready to see you go.

Our thoughts and prayers at this time are with his cherished family, including his wife, Betty, his 6 children and 19 grandchildren.

Mayor Jerry Washburn will be greatly missed, but his legacy will live on through his wife, children, grandchildren, beloved community, and in the countless lives he has blessed and touched during his remarkable service.

I compliment my colleague for his kind and good words on the floor. He is a great leader in the Senate, and the Senator from Iowa is one of the truly great people I have met.

Today, we are finally considering our free-trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. It has been 9 long years since the authority to negotiate these trade agreements was passed by Congress, and it has been over 4 years, as the distinguished Senator from Iowa said, since each of these agreements was signed.

After a burst of international economic engagement under President Bush, we witnessed nothing but passive indifference by the 111th Democrat-led Congress and then, in more recent years, by the Obama administration.

While purporting to support trade and seemingly acknowledging its benefits, the current administration took little concrete action to advance these or any trade agreements for years. In fact, the opposite was true. Instead of devising ways to gain their approval, President Obama used his time to create excuses for not supporting any of the three agreements.

Finally, early this year, under relentless political pressure from Congress and from American businesses and farmers who will benefit from these agreements, the administration's excuses slowly melted away. Then, with every reasonable excuse gone and with bipartisan support for passing the agreements building and the end in sight, President Obama threw another obstacle in the path of their consideration. This time he made new demands for more spending on domestic worker retraining programs. Let's consider that at a time when virtually every government spending program faces intense scrutiny and many programs are being cut, this administration demanded more spending for a program of dubious value and with an unproven track record. In doing so, the President put his thirst for more spending ahead of the interests of the broader American economy that would benefit from these agreements entering into force, and he risked the tens of thousands of jobs his own administration insists these agreements will create. His reckless demands ground any progress we had achieved to pass the agreements to a halt. Accordingly, it took months for Congress to unravel this substantive and procedural Gordian knot of the President's own making. Meanwhile, U.S. workers continued to lose ground as our foreign competitors completed agreements to benefit their workers at our expense.

With today's vote, our Nation can hopefully begin to awaken from its trade stupor and confront the opportunities and challenges the world economy offers once again. Frankly, I am baffled by this administration's disregard for trade. They should know better. Our country benefits from free-trade agreements, and the reason is simple: The tariffs of our trading partners are generally significantly higher than are those of the United States. Free-trade agreements even the playing field for U.S. exporters by lowering the tariffs of the United States and our trading partners to the same level of zero.

For those who say they demand fair trade, it is hard for me to conceive of fairer trade than that--a level playing field where our products and services enjoy the same access and protections that foreign goods and services enjoy here in the United States. By leveling the playing field, free-trade agreements promote U.S. exports. Indeed, U.S. exports to our free-trade-agreement countries increased at a faster rate than U.S. exports to the rest of the world from 2009 to 2010. Moreover, in 2010, U.S. exports to our free-trade partner countries constituted 41 percent of all U.S. exports. Yet the United States has free-trade agreements with only 17 countries, and that is out of the 234 countries on which the U.S. Department of Commerce collects trade data. So our exports to our free-trade-agreement partners--just 17 countries--come close to dominating U.S. exports.

Let's look at this another way. The combined population of our free trade agreement partner countries is only about 310 million, while the world population is approximately 7 billion. So almost half of U.S. exports go to the less than 5 percent of the world's population that lives in countries with which we have free trade agreements. To me, it is clear that if we really want to double exports over the next 5 years, among the best tools available to us are our free trade agreements.

The export numbers under our recent free trade agreements certainly bear this out. Staff economists at the U.S. International Trade Commission share these observations on the benefits of the recent free trade agreements. They wrote last month that ``the United States has a significant and sustained trade surplus with recent FTA partners.'' In an analysis of recent free trade agreements that excluded oil trade, these economists noted that the U.S. trade surplus with these recent free trade agreement partners grew from $1.7 billion in 2005 to $16.7 billion in 2010, and they stated that this expanded trade surplus was driven mainly by a $24.5 billion increase in U.S. exports to those countries. During this same period, U.S. non-oil exports to the recent FTA partner countries increased by 23 percent, while non-oil imports from those countries grew by only 3 percent.

So the facts are clear that the recently implemented U.S. free trade agreements have benefited the United States. There is little doubt that the pending U.S. free trade agreements will do the same. As with existing U.S. free trade agreements, the free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and

South Korea will level the playing field for U.S. exporters. They will eliminate the significant disparity between tariffs imposed by Colombia, Panama, and South Korea on imports from the United States and tariffs that the United States applies im imports from those countries.

According to the U.S. International Trade Commission, U.S. exports to these countries may increase by up to $12 billion following implementation of these agreements. The U.S. International Trade Commission also estimates that these agreements, once implemented, could expand the U.S. GDP by over $14 billion.

Let's take a moment to review the unique benefits of each of these agreements. The South Korea FTA is in many ways the gold standard for trade agreements. South Korea's economy is worth over $1 trillion, and this agreement enables American workers and companies to take advantage of it.

The FTA incorporates state of the art intellectual property rights protections, significantly expands services sector market access, opens a large agriculture market, and offers new market access for American manufacturers. It adopts the most advanced regulatory, non-tariff barrier, and investment provisions of any FTA thus far and champions the rule of law which is so critical to an effective and fair rules- based trading relationship.

For my home State of Utah, South Korea is already an impressive market. South Korea imported more than $294 million of goods from Utah in 2009 alone. Implementation of the agreement will help boost Utah's exports even more, as over two-thirds of our exports to Korea will become duty-free immediately.

The sectors that will immediately benefit from the agreement's tariff cuts reflect Utah's economy, including computers and electronics, metals and ores, machinery, agriculture, and services.

But the benefits of this agreement for Utah go far beyond just reducing tariffs. By adopting the strongest intellectual property rights, regulatory reforms, investment protections, and transparency provisions, the South Korea FTA will ensure that our companies, farmers, and workers realize the full potential of the South Korean market. By protecting the ideas of America's entrepreneurs and providing a level playing field, U.S. workers and job creators stand to benefit significantly from implementation of this agreement.

Panama plays a unique and important role in international trade. The construction of the Panama Canal bridged East and West, allowing us to link economies across the globe. Today, Panama is building towards an even more interconnected future as it engages in an ambitious $5.25 billion construction project to broaden and deepen the canal. The Panama FTA will provide our companies and workers with access to this and other government procurement projects.

Panama is one of the fastest growing economies in Latin America, having experienced a decade of economic growth that has at times reached double digits. Panama's GDP is expected to more than double by 2020. Passing this agreement will provide significant new access for U.S. companies and workers to this growing market.

Bear in mind that today, 98 percent of Panama's goods enter the U.S. duty free. Our trade agreement turns this into a two-way street, ensuring that 87 percent of U.S. goods will enter Panama duty free immediately once we get this agreement implemented.

Panama is also one of the world's financial hubs and in recent years has taken giant leaps to increase its fiscal transparency. This financial industry underpins a services market worth over $20 billion. Our services firms will have guaranteed access to this market once we the FTA enters into force. Our farmers and ranchers will gain additional market access through tariff reductions and a fair and transparent, science-based regulatory environment which will enable them to sell more products to Panama's growing consumer class. The agreement will foster greater customs transparency, which will benefit both exporters and importers, including Utah companies who currently export almost $4.5 million per year in goods to Panama.

The Colombia agreement will also help our exporters. Our agreement with Colombia will transform a one-way preferential trade relationship into a two-way street, giving U.S. exporters fair access to a large and growing consumer market. Colombia's economy is the third largest in Central and South America. Colombia is also the third largest recipient of U.S. exports in Latin America. In fact, in 2010 the U.S. sold more products to Colombia--approximately $12 billion--than to Russia, Spain, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Chile, Peru, Indonesia, South Africa, Thailand, and the Philippines.

The agreement will affect the lives of farmers and workers across the United States in a positive way. A good example of the agreement's positive effects can be found in my home State of Utah where workers at AC Med, a Salt Lake City company that exports hospital beds to Colombia, will see tariffs of 20 percent eliminated immediately upon implementation of this agreement.

Implementation of this agreement will result in over 80 percent of U.S. exports of consumer and industrial products to Colombia becoming duty free immediately, with the remaining tariffs being phased out over 10 years.

The agreement will also provide significant new access to Colombia's $134 billion services market, will require the use of fair and transparent procurement procedures protecting United States companies in Colombia against discriminatory or unlawful treatment, protect intellectual property rights, and increase access for U.S. service providers, telecommunication companies, and agricultural exporters.

There are a number of reasons beyond the economic benefits to the United States economy to support our trade agreement with Colombia in particular. Colombia is a strategic ally of the United States. In a part of the world where the United States has too often lacked friends, Colombia is a sound and steadfast ally. In fact, I can think of no other countries in South America with which the United States has closer, stronger, and more positive relations.

While Colombia has a long democratic tradition, undemocratic forces have tried over the years to topple its government. Determined to keep these armed entities from destroying their democracy, Colombians fought for decades against these forces. Far too many brave men and women lost their lives and their livelihoods in this struggle.

The United States stood by the side of these Colombians, devoting significant resources in the fight against drug traffickers and narco- terrorists through Plan Colombia. The accomplishments of Plan Colombia have been significant, but there is more work to be done. Continued economic growth will be key to helping Colombia further solidify its democratic gains and strengthen the rule of law. This FTA can contribute to both our economies while strengthening democracy in Colombia and helping our friends.

Each of these agreements will enhance our economic competitiveness and provide new opportunities for our exporters. Our Nation has been denied the benefits of these agreements for long enough. As President Obama himself has said, it is time to put country before party, and support each of these important trade agreements. I urge all my colleagues to vote for each of these agreements.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, over the past several weeks, the Senate has focused closely on international trade. We have debated trade adjustment assistance, a bill to penalize China's currency policies, and our pending free-trade agreements. These have been robust debates. It is an appropriate capstone that we will soon be approving our trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea.

The reality is, these agreements should have passed long ago. Although completed over 4 years ago, they were first blocked in the 111th Congress by a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives. They were then delayed by our own President, who devised excuse after excuse for not acting to implement them.

This spring, after the excuses related to the agreements themselves were addressed by our trading partners, the President made a new demand. This time it was trade adjustment assistance spending. The President made it clear that if this domestic spending program was not expanded and approved, he would abandon our allies in Colombia, Panama, and South Korea and cede these growing markets to our foreign competitors.

It took Congress months to untie this substantive and procedural Gordian knot that President Obama and his administration created.

Throughout this long period of delay, U.S. workers and exporters were denied the benefits of these agreements. At the same time, these allies began to doubt the commitment of the United States to our friendship, as well as our ability to deliver on our promises.

I am concerned that going forward the President will put even more new conditions on his support for trade and trade agreements. I certainly hope not. As a nation, we cannot afford to hold our international economic competitiveness hostage to unrelated demands for more spending or to a liberal social agenda. If our economy is going to grow and our workers prosper, then we need to do better.

Trade is good for the United States. Today, the United States is the world's largest economy. Contrary to the views of many Americans, the United States exports more in goods and services than any other country. It is imperative that the United States continues to open foreign markets. After all, 95 percent of the world's population lives outside of the United States. Economists estimate that almost 83 percent of growth over the next 5 years will take place outside of the United States. Simply put, most of our future customers are located in foreign countries.

U.S. exporters face foreign barriers that limit our ability to sell U.S. goods and services in foreign markets. Often, tariffs on our exports tend to be much higher than our own tariffs. U.S. trade agreements level the playing field. They reduce or eliminate tariffs and other barriers to U.S. exports.

The math is pretty simple. Lower tariffs and fewer barriers mean more exports, and more exports mean more jobs. But we cannot reduce these tariffs or eliminate barriers without the right tools. In my mind, renewing trade negotiating authority is the key to our future success. I was, frankly, dismayed when our colleagues across the aisle, just a few weeks ago, rejected an amendment to provide their own President with the authority to negotiate new trade agreements. We call that trade promotion authority. We all know the authority to negotiate trade agreements expired years ago. Since then the United States has been sitting on the sidelines while other nations negotiate agreements all around the world.

There is no doubt about it, even with the approval of these three free-trade agreements, the United States is already far behind. It is my understanding that there are 209 free-trade agreements around the world. The United States is a party to just 12 such agreements, with 17 countries. We should be expanding the number of our free-trade agreements and the number of our free-trade partner countries.

Everyone knows if you are not in the game, you cannot win. Right now, the United States is not in the game. While it is true the President is in the process of negotiating an agreement to create a Trans-Pacific Partnership, we all know the chances of it actually succeeding are almost nonexistent without trade negotiating authority.

Let's keep in mind that trade negotiating authority has been the norm rather than the exception for much of this past century. Congress first authorized reciprocal negotiating authority in 1934 to help pull the U.S. economy out of the Great Depression. That authority was renewed 11 times between 1934 and 1962. In 1974, the Congress first authorized the President to negotiate tariff and nontariff barriers and bring them back for congressional consideration on an expedited basis, without amendments. Every President since 1974 has sought that authority from Congress.

President Ford argued that the legislation ``enables the United States to play a leading role in . . . multilateral negotiations.''

President Carter said the legislation ``solidifies America's position in the international community.''

President Ronald Reagan extolled the virtues of TPA, noting that when properly used, it ``manifestly serves our national economic interests.''

President George H.W. Bush noted that extension of TPA was ``in the vital national interest of the United States and absolutely fundamental to our major foreign policy objectives.''

President Clinton argued strenuously for TPA, making the case that ``the legislation will give us the authority to increase access to foreign markets . . . if we don't seize these opportunities, our competitors surely will. An `America last' strategy is unacceptable.''

President George W. Bush successfully made the case that TPA was critical to opening markets around the world. Once he achieved its renewal, he made opening foreign markets a key priority of his administration. To give credit where it is due, if it wasn't for President Bush's leadership in seeking TPA and negotiating agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea, we would not have any agreements to consider today.

Unfortunately, President Obama, while touting the importance of exports, has been virtually silent on the need for TPA. Instead of leading on TPA, this President has consistently ducked the issue, avoided the debate, and let America continue to fall further behind.

This America-last--or, as some put it, leading-from-behind--strategy is unacceptable. We need a strong vision of leadership in the global economy. We can start by approving these three free-trade agreements. The fact is, tariffs on our exports to Colombia, Panama, and South Korea are much too high. These agreements will eliminate these tariffs. But the benefits of each agreement go far beyond tariff elimination. The agreements also guarantee fair access for U.S. service providers, reduce unfair barriers to our agricultural exports, provide high levels of protection for our intellectual property rights, and ensure high levels of investment protection. In short, each of these agreements helps U.S. workers compete and win in these growing markets.

Make no mistake, if we don't take advantage of these new markets, other countries will, and it is the U.S. worker who will lose. We cannot afford to allow nations to race ahead while our workers stay behind.

I urge my colleagues to join with Senator Baucus and me in supporting each one of these trade agreements. Their approval can be the first good step toward reigniting a vigorous international trade agenda that puts America first and enables the United States to once again lead the world in opening markets and expanding economic growth.

In that regard, I pay tribute to my colleague on the Finance Committee, Senator Baucus. He has done a great job in working on this issue. He has been a wonderful partner to me and a wonderful leader on our committee. When it comes to trade, he certainly deserves a lot of credit for helping to push this through. I am grateful to be able to work with a quality person like him.

I also would like to acknowledge a few of the many people who made these agreements happen. First, I would like to thank the talented members of the Bush administration who were instrumental in negotiating these agreements. Of course, first there is our colleague, Senator Rob Portman, U.S. Trade Representative for President George W. Bush; Ambassador Susan C. Schwab, U.S. Trade Representative; Warren Maruyama, General Counsel; Ambassador John Veroneau, Deputy U.S. Trade Representative; Rob Lehman and Tim Keeler, Chiefs of Staff to the U.S. Trade Representative; Karan Bhatia, Deputy U.S. Trade Representative; Justin McCarthy, Special Assistant to President Bush for Legislative Affairs; and Andy Olson, Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Legislative Affairs. I would also like to recognize the hard work and commitment of USTR's professional staff, especially Wendy Cutler, Bennett Harman, Michelle Carrillo, Maria Pagan, and Leigh Bacon-- without their efforts we would not have achieved conclusion of these historic agreements.

Next, I would like to thank my staff--they have been relentless in pressuring the administration to send these long-completed FTAs to Congress so we can pass them in order to create American jobs and grow the American economy. This is a huge success and I am happy to share it with them. In particular, I would like to thank the Staff Director of my Finance Committee staff, Chris Campbell; my Chief International Trade Counsel, Everett Eissenstat, both for serving as a chief negotiator for the Colombia and Panama agreements while at USTR and for his efforts in implementing the agreements here on Capitol Hill; International Trade Counsels Paul DeLaney, Greg Kalbaugh, David Johanson, Maureen McLaughlin, and Ryika Hooshangi; Staff Assistant Rebecca Nasca; and Legislative Counsel Polly Craighill. I would like to also thank prior Finance Committee trade staff including former Chief Counsel Stephen Schaefer, International Trade Counsel David Ross, and Claudia Poteet. The multi-year effort to pass these FTAs succeeded because of their hard work, expertise, and tenacious pursuit of the public interest.

Senator Baucus had a good staff helping him as well. I would like to thank them for their hard work and long nights that went into making this happen. I would like to thank Russ Sullivan, majority Staff Director of the Finance Committee; Chief Trade Counsel Amber Cottle; International Trade Counsels Ayesha Khanna, Michael Smart, and Gabriel Adler; and professional staff member Chelsea Thomas. Their work is to be commended.

We can all be proud of these accomplishments and I look forward to the President signing these agreements into law.

Mr. President, I am ready to vote. I yield the floor at this time.

Mr. President, today I rise to pay tribute to Sgt Daniel David Gurr of the U.S. Marine Corps.

Sergeant Gurr was assigned to the 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion, 3rd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force. He was killed by small arms fire while on patrol in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. Sergeant Gurr was only 21 years of age, but as a testament to his character and reputation, hundreds attended his memorial service and hundreds more lined the procession route to where he was laid to rest.

Sergeant Gurr always wanted to be a marine. In fact, his friends and family from Vernal, UT, remember a young man who could hardly wait until his senior year at Uintah High School before enlisting in the Marine Corps. But even during his school years, his personality and character exemplified what it means to be a marine. Sergeant Gurr was the captain of his high school soccer team and was always there for his teammates. By all accounts, whether in high school or as a noncommissioned officer, he was a leader and loved by many.

Sergeant Gurr had a profound sense of duty and deep commitment to freedom and liberty. All he asked for was the opportunity to dedicate his life to the service and safety of others. His dedication and leadership were clearly apparent to the marines who advanced him to the rank of sergeant, a truly impressive accomplishment for a 21-year-old.

As we grieve the loss of one of this country's finest, let us celebrate Sergeant Gurr's life. His selfless and noble actions will never be forgotten.

I know I am joined by the entire Senate in extending heartfelt condolences to Sergeant Gurr's family. Elaine and I will certainly keep them in our prayers.

Corporal Raphael R. Arruda

Mr. President, today I also wish to honor CPL Raphael R. Arruda of Ogden, UT.

Corporal Arruda was an Army reservist assigned to the 744th Engineer Company, 416th Theater Engineer Command. As a combat engineer tasked with finding improvised explosive devices, Corporal Arruda never shied away from driving the lead vehicle on operations. Out in front protecting his fellow soldiers was where he was when an explosion took his life. Adding to this tragedy, Corporal Arruda's mother had died 10 days before, and the corporal was but days away from his 22nd birthday.

Corporal Arruda was raised in Brazil until the age of 12. His family immigrated to the United States and settled in South Ogden, UT, where Corporal Arruda graduated from Bonneville High School in 2008. While in high school, he joined the Army Reserves and left for basic training only days after graduating from high school. After basic training, he attended Weber State University for a semester and planned to continue his education upon his return.

Upon learning about Corporal Arruda's life, I was struck by what his family and friends had to say about him. Andrey, his brother and also an Army reservist, said Corporal Arruda was the ``life of the party.'' His fellow soldiers said the corporal was ``the guy who pushed everyone and made everyone laugh.'' It is a special leader who has the unique ability to motivate others while simultaneously making them feel at ease.

Corporal Arruda was a brave and selfless soldier. His family now bears a heavy burden. However, I hope they will take comfort in knowing that I am joined by the entire Senate in extending our condolences over the loss of Corporal Arruda and his mother. My wife Elaine and I will have them in our prayers.

Madam President, I was very interested in the comments of the distinguished Senator from New York and my friend from South Carolina as well.

This morning, the Senate will have the opportunity to send a strong message to China and the world community. Whether that signal is one of inward protectionism or outward engagement remains to be seen. In my mind, the choice is clear. If we support the motion to invoke cloture on the underlying bill, we will be sending a signal to China that the Senate is angry over China's manipulation of its currency, but we are not serious about taking real, long-term action to stop it.

We are also telling the world community that the United States is turning inward once again, seeking protectionist solutions to global problems, and not interested in working with other countries to solve our current international economic crisis. At the same time, we would be interjecting further uncertainty into our own economic recovery as our exporters and workers face potential retaliation from one of our leading trading partners.

There is a better way, and it can be bipartisan. We can defeat cloture and give Senators an opportunity to vote on my amendment, which not only has the best chance of actually resolving our serious currency problems with China but also demonstrates to the international community that the United States will continue to lead by promoting trade liberalization and holding countries accountable to the rules of the game for the long haul.

If given the chance to vote on my amendment, we can demonstrate our serious commitment to developing long-term and meaningful solutions to the persistent problem of currency manipulation. It tells them we are committed to starting that process today.

Yesterday, I outlined some of the serious problems with the unilateral approach adopted by the proponents of this bill. Allow me to summarize them for the benefit of my colleagues. First, this is not a jobs measure. Proponents of the unilateral approach argue that their bill will create thousands of jobs right now and millions of jobs in the years ahead. But all we have to do is take a close look at the numbers and the process laid out in the bill to see this is not the case.

I am also concerned that the bill will inject economic instability in a key bilateral relationship and subject U.S. exporters to potential retaliation by the Chinese.

Yesterday, the White House also expressed concerns about this bill, though they still have not stated publicly what those specific concerns are. I wish they would. It would be helpful to us up here to have the White House weigh in and say what they actually want, instead of waiting for the Senate to do whatever it wants to.

A growing chorus has come out to criticize the unilateral approach in this bill--a growing chorus. The New York times called this bill ``a bad idea'' and ``too blunt of an instrument'' which, if enacted, is very unlikely to persuade China to change its practices, while adding another explosive new conflict to an already heavy list of bilateral frictions.

The Wall Street Journal called the underlying bill ``the most dangerous trade legislation in many years.''

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce issued a letter yesterday stating that the unilateral approach in the underlying bill would be counterproductive in persuading China to alter its currency practices and that ``in the end, such unilateral action would very likely cause retaliation by China and ultimately damage the U.S. economy, including exporters, investors, workers, and consumers.''

It does not get any tougher than that.

Again, there is a better way. My amendment calls for a bold new approach which will empower U.S. negotiators to work within the WTO and the IMF to develop long-term effective remedies to counter the effect of currency manipulation by China or any other country and develop practices to persuade countries to stop currency manipulation. If that does not work within 90 days, they are directed to go outside of these institutions.

My amendment would also send a great message to both the WTO and the

Mr. President, I rise to speak about our Nation's jobs crisis. This is a crisis that is real and it is a crisis that is not going to be addressed by the bill currently being considered by this body. It is not a crisis that is going to be solved by more tax increases, as some would have it. It is a crisis that will be solved when Congress creates the conditions for job creation by giving greater certainty to businesses and individuals and liberating them to take risks.

Americans are more than uneasy about our current jobs deficit. The failure of this economy to create jobs is the single most important issue to the citizens of this country. For years now, whenever I have talked to my fellow Utahns about the economy, their No. 1 concern has been jobs. Throughout the country, particularly in those places that are worse off than my own home State, I am quite certain people have the exact, same concern.

We have had more than our fair share of posturing on job creation in Washington. We heard a speech to a joint session of Congress from the President, wherein he demanded passage of this jobs bill. Of course, the President's bill has no real chance of passing in either Chamber of Congress. Indeed, Members of the Senate Democratic leadership have been quoted publicly as saying they don't even believe enough Democrats would vote for the bill to pass it in the Senate, with or without a filibuster.

But not all hope is lost. Members of both parties agree we need to pass a jobs package of some kind. The American people demand it and I believe Congress can deliver. However, I am not under any illusions. This will be a difficult task, and it will require Congress to recognize some hard truths and to make some difficult decisions. But if we are serious about job creation and not just about campaigning on job creation next year, that is what we are going to have to do.

It will not be enough to simply pass legislation that will stimulate the economy in the short term. We have tried short-term stimulus time after time again and it does not work. One of the President's first acts after his inauguration was to promote and sign a partisan big spending stimulus package. It did not work then and it is not going to work now. What we need to do is change the economic environment in America to make it more jobs friendly, to change incentives to allow for long sustained job growth.

As I said, it will not be easy, but I believe it is doable because, frankly, there are things we should have been doing all along that will create more jobs and prevent more job losses in the future.

That is what I wish to talk about. I want to unveil my own jobs proposal. It is a comprehensive, 10-point plan that I believe encapsulates much of what we should be doing to create more jobs in America. I wish to take just a few moments to talk about each of the 10 points in my jobs plan.

No. 1, we need to restore fiscal sanity in Washington. Our Nation's $14 trillion debt is an anchor around the neck of every American and a threat to our economic growth and job creation in the future. Congress must take meaningful steps to reduce our debt and get America's fiscal house in order.

This is something my friends on the other side of the aisle do not seem to get--debt and deficit reduction is a jobs issue. The failure to get this spending under control led to a downgrade of our Nation's credit rating, an action that will impact our interest rates and impede job growth. The failure to get spending under control and the constant threat from the other side of higher taxes to pay for this historically large government keeps businesses on the sideline and discourages risk- taking. The failure to get spending under control crowds out the types of investments in national defense and infrastructure that actually have some impact on jobs. Reining in spending should be our highest priority.

Given the fights we have had over spending in the last year, this goal may seem to some to be out of reach, but I am optimistic. I expect some success from the Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction that is currently working on finding significant savings and currently trying to find a way out of our problems. Members of both parties are on record supporting a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, which would ensure greater fiscal discipline in the long run. This is a vital element to securing economic growth and job creation in the future, and we need to act now. As the ranking member on the Senate's Finance Committee, I am committed to working with my colleagues there to achieve meaningful reform of our Nation's largest spending programs.

No. 2, we need to expand markets for U.S. exports by approving the pending

three free-trade agreements and renewing trade promotion authority. Every President has wanted that except this one. Congress waited far too long for the President to send the pending trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea, which would increase U.S. exports by $13 billion and create more than 70,000 domestic jobs. Some estimate even higher than 250,000 jobs. Unfortunately, in delaying submission of these agreements, the President prioritized his anti-trade union allies at the expense of the American workers who stood to benefit from their passage. Now that these agreements are before Congress, we need to ratify them promptly. However, we also need to move forward with a robust trade agenda for the future.

Unfortunately, by refusing to seek renewal of trade promotion authority, the President is undercutting our Nation's ability to realize these new trade agreements.

No. 3, we need to reform our Nation's Tax Code to allow American businesses to compete with foreign competitors on a level playing field. Rooted in a bygone era, the U.S. Tax Code is antiquated, impeding our economic recovery and slowing job growth. Our tax system is too burdensome, it is too inefficient. Fundamental tax reform will allow both individuals and businesses to focus their efforts on their families and businesses instead of tax compliance. There is bipartisan agreement on the need to fix our Tax Code and if the President and his party will agree that the goal of tax reform should be job creation and economic growth rather than raising taxes, I think progress can be made.

No. 4, we need to repeal ObamaCare. I am certain my Democratic colleagues will write this proposal off as blind partisanship, but to paraphrase President Obama: This is not partisanship, it is math. ObamaCare's unconstitutional individual health care mandate will result in a $2,100 increase in premiums for families buying insurance on their own. Rather than saving money, ObamaCare is costing individuals and States more money, including $118 billion in new costs imposed on States for Medicaid expansions, meaning that our States will have to cut other programs such as education or law enforcement to pay for this unfunded mandate. Additionally, ObamaCare will result in over $1 trillion in new taxes and penalties over a 10-year period once it is fully implemented in 2014, while still increasing the deficit by $701 billion during that same time.

Collectively, the various provisions included in ObamaCare will continue to hinder job creation and industry innovation by mandating the imposition of anti-industry burdens such as a 2.3-percent excise tax hike on medical device manufacturers that could result in job losses of over 10 percent of the device industry workforce. That is nearly 43,000 potential lost jobs. Some experts have calculated that nearly 800,000 jobs could potentially be lost as a result of full implementation of all of ObamaCare's provisions.

Clearly, calls to repeal ObamaCare are more than political blustering. It is simply a necessary step forward toward job creation.

No. 5, we need to repeal the Dodd-Frank Act. Again, it would be easy for our friends on the other side to write off this proposal as just partisan posturing, but facts are facts. American companies and small business owners are paralyzed by the excesses of the Dodd-Frank Act which has created massive new bureaucracies, imposed job-killing mandates, and heaped upon American businesses a slew of regulations that are choking off job opportunities for Americans. Dodd-Frank is leading to reductions in the availability of credit to American families and businesses and increases in the cost of credit to those who are able to borrow. The price controls required by Dodd-Frank and by the Dodd-Frank interchange amendment are a case in point of what happens when government wades carelessly into the economy.

I don't know why it came as a surprise to anyone that the price controls imposed by the interchange agreement, drying up a revenue stream for banks, would require new fees on consumers. Yet I doubt the announcement that banks are eliminating free checking and increasing debit card fees, a direct result of the interchange amendment, will result in a long look in the mirror for those responsible for this regulation. Rather, the favored response will no doubt be more regulation. It is essential that we repeal this fundamentally flawed law to unleash the full potential of the American economy by unfreezing much needed credit for small businesses as well as stripping away new layers of burdensome and ineffective regulations.

By the way, I have not mentioned Sarbanes-Oxley, which is adding accounting costs and other costs so astronomical to small business that many of them are not able to hire, they are not able to accomplish what they want to accomplish, and it has stalled our economy. That doesn't mean we don't need some regulations, but these bills have gone way to the excess.

No. 6, we need to make our regulatory system more jobs friendly. America's regulatory system is out of control. Time and again, unelected Washington bureaucrats erect walls of redtape that place significant burdens on the job creators. Far too often, businesses are forced to spend time and resources trying to comply with unnecessary Federal rules and regulations rather than on growth and development. With unemployment at over 9 percent, Congress needs to ensure that policies pursued by Federal agencies make it easier for businesses to hire and do what is necessary to be able to compete globally. There is bipartisan support for this idea. President Obama has proposed requiring regulators to perform a cost-benefit analysis in drafting new regulations. This requirement should be set by statute and should apply to all Federal agencies.

In addition, Congress should have greater influence in the regulatory process and should pass legislation such as the REINS Act, S. 299, which would, among other things, require Federal agencies to obtain congressional approval for regulations that will have significant economic impact.

No. 7, we need to develop America's energy resources. In the United States, energy is produced by private industry. Yet most energy resources are controlled by the Federal Government. The Obama administration has aggressively withdrawn access to Federal energy resources and has stalled or proscribed countless domestic energy projects sought by industry. This willful inaction by our President has cost Americans hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs. It has also cost our Federal and State governments billions of dollars in lost revenues from Federal energy royalties which they share. A recent Wood Mackenzie study found that if our Nation were permitted to allow more domestic energy production in the next two decades, an additional 1.4 million jobs would result and Federal and State governments would enjoy more than $800 billion in additional revenue. According to the study, it would mean more than 40,000 new jobs in Utah alone.

I have worked with my colleagues, Senator David Vitter of Louisiana and Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, on two legislative proposals that would reverse the President's attacks on domestic energy production. The 3-D, Domestic Jobs, Domestic Energy, and Deficit Reduction Act, that is S. 706, and the American Energy and Western Jobs Act, S. 1027, will get America back in the business of producing its own energy, creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs and billions in new revenue for Federal and State governments.

No. 8, we need to help America compete by protecting and encouraging innovation. We must modernize and make permanent research and development, the R&D tax credit to help keep America on the leading edge of technological innovation.

The United States once led the world in research and development incentives when we created the R&D credit back in 1981. However, in the years since other countries have responded with their own incentives, and now we rank 17th behind many of our global competitors. Senator Baucus and I have been the prime sponsors of the research and development tax credit over the years. In order to provide a more level playing field for American companies that compete in the global marketplace, we must provide more certainty to companies that invest heavily in research and development.

In addition, international infringement of U.S. intellectual property

rights costs American businesses billions of dollars every year. This affects big corporations and small businesses alike. By simply ensuring that our trade partners fulfill their international obligations to recognize and enforce intellectual property rights, we can create millions of jobs in this country. Starting now, this administration must take more meaningful steps to address this problem and protect American job creators.

No. 9, we need to create incentives and remove barriers for small businesses to create jobs. Small businesses drive the American economy and they are the soul of our Nation's entrepreneurial heritage. Small businesses create two-thirds of the jobs in our Nation's economy. As such, they should be at the forefront of our economic recovery. To achieve this, we need to ensure that American small businesses operate in a more business-friendly environment. Big-government solutions have failed to produce jobs, so it is long overdue that we release the entrepreneurial power of the private sector to grow our economy once again. We can and must make it easier for small businesses to invest, grow, and create jobs.

For example, Congress could provide a 20-percent tax deduction for small businesses on their income, and Congress could repeal the 3- percent withholding requirement for Federal contractors. Both of these ideas would expand job creation among small businesses.

No. 10, finally, we need to reform America's labor laws and rein in the National Labor Relations Board. Congress must enact significant reforms to our Nation's labor laws to counteract the pro-union extremism of the Obama National Labor Relations Board, or the NLRB. Instead of allowing the NLRB to rewrite America's labor laws every time a new administration takes office, Congress should reform those laws to provide greater oversight, accountability, and judicial review of the NLRB's decisions. They are usurping the power of the Congress. They are usurping the power of the courts. The fact of the matter is they don't have the right to do that, and they are overturning 76 years of solid labor law which is slightly in favor of organized labor. They want to make it totally in favor of organized labor.

In addition, Congress should pass legislation such as the Employee Rights Act, S. 1507, which I introduced in August to protect the rights of workers who do not want union representation, to prevent unions from exploiting their current members, and to ensure that the NLRB is no longer able to trample employee rights via regulatory fiat.

Congress should finally repeal the outdated prevailing wage requirements in the Davis-Bacon Act or, at the very least, suspend them until the economy recovers. Doing so would reduce burdens on small businesses, save the taxpayers money and, of course, create more jobs.

Once again, I am not under any illusions that passing this type of jobs agenda will be easy, but I am convinced of its necessity. Each of these proposals would achieve a commonsense objective, and most of these ideas have broad support within Congress and the American people. One thing is certain, however. We cannot stand by and do nothing. The people of Utah, whom I serve, and people across the country are demanding more jobs. This plan would accomplish this goal, but not through government, more regulation, more spending, and more taxes. Rather, it would encourage private sector job growth by getting government the heck out of the way. And by ensuring greater economic stability in the future, it would help to maintain the conditions for robust job creation.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, as we discuss our relationship with China, it strikes me that we are ignoring one of the most critical issues impacting U.S. competitiveness in regard to China--namely, China's inadequate protection of U.S. intellectual property, or what I call IP.

Let's remember that intellectual property is our Nation's No. 1 export. American IP underpins the knowledge economy, providing our workers and companies with a significant competitive advantage. In short, IP equals jobs for American workers. It is that simple. Studies have shown that IP-intensive industries employ more than 19 million workers, create higher paying jobs across all skill levels, and support more than 60 percent of total U.S. exports. That is why throughout my service here I have endeavored to ensure that U.S. innovators and content creators are able to operate in an environment in which their IP, or intellectual property, is adequately protected.

I am pleased to have been the lead Republican sponsor of the recently enacted America Invents Act, which resulted in long overdue reforms to our Nation's patent system that will strengthen our economy, create jobs, and provide a springboard for further improvements to our intellectual property laws. I was very pleased to see Senator Grassley take that over as the new ranking member of the committee and do such a great job with it. And I want to pay tribute to the distinguished Senator from Vermont, Mr. Leahy, as well and to my colleagues in the House who saw the importance of that particular new law. It is the first time we have modified the patent laws in over 50 years, and that was a historic event.

So it is pretty apparent that I take a great interest in intellectual property and all aspects of it. I am the chairman of the Senate Republican High-Tech Task Force. I have to say it is really a privilege to work with these brilliant people who work in the intellectual property area, and while many of them are in Silicon Valley out in California, we have our own Silicon Valley in Utah that is becoming very well known, a lot of innovation. So we have most of the really great companies right there in Utah as well.

U.S. leadership in innovation has not gone unnoticed by our economic and strategic competitors, who are adopting and evolving innumerable tactics to steal, expropriate, or otherwise undermine our intellectual property rights. Few, however, have been as overt in these efforts as China. The statistics on counterfeiting and piracy alone are staggering. According to a recent report by the U.S. International Trade Commission, firms in the U.S. IP-intensive economy that conducted business in China in 2009 reported losses of approximately $48.2 billion--that is billion with a ``b''--in sales, royalties, or license fees due to IP infringement in China. Now, that bears repeating: $48.2 billion in losses for U.S. companies due to intellectual property infringement in China.

Perhaps most disturbingly, the ITC report noted that companies reported that an improvement in IP protection and enforcement in China to levels comparable to that in the United States would likely increase employment by 2.5 percent. Think what that would do for our country. That amounts to almost 1 million U.S. jobs. And these aren't just jobs, these are really good jobs. These are jobs that would benefit our country a great deal.

But counterfeiting and piracy does not stop at China's border. Based on U.S. border seizure statistics, China is the primary source of counterfeited products in the United States. These counterfeited products from China run the gamut. We are talking about counterfeit toys, fake drugs, fake auto and aircraft parts, counterfeit computer chips, and counterfeit software, music, movies, and games--in essence, anything and everything that has value in the sights of Chinese counterfeiters. Imagine if you are flying on an airplane and the parts they thought were valid and good parts all of a sudden quit working. This is a very important point I am making.

Clearly, this is not incidental. It is pervasive. Given China's system of government, it is fair to draw the conclusion that piracy and counterfeiting have explicit or implicit government approval, for there is little doubt that China would deal severely with any other activity they found objectionable well before it became pervasive. If they wanted to, they could clean this up. I hope they will because it is very much to the disadvantage of our country.

It is becoming clearer every day that China's failure to protect U.S. intellectual property is part of a well-coordinated government-led national economic development plan. Nowhere is

this more obvious than in China's adoption of plans to promote ``indigenous innovation.'' China's indigenous innovation policies disadvantage U.S. innovators through rules and regulations which mandate the transfer of valuable technology and rules which provide preferential treatment for intellectual property which is developed in China. In addition, there have been continued attempts to use technology standards as both a means to erect barriers to U.S. technology and as a means to unfairly acquire very valuable U.S. technology.

This is not to say China has not made any progress in combating the theft of U.S. intellectual property. Certainly the commitments made at the recent JCCT meeting regarding indigenous innovation and government procurement were a positive step, as was the recent agreement by the Baidu Web site to license legitimate content from certain IP owners. But while these actions are a good start, there is a lot more that needs to be done.

We can debate currency manipulation all day long, but if we want to foster immediate job growth in the United States, we should focus our energies on working to find ways to staunch the bleeding when it comes to the theft of American innovation by China. Again, we are talking about close to 1 million good-paying U.S. jobs which stand to be created if we can get this problem under control.

I stand ready to work with my colleagues on this important set of issues, but these are important issues, and it is time for China to grow up and get into the world community and do what is right. It is a wonderful land. They have tremendous capacities. They are brilliant people. A lot of their engineers were educated here. They are people who really deserve to be leaders in the world community if they live in accordance with the basically honest rules of the world community. But right now they do not live in accordance with these rules, and they could do a much better job on intellectual property than they have done.

I have been there a number of times, and each time I have gone there, I have raised the intellectual property issues and I have raised the piracy issues. They always say they are going to do something about these issues, but when push comes to shove, they really don't do what really needs to be done.

Another important issue we need to discuss is enforcement, and that is why I filed amendment No. 679. My amendment requires the Comptroller General of the United States to submit an annual report to the Congress on the trade enforcement activities of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative--or we refer to it as USTR. This is a simple amendment that serves a vitally important purpose.

USTR is a relatively lean agency as compared to much of the bloated Federal bureaucracy. It is at the front lines in our efforts to open new markets to U.S. goods and services providers, and it leads the way in holding our trading partners accountable when they fail to live up to their trade commitments. It is a tough job. U.S. companies face an unrelenting onslaught of governments and NGOs which collaborate in seeking new ways to hamper America's economic competitiveness by undermining our intellectual property rights, by imposing unwarranted phyto-sanitary measures that have no basis in science, by enacting new technical barriers to trade, imposing unfair pricing and regulatory regimes upon our industries, and other equally harmful measures. Our goal, of course, should be to eliminate every single one of these. But the reality of the situation is that, in a world of limited resources, we must prioritize.

To my mind, the No. 1 priority should be removing barriers to our exports of goods and services, and eliminating foreign government practices which most impact U.S. jobs and economic well-being. Unfortunately, that has not been the case under this administration. Unfortunately, that is the situation we find ourselves in.

To cite an example, most people realize that China is an enormous problem for U.S. innovators and content creators. Our companies face policies designed to foster Chinese innovation at the expense of U.S. innovators, the imposition of standards-based barriers, the continued refusal to direct adequate resources toward stemming counterfeiting and piracy in both the online and physical realms, and other policies, laws, and regulations that diminish the value of U.S. intellectual property. To date, this administration has not filed a single intellectual property-related enforcement action against China.

Similarly, Chile continues to flagrantly violate the terms of our bilateral free-trade agreement with regard to crucial protections for intellectual property. Despite the direct and demonstrable harm to American innovators and workers, no dispute settlement process has been initiated with regard to Chile's failure to adequately protect intellectual property in accordance with the terms of our free-trade agreement that we have entered into with them.

In contrast, after 3-plus years of devoting significant resources to intensive negotiations with the Government of Guatemala, the Obama administration announced the initiation of the first ever bilateral labor dispute against an FTA partner. The administration also recently announced that it will investigate allegations by a Peruvian union that the Government of Peru has violated its labor under the United States- Peru Free Trade Agreement. To me, these actions demonstrate skewed enforcement priorities.

It is hard to believe that Guatemala's alleged failure to adequately enforce its own domestic labor laws is anywhere near the top of the list when it comes to trade barriers facing U.S. companies and workers. I also find it hard to believe that expending critical enforcement dollars to defend the interests of a Peruvian labor union should be among the top trade enforcement policies for this administration.

China, India, Brazil, Russia, and Chile are some of the many countries where we face very real threats to American industry and competitiveness due to unfair trade practices and barriers. But instead of focusing on these immediate, ongoing, and very real economic harms, the administration seeks yet again to instead score political points with labor union leadership.

I can hardly blame them for that, in a sense, because the trade unions in this country are the biggest supporters of the President and of the Democrats, but it is outrageous to not put our country first under the circumstances. It really is outrageous. I think even the trade unions are going to have to stop and think about, is this administration doing what is right with regard to our interests in all of these countries I have mentioned.

It is outrageous to direct the limited resources of our most important trade agency toward activities that have little to do with opening new markets or protecting U.S. jobs. This inability to prioritize based upon what is best for workers in the economy, as compared to what is best for building labor union support, is another unfortunate example of the administration's inability to lead on trade.

My amendment requires the Comptroller General, on a yearly basis, to detail the enforcement activities undertaken by the USTR and assess the economic impact of each such activity, including the impact on bilateral trade and on employment in the United States. It would also include an assessment of the cost of, and resources dedicated to, each such activity.

I am hopeful my amendment will assist this and future administrations in setting rational enforcement priorities. By providing an objective measure of the likely impact on trade and employment of any enforcement activities undertaken, it will also be an important resource for this and future Congresses in the conduct of our oversight responsibilities.

I would hope all of my Senate colleagues could support an amendment which provides us with important information and insights which will help us in ensuring that USTR utilizes taxpayer funds in the most effective manner possible toward opening markets and removing barriers to U.S. companies and workers.

I rise again today in support of my amendment No. 680. First, allow me to further explain some of my underlying concerns with the current bill's approach.

We have heard many estimates of job losses in the United States associated

with our trade deficit with China, following China's entry into the WTO, the World Trade Organization. Unfortunately, most of those estimates are highly unreliable and should be taken with a large amount of skepticism.

We have heard numbers coming out of the labor-backed Economic Policy Institute, or EPI, saying that 2.8 million U.S. jobs have been lost or displaced because of trade deficits with China since that country's entry into the WTO, with 1.9 million of those jobs estimated to have been in manufacturing. Unfortunately, those estimates come from an unreliable static analysis which essentially says imports displace labor used in domestic production and, therefore, lead directly to job loss and unemployment.

Looking at this particular chart here, you can see from that chart the relation between U.S. imports, which is the blue line, and the unemployment rate, which is the red line, and you can see how it has shot up since 2008, and it is still wavering at the top--does not seem to conform the jobs and unemployment claims being made with some of the numbers being used in our current debate. If anything, a casual observer might even say that when import growth is strong, it tends to be associated with a strong underlying economy, one in which unemployment is relatively low.

You can see from this chart that the imports were going up throughout the first part of 2002 to 2008, when they hit the pinnacle and then all of a sudden drop down with this administration. Now they are coming back up. But the unemployment rate has now gone up tremendously, and it doesn't seem to be coming down very far. So there is a correlation here. And, frankly, one that concerns me, as the chart suggests, following the pro-growth tax relief of 2003, the economy began to pick up some steam, imports correspondingly grew, and the unemployment rate fell until the financial crisis hit. That unemployment rate went down. The 2.8 million job loss number from the labor-funded think tank, or the 1.6 million job loss number the majority leader recently mentioned here on the floor, and many of the other job loss numbers associated with the China currency issue that are being offered by many of my colleagues on the other side of the floor, are highly unreliable and often not much different from numbers simply picked out of thin air.

The jobs numbers do not account for dynamic flows of workers from industry to industry, and the message being delivered is that if a job and an industry went away and net imports were going up, then the job must have been lost or displaced because of trade. Well, that is foolish.

What happened to the displaced worker? The analysis doesn't take that into account, and merely suggests, misleadingly, that the worker is unemployed. What happens to the dollars that are associated with financing any increased net increase in imports? The analysis doesn't take that into account.

If we run a higher trade deficit, finance it with dollar outflows, and foreign countries recycle the dollars back into Treasury bills to finance the President's stimulus spending spree, does the analysis take into account the resulting jobs that the President claims become ``saved or created''? No. Those jobs numbers are only convenient when advocates of the stimulus, such as the EPI, wish to promote more debt- fueled government spending.

I do not dispute that there are important dynamic effects of international trade on the U.S. labor market. I do dispute many of the numbers being tossed about and offered as estimates of job losses stemming from trade with China. I do dispute that dealing with our bilateral trade deficit with China is the most important thing we can do for jobs today, as the Senate majority leader has suggested. Those doubts, of course, are not reasons to not act on the Chinese currency issue, but they do lead me to doubt the job creation priorities of my friends on the other side of the aisle.

The President has been actively campaigning for congressional consideration and passage of the so-called American Jobs Act--right now, today--yet the majority leader here in the Senate refuses to let us consider the President's proposal right now, despite the minority leader having introduced a proposal for Senate consideration. Evidently, Senate Democrats believe that construction of a new mechanism to use to confront China and raise prospects of trade wars is more important to jobs than the President's plan. I don't think so.

The President states--rightfully so--that unemployed American workers don't have 14 months to wait for action on jobs. Yet we are considering a currency bill that, at best, would set in motion a lengthy process of currency misalignment determinations and perhaps ensuing trade sanctions. If anyone believes that the process set up in the currency bill to confront any currency misalignment in existence today will lead to job creation right now or in the next 14 months, then I suggest they do not understand much about international trade, labor markets, and the often painfully slow processes of international trade negotiations.

It took President Obama over 2\1/2\ years to send free-trade agreements to Congress, bills that were all set to go from the day he took office. Do you believe the legislation before us, even if it went into effect right now, would lead to a fundamental misalignment finding immediately, along with rapidly ensuing dialogue and action that would lead to job creation right now? Even if the legislation before us today were implemented today, it would likely take months and years before it achieved any results.

It is important to confront existing currency misalignments and global imbalances, the sources of which include persistently high amounts of U.S. debt made significantly worse during the past 3 years of deficits in excess of $1 trillion that were used wastefully on so- called ``stimulus'' and commercially non-viable green energy experiments that just plain did not work. People are starting to wake up to this type of approach to government.

To say that the issue of China's managed currency peg is the most important issue for job creation today is telling, and it certainly does not speak well for how the President's jobs act is perceived by his Senate Democratic colleagues as a job creator.

My concerns go beyond some of the claims related to job creation. I am afraid the current bill will be ineffective, and could actually end up harming our exporters through retaliation. That is a real fear, it is a real concern, especially since the Chinese have said they will retaliate. We don't need that right now, with the economy the way it is. But that is what they are going to do if this bill passes, even though some might think that is the right thing to do. And I am not the only one with concerns. Today, according to an article by the Associated Press, the White House finally publicly stated that it has concerns with this legislation. While we still don't know what those specific concerns are, we do know that they believe approval of the bill would be counterproductive.

We know that. Why doesn't the administration come out and say it? Why is it the President cannot lead on these issues? Why is it he always calls on Congress to lead on these issues? That is why we elected him as President--or should I say, that is why they elected him as President, because I did not vote for him, even though I like him personally. I did vote for my colleague, John McCain.

Similar concerns were expressed in an opinion editorial by the New York Times entitled ``The Wrong Way to Deal with China.'' They call this bill a ``bad idea'' and ``too blunt of an instrument.'' Specifically, they state that the bill is very unlikely to persuade China to change its practices, noting that it will instead ``add an explosive new conflict to an already heavy list of bilateral frictions.''

That is the New York Times. My goodness. That is pretty much the Bible for folks on the other side, and they do write very effectively on some of these issues.

I agree currency manipulation is a serious problem, and I have proposed a better way to address it. My amendment empowers the administration to work within existing frameworks to mitigate the effects of currency manipulation and stop it from occurring. If our negotiators cannot make progress in the WTO and IMF--we go there first--we must go outside these organizations and align with other like-minded countries to confront the Chinese currency interventions together.

I could not agree more with my colleagues who have introduced the bill we are debating that China's beggar-thy-neighbor's currency policies do harm the United States and our workers, and from that standpoint, I commend my colleagues. But massive currency interventions harm many other economies and their workers as well. We should join together in a pluralistic way to counter China's actions and negotiate a long-term solution to stop the fundamental misalignment of currencies, whether by China or any other country. If we did that, it would bring tremendous worldwide pressure on China, rather than acting in a bilateral fashion, which this bill will do. My amendment would allow that to occur. I would be happy to give credit to the other side if they would accept that amendment. They have to know it is a prescient, worthy amendment--something that would make a difference, rather than just making talking points or creating a trade war with a country that we should work toward getting along with.

Appreciating the Chinese currency will help address global macroeconomic imbalances and serve China's long-term economic interests as well, while ensuring that American businesses, farmers, manufacturers, service providers, and workers compete on a level playing field.

I just introduced this amendment yesterday around noon and I am pleased many of my colleagues have reviewed my substitute bill and they do support it and support a different approach. I think, if we want to work together, it is a perfect way of doing it because it gives what the folks want on this side and brings the right kind of pressure, without causing a huge trade war that is going to be very much to our disadvantage.

In addition, since the introduction of my amendment, many business associations, advocacy groups, think tanks, and others have come out in support of my substitute bill. I did not file that for political reasons. I did not file that to just cause trouble. I filed it because these ideas in that bill are far superior to the ideas in the underlying bill. I think my friends on the other side ought to look at it and tell me where they can improve it and take it over, if they will. The fact is, it is far superior to what the underlying bill is.

Many agree my approach is our best chance at solving this problem that we all find so frustrating. To those who think this is more of the same old approach, I say absolutely not. The old policies and the old Exchange Rate Act have not worked and they need to go. On that I think we all agree.

My proposal does not say try and work this out with China and hope for the best. Instead, my approach directs our negotiators to work with others and challenge China until a solution is agreed to. My approach does not prevent the United States from taking unilateral action, but it does demand that the administration seek out those countries that will join our efforts to combat currency manipulation so our actions are more effective and bring worldwide pressure on China to do what is right and to be more fair. We do need a bold, new approach, and we need to empower our negotiators to work within the WTO and IMF to ensure a level playing field for American businesses and workers. But if they cannot do that there and these institutions cannot handle this problem, then we must join with other like-minded countries to act in concert to counter China's currency policies outside the WTO and IMF.

This bill is going to cause a tremendous dislocation if it passes, and it is going to cause a trade war that is much to our disadvantage. It may make good populist talk, but it will be very much to our disadvantage and, in the end, will not do what they want it to do. My bill will. It may take some effort, but my bill will.

If they cannot confront these existing currency misalignments and global imbalances the way we are suggesting, if they cannot do that there and these institutions cannot handle this problem, then we have to join other like-minded countries to act in concert to counter China's currency policies outside the WTO and IMF.

That is what leadership is all about. That is what real executive branch leadership should be about. That is what a real USTR should be about. But we also need a partner. We need an administration that will lead on this issue. If I have an objection to this administration, it is that they do not lead on anything. They didn't send up a budget or the one they did failed 97 to zero. But they have not taken it seriously. They just wait for Congress to act and for Congress to do these things. That is what we elected the President to do, to send up his approach to this. That is what we elected him for and he ought to do that. But they do not, for some reason.

We also need a partner. We need an administration that will lead on this issue. My amendment will hold the administration accountable until they achieve results and that is whether it is this administration or a successive administration. We are debating which approach will better solve the chronic currency manipulation problem with China. My approach has been endorsed by Americans for Tax Reform, which said that the Hatch amendment ``offers a sensible approach that utilizes the mechanisms created by the international trade community to resolve such disputes.''

The Emergency Committee for American Trade says the Hatch amendment ``will more effectively address concerns about currency misalignment by China and other countries, without opening the door to many harmful effects on U.S. business and workers.''

The Retail Industry Leaders Association also supports my amendment, as does the Financial Services Roundtable. This amendment is already generating significant support. Why don't my friends on the other side take it, declare victory, and go from there? They can refile it in their name. That will be fine with me. I don't care who gets the credit for it, I just care that we handle it in a way that makes sense rather than make a bunch of political points that frankly will irritate the daylights out of our friends from China.

I urge my colleagues to support my amendment and let's all agree to hold the administration accountable and work with the other like-minded countries to challenge China's currency practices.

I am happy to yield the floor at this point.

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.

I have enjoyed the remarks of my distinguished friend from New York.

As we begin the debate today on the important issue of exchange rate misalignment, although it is an important debate, I seriously question its timing.

Let's step back for a moment. At the end of last month, the Senate approved legislation renewing and expanding trade adjustment assistance. We need to be clear about what this program is--a big government spending program of dubious value but one that is important to President Obama's union allies. Not surprisingly, given the heft labor unions wield in the liberal political coalition, this spending program is President Obama's top trade priority, so much so that he was even willing to abandon our allies in Colombia, Panama, and South Korea unless he secured this additional spending. To get more government spending for big labor, the President was willing to hold up the three free-trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea that everyone knows will grow this economy and create jobs.

I was happy to chat with the Trade Representative a few minutes ago, and he told me he was going to send those three trade agreements up today, and they should be here between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. I am really happy about that because it is way beyond time to get them here.

Americans need to remember this episode when they hear the President talk about his commitment to job creation. Put aside all the talk, and it is clear where the rubber hits the road. The President will prioritize government spending over private sector job growth.

Still, because of the President's insistence on this spending program, the TAA bill is likely to pass the House and become law. So here is my question: Given that we just debated a trade bill that we knew would likely become law, why was this currency bill not considered in that context? I can only conclude either that the administration opposes the currency bill and therefore asked that it not become part of TAA or that the consideration of this bill is merely a political exercise with little expectation that it ever will become law. With millions of Americans out of work and the economy stagnant, the people of Utah and all American citizens deserve more than political grandstanding.

Regarding the substance of the issue, the manipulation of currency values by major trading partners in order to gain unfair trade advantage represents a genuine threat to U.S. jobs and to rebalancing of the global financial and economic system. For many years and continuing into the present, that threat is a reality. There is virtually unanimous agreement among international analysts that there exists large-scale, prolonged, one-way intervention in exchange markets by some of our important trading partners in order to limit or preclude currency appreciation, primarily in China but also in some of the other economies as well. There also seems to be little question that China manipulates its currency in order to subsidize its exports.

The bill before us seeks to address exchange rate misalignment specifically and global imbalances generally by sharpening the tools available to counter currency manipulation by a trading partner. Of course, any additional tools we can construct must be carefully crafted to align with all of our international trade agreements and global rules of trade.

The issue of China's currency has been with us for far too many years.

The issue of China's currency has been with us for far too many years. We have repeated discussions about how to address lack of appreciation of China's currency, followed by diplomatic bilateral discussions assurances of moves from China to allow appreciation some modest subsequent appreciation while the political heat is on, and little change thereafter once the heat subsides.

This approach does not seem to be working. We have had large and persistent bilateral trade deficits with China, and those deficits continue. We have relied on China's massive excess savings to finance our growing debt, and we have worsened that reliance given the debt- fueled spending spree of the current President. China's dollar- denominated reserve holdings, which have grown for many years, have ballooned from around $1.9 trillion when President Obama took office to over $3 trillion, according to some recent estimates--a 50-percent increase.

But currency misalignment by China is not the only source of global financial and economic imbalances. If the President looked in the mirror, he would see his own responsibility for global economic uncertainty. Our budget deficits have far exceeded $1 trillion for the past 3 fiscal years. For 2011, the deficit is expected to be around $1.3 trillion, which is an unsustainable 8.5 percent of GDP and the third-largest deficit in the past 65 years, exceeded only by the deficits in 2009 and 2010. Deficits of this magnitude have not been seen since the years surrounding World War II, when virtually the entire economy was being directed by the Federal government. Given our budget deficits and the China currency issue, the important question is: What is being done?

Let's look at what is being done with a bit of recent history for context. Back in 2008, then-candidate Obama wrote the following to textile organizations:

The massive current account surpluses accumulated by China

are directly related to its manipulation of its currency's

value. The result is not good for the United States, not good

for the global economy, and likely to create problems in

China itself.

He went went on to promise that, if elected, he would use all diplomatic

means at his disposal to induce China to change its foreign exchange policies. He promised to beef up U.S. enforcement efforts against unfair trade practices.

Also, back in 2009, during the Treasury Secretary's confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee, now-Secretary Geithner stated that:

President Obama--backed by the conclusions of a broad range

of economists--believes that China is manipulating its

currency.

Those are strong words. Yet once in office, the President and Secretary Geithner failed to follow up on those words with action. The Administration promised to usher in an era of change but failed to change the way the U.S. deals with the China currency issue.

The Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988 requires that the Treasury Secretary report on exchange rate policies of major U.S. trading partners. Under the act, Treasury must consider whether countries manipulate exchange rates for purposes of preventing balance of payments adjustments or gaining unfair trade advantage.

The evidence clearly seems to show that China's currency policies amount to manipulation leading to an unfair advantage in international trade.

Candidate Obama agreed during his campaign.

Treasury Secretary Geithner agreed during his confirmation testimony.

Yet, as Treasury Secretary and as President, the two have refused to act.

Secretary Geithner has issued five foreign exchange reports, but has refused to label China as a country that manipulates its exchange rate for the purpose of gaining unfair competitive advantage in international trade. Let me repeat that, despite many bold claims about using all the tools at their disposal to counteract China's trade policies, the administration refuses to designate China's policies as being consistent with currency manipulation for trade advantage. The question that I and most of my colleagues from both sides of the aisle have is: Why?

Clearly, the administration must recognize the consequences of China's manipulation for American workers and manufacturers and for the stability of the global financial and economic system. Why, then, is the administration protecting China by refusing to designate it as a currency manipulator?

Under the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act, once a country is so designated, there are no draconian actions required. The immediate repercussions are merely stepped-up monitoring and greater vigilance in dialogue. Those don't seem to be things that would lead to currency or trade wars.

So, why doesn't the administration act?

After all, American jobs are at stake. American workers can compete with any workers in the world, but our workers should not have to compete against foreign firms that receive massive subsidies. If the President is as intent on focusing on job creation in America as his campaigning suggests, then why has he refused to take such a simple step as designating known, existing currency manipulation?

There is a severe mismatch here between political rhetoric and action.

My fear is that the administration's overreliance on overseas funding--in particular from China--to finance their exploding deficits is preventing the President and his officers from acting on behalf of the competitive, but struggling, American workforce.

It is well past time for the administration to recognize the negative consequences of China's manipulation for American workers and manufacturers, and for global stability.

Even though there has been only tepid support, even on the Democratic side of the aisle, for the President's much touted jobs plan, there is bipartisan agreement that Congress needs to take significant actions to address the massive jobs deficit this Nation is facing. We face a national crisis in having unemployment persisting at over 9 percent, with elevated numbers of the unemployed suffering from long-term bouts of joblessness and with many American workers having become so discouraged that they have simply dropped out of the labor force.

According to statements by the majority leader of the Senate, a focus on jobs is precisely why we are considering the bill before us. According to one of those statements, the majority leader is reported as having said that ``I don't think there's anything more important for a jobs measure than China trade.''

I am starting to think my friends on the other side of the aisle are like the gang that couldn't shoot straight. The majority leader thinks that addressing China trade is essential to job creation. But based on its failure to use existing tools available to designate China as a currency manipulator, the administration apparently disagrees or it would have long ago used its authority to make such a designation under the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act and then acted on the problem.

The President's focus seems to be elsewhere. He seems to think that at least as important for jobs as the issue of China trade identified by the majority leader is his so-called American Jobs Act. Advertisements by the Democratic National Committee and campaign speeches by the President since he announced it in a joint session of Congress early last month tell us quite clearly that we should ``meet our responsibilities'' and consider that Act ``right away.''

Yet my friends on the other side of the aisle apparently believe that a political debate over China and its currency policies are more important for job creation than the President's American Jobs Act.

If the President's act is, as advertised, so crucial for job creation in the face of our national unemployment crisis, why is Senate Democratic leadership delaying its consideration? Why not consider the legislation right away, as demanded by the President in his campaign speeches and Democratic National Committee advertisements?

We are told by the President that Americans who are out of work cannot wait until the next election for us to act boldly for job creation. So why are we not considering his American Jobs Act, unless my Democrat friends disagree with the President that the act would be the most important job creator available to us today?

I suspect they know that the $447 billion in new stimulus spending included in the President's jobs bill, and the accompanying proposals to impose $1.5 trillion in new taxes on a sluggish economy, is economically counterproductive and a sure-fire political loser.

I must say that the President's Jobs Act looks like more of the same debt-fueled stimulus spending, cloaked under the guise of ``investment,'' along with higher taxes, cloaked under the label ``tax reform.''

While I may disagree on the particulars of the President's proposal, I do not disagree with his premise that we face a national crisis in our labor markets and that we should be debating measures that will promote American job creation now, without delay.

We are also told by the President that we must pass our pending trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. Jobs are at stake, he says. As with the political campaign rhetoric exhorting Congress to pass the President's American Jobs Act, which the majority leader has opted to shelve until some unspecified future date, the President delayed the action required to get these agreements passed for much too long.

Pass the American Jobs Act, the President scolds.

But we can't because the Democrat's majority leader has not brought the Act to the Senate floor. The currency bill, which is unlikely to lead to much, if any, job creation before the next election, has come first, perhaps to allow more time for campaign speeches and ads by the Democratic National Committee.

Pass the free trade agreements, the President lectures. But they were delayed, as they sit idle on his desk.

I am pleased, since the trade leader in the administration called me a few minutes ago to tell me they are on their way up here today.

This currency bill is coming first. But what needs to come first is job creation, not electioneering and politics.

Our jobs deficit is a full-blown national crisis. The unemployment rate has been persistently above 9 percent since April of this year. It has averaged 9.4 percent since the President took office. It has been above 9 percent in 26

out of the 31 months since the President took office, despite promises by administration economists that the massive debt-fueled stimulus, which will cost over $1 trillion when all costs are included, would keep unemployment contained below 8 percent. And the unemployment rate is even higher, at over 16 percent, once we include, for example, people who want to work but have become so discouraged that they no longer look for work.

Nearly 14 million workers are unemployed, and the number grows when we include discouraged workers. The number of long-term unemployed workers has been at record highs. According to Census data released last month, those in their twenties and thirties are suffering from the highest unemployment rate since World War II. The enthusiasm of young citizens in 2008 long ago gave way to disappointment and disaffection.

Our joblessness crisis is nothing short of a crisis for liberty. When American men and women do not have jobs and opportunity, their freedom to make lives for themselves is eroded. Yet we are to understand that in the face of this historic crisis, there is no more important issue regarding jobs than our bilateral trade with China.

Again, I agree we need to address the issue of currency manipulation and our sustained and large trade deficits with China. However, let us be clear that dealing with issues related to China involves only one bilateral trade relationship. The trade and current account problems facing the United States, and the global financial, trade, and economic imbalances that everyone faces are not solved by addressing this one trading relationship. That is one reason I will be offering an amendment to this bill calling for multilateral and plurilateral negotiations to address currency misalignment. If we are going to succeed, we need to look at the big picture and work with our allies to counter China's current practices. I will discuss my amendment in more detail soon, but hope it will receive strong bipartisan support.

Our trade imbalances are not with China alone. Rather, as part of the problem of saving too little, the United States has multilateral trades imbalances which require more action than focusing solely on one bilateral relationship.

According to recent data from the U.S. International Trade Commission, the United States has trade deficits with nearly 100 countries. The United States saves too little, and that problem will not be solved solely by passing the bill before us.

Make no mistake, the legislation we are considering can provide useful tools for addressing concerns about China, if the administration actually uses the tools. But those tools alone are not sufficient. If we try to address our multilateral problems by putting pressure on China alone, without also attending to our lack of saving and our own role in generating trade deficits with nearly 100 other countries, the Chinese piece of the U.S. imbalance will migrate somewhere else. This bill is not a magic bullet to solve our problems or the problems arising from global imbalances. And it almost surely is not the highest priority piece of legislation if job creation is truly our focus.

The United States, for its part, contributes to global imbalances by persistently saving too little. Following the financial crisis, which was precipitated partly by large runups in household indebtedness, American families have tightened their belts to save more and repair their own balance sheets. It is the U.S. Federal Government that has been missing in action to restore national savings, reduce our Federal debt, and promote global balance.

Rather than repair the Federal balance sheet, the administration has chosen to run trillions of dollars of debt-fueled deficits and borrow ever-increasing sums from abroad, including China. And rather than facing the fact that the Federal Government has a spending problem, the President is advertising and campaigning on a new American Jobs Act stimulus and tax hike platform containing even more spending and short- term debt accumulation.

We are told that it will be in the interest of the American people to borrow more today in order to spend more on infrastructure, for example. The stimulus proponents say: Interest rates are low, so let's ramp up borrowing right now. That is the same approach the Senate took when it voted to extend and expand trade adjustment assistance. They ignore, however, that piling trillions more onto our national credit card issued by China and our other creditors moves us that much faster into the company of the eurozone countries who now face default and elevated interest costs.

While Federal borrowing rates are low today, what happens when global markets tire of our profligacy and debt-financed spending and begin to demand higher interest compensation? As Spain and Italy have seen recently, low interest rates are not guaranteed and the interest rate environment that you face can pivot on a dime and escalate rapidly. Borrowing at low rates today sounds great, until you wake up tomorrow and are forced to refinance at more punitive rates. More debt-fueled government spending beyond our means is sure to drive us rapidly down the road to the stagnation and debt crisis we are seeing today in Europe.

Of course, the President claims his new stimulus and tax hike proposals are all paid for, but the payments are largely promises of future austerity. Anyone who has paid attention knows that when the Federal Government promises to go on a spending diet later it never leads to fiscal weight loss because future Congresses are not bound by today's promises.

It is interesting to hear the President's persistent calls for more debt-fueled infrastructure spending. Presumably, given his interest in job creation ``right now,'' the projects he has in mind will be more shovel-ready than the readiness of the previous stimulus projects, which turned into something the President found so funny that he joked about it. Of course, it is no joke to jobless Americans who are stuck with the stimulus debt bill.

We heard in early September from the chairman of the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness that the council identified ``ten high-priority infrastructure projects based on their potential to put Americans to work right away--projects that have already been funded, but are being held up by regulations.''

The jobs council says it will work with the administration to try to get the projects moving. Let me repeat that: the projects ``are being held up by regulations.'' This comes from the chairman of the President's own jobs council.

Yet when some on the other side of the aisle are reminded that regulations are holding back job creation, they recoil in disbelief. If there are 10 large-scale infrastructure spending projects ready to go and already fully funded and are only being held up by regulatory review lag, I urge the President to act ``right now'' to get those projects underway in the interest of job creation. Make one fewer campaign appearance and use that time to expedite regulatory review and get those projects going if, as should be the case, he believes job creation is more important than politics and wishes to act on that belief.

We have also heard the President remarking on how, from a global competitiveness perspective, the United States should borrow more today and spend on what he generically calls ``infrastructure,'' which, as it turns out, can be anything from paving a road to doling out money to solar panel makers.

The President cited in his infrastructure advocacy a set of global rankings on infrastructure from the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report. The President seemed to read the report and its ranking of the United States as 23rd out of 139 countries for transportation infrastructure competitiveness as a call for more spending on whatever it is he thinks of as infrastructure.

It appears, however, that he did not read the report in its entirety. If he did, he would have noticed that the ranking is for only one of nine factors in the report's overall infrastructure assessment. More importantly, if he had read the report, he would have noticed the overriding area identified as the weakest one for the United States in terms of eroding our global competitiveness. To quote the report directly:

A lack of macroeconomic stability continues to be the

United States' greatest area of weakness (ranked 87th). Prior

to the crisis, the United States had been building up

large macroeconomic imbalances, with repeated fiscal deficits

leading to burgeoning levels of public indebtedness; this has

been exacerbated by significant stimulus spending. In this

context, it is clear that mapping out a clear exit strategy

will be an important step in reinforcing the country's

competitiveness going into the future.

There you have it. The report the President data-mined to find a number to use to support more stimulus quite clearly says that declining U.S. global competitiveness has come from fiscal deficits, exacerbated by stimulus spending. It clearly says the solution is to exit from our unsustainable fiscal path. That means reining in the runaway debt-fueled spending, not more spending.

Before turning to the legislative process on the bill before us, let me post a trail marker for our deliberations. The currency bill we are considering includes reliance on exchange rate models used by the International Monetary Fund. Those models allow for the macroeconomic effects on currency valuations of fundamental changes in policies of trade partner countries. For example, if the United States engages in fundamental tax reform that would lead to improved growth and reduced deficits and debt, the models considered in the legislation before us have the ability to capture those effects.

The marker I wish to set here is a reminder that we should be similarly so inclined to use economic models that allow for macroeconomic effects of policy changes when we choose to make fundamental changes to tax and spending policies. We should be as willing to have our budget score keepers use economic models that allow for long-run growth and macroeconomic effects of fundamental tax and spending reform policies as we seem to be here in this legislation to use models that incorporate such effects when evaluating currency alignments. If it is good to use economic models that allow for an accounting of growth effects here, then it should be good elsewhere.

I also need to address the process we will follow in our consideration of the currency bill before us. The bill has garnered bipartisan support. In the interest of promoting a truly bipartisan effort, which the American people would love to see, it is my hope there will be balance in amendments that are allowed to be considered. This bill has sound objectives, but it is not perfect. I believe amendments from both sides of the aisle can improve the final product. And, as I mentioned earlier, I have an amendment that I believe will improve this bill significantly and help us devise a long-term approach to dealing with currency misalignment. I hope there will be an opportunity for it, and others, to be considered. I hope they are not going to lock up the tree again, which is the standard practice around here by the majority. This bill is an important bill, and we ought to be able to amend it with important amendments.

The overriding objective of the legislation--job creation--is shared by Republicans and Democrats alike. Therefore, it is my hope that amendments from my side of the aisle, designed to promote job growth today and in the future, will be duly considered, allowed, and duly debated.

I look forward to consideration of the currency bill before us and a robust, bipartisan process, which includes consideration of amendments from both sides to promote job creation.

As I have said, our Nation faces a crisis of unemployment and joblessness that is filled with pain today and threatens erosion of human capital and skills, which will negatively impact families and the overall economy for years and years to follow. Let us not have politics and special interests dictate what we consider to promote job creation and economic growth. American workers and families, many of them struggling and in pain, cannot wait until the next Presidential election is resolved for the Federal Government to act to promote job creation.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to two men whose influence has greatly benefitted my State.

My good friend Lawrence H. Lee was, at one time, the CEO of Western Airlines. As you may know, before merging with Delta Air Lines in 1986, Western was one of the largest airlines serving the western U.S.

In 1982, as an executive at Western Airlines, Lawrence was responsible for establishing a hub for the airline in Salt Lake City, UT. This would prove to be a consequential decision, both for the airline and, most especially, for the economic future of the State of Utah.

In the early 1980s, Western Airlines was on the verge of bankruptcy. Lawrence was appointed CEO in 1983 and tasked with the job of turning the airline around. Under his leadership, they were able to reduce costs and return Western to profitability. Ultimately, this success led to Western's merger with Delta Air Lines.

During his tenure as CEO of Western Airlines, Lawrence's right-hand man was none other than Gerald Grinstein, Delta's future CEO. An excerpt from Lawrence's journal gives an account of Mr. Grinstein's efforts to save Delta Air Lines and preserve its Salt Lake hub.

It is important to note that Delta's Salt Lake hub, which exists as a direct result of my friend Lawrence's decision to create a hub there for Western Airlines, is vital to Utah's economy. Salt Lake City is small relative to other major airline hubs in the U.S. Therefore, the city and its surrounding community receive an almost inordinate economic benefit from the presence of the Delta hub. Delta's Salt Lake hub attracts untold amounts of business to Utah. It was cited as a reason that Utah was able to secure the Winter Olympics in 2002. All told, Utah receives nearly $18 billion every year from commercial aviation, most of which is derived from Delta's presence in the market.

I thank my good friend Lawrence Lee for his contribution to Utah's growth and development. In his journal, Lawrence states that Gerald Grinstein should be considered a ``Giant of Salt Lake City.'' I certainly agree. But, I believe much the same could be said about Lawrence Lee.

Mr. President, as testimony to the importance of Lawrence Lee and Gerald Grinstein to Utah's economic growth, I ask unanimous consent that an excerpt from the Personal Journal of Lawrence H. Lee be printed in the Record.

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

Mr. President, I thank Senator Rubio for offering his important amendment that will constrain spending on TAA by limiting TAA benefits to workers negatively impacted by free trade agreements negotiated by the U.S. Government.

As I explained in offering my amendment yesterday to tighten the standard of eligibility for TAA, the expanded TAA Program will grow and grow and cost more and more taxpayer money. The expanded TAA Program proposed by the chairman is no longer about trade policy but, rather, about expanding a domestic spending program. The TAA Program proposed by our friends across the aisle extends TAA to services workers and to workers impacted by shifts of production or services to any foreign country. In an integrated and rapidly expanding global economy, conceivably all business decisions made at home and abroad could trigger TAA's generous benefits.

As I predicted at the beginning of this debate, many of my friends who support TAA have argued that more people used the TAA Program when it was expanded in 2009; therefore, it must be working. I strongly reject this argument. Spending more money and certifying more workers does not mean a program is succeeding; it simply means the program is expanding and costing more and more taxpayer dollars.

Proponents of an expanded TAA Program tell us there is a moral obligation for the government to help mitigate the costs from job losses associated with increased imports and offshore outsourcing, which often occurs as a result of direct government policies, that is, trade agreements. But why do we choose to reward some Americans who lose their jobs due to adjusting to some Federal policies--in this case, trade policy--but not others? Even if one were to concede that the Federal Government has some obligation to help those who lose their jobs due to the trade policy actions of the United States, surely workers who lose their jobs for reasons that have nothing to do with Federal Government actions should not receive these favorable TAA benefits.

I have heard lots of talk about the improvements made in the 2009 TAA stimulus expansion. One word I do not hear much anymore is ``globalization,'' because if you go back and look at the actual bill, the 2009 stimulus TAA package was actually called TGAA, trade and globalization adjustment assistance. The chairman has dropped the ``globalization'' reference in the title of the TAA extension amendment we are considering today, but the legislation retains the untenable expansion of eligibility criteria included in the 2009 stimulus version.

The TAA Program we will vote on today, as offered by the chairman has lost any nexus to U.S. trade policy actions. Under the chairman's expanded TAA Program, workers who lose their jobs, allegedly due to shifts in production to non-free-trade agreement countries, will be eligible for the generous TAA benefits.

As I highlighted in my remarks yesterday about Solyndra, in a dynamic U.S. and global economy, businesses can start up and shut down for many reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with foreign trade and certainly nothing to do with any specific U.S. trade policy. Solyndra failed due to a bad business model and an ill-conceived Federal loan of a half a billion dollars in taxpayer money--it was a little bit more than that--not because of trade policy. That Solyndra workers may receive TAA benefits highlights the problems with the program.

Globalization has changed how our businesses operate--both large and small--and all the variables that now impact buying and selling decisions through global supply chains, shifting demographics, shifting demand trends, different tax regimes, and ever-changing investment climates will necessarily create opportunities and challenges for all American businesses. We should help American businesses and farmers compete for the new customers and consumers around the world, and we do this best by prying open those markets, protecting American intellectual property rights and investments, and strengthening the rule of law.

That is why my colleagues and I continue to push the White House to send the three pending free-trade agreements to Congress for a vote, so we can help our businesses and farmers better compete in a global economy. If we want to help our economy and create jobs, passing the FTAs should be our first order of business.

The best response to globalization is to harness its dynamic growth to our benefit, not to choose winners and losers and give them unproven training and additional income support and health care entitlements. If the purpose of TAA is to help workers adjust to trade policy actions by the government, then only those workers impacted by trade with U.S. free-trade agreement countries should be eligible.

Again, I thank my colleague and friend, Senator Rubio, for offering this important amendment and trying to look out for the taxpayer and narrowly constrain spending on TAA. I urge my colleagues to support his amendment.

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

Mr. President, I rise to speak in support of the amendment filed by my colleague from South Dakota. This amendment deals with an important issue, namely, the cost of delay when it comes to free-trade agreements.

The President's desire to increase spending on TAA--an expensive domestic spending program of debatable worth--at a time when taxpayers are struggling to make ends meet during a recession makes no sense to me.

His strategy to link passage of FTAs to renewal of this expanded TAA program is equally perplexing. TAA is meant to assist workers who have allegedly lost their jobs due to trade. But the administration has repeatedly stated that the three pending trade agreements will create jobs, not cause people to lose them.

According to the Business Roundtable, passage of the three pending trade agreements will support 250,000 American jobs. Since jobs will be created rather than lost, it makes no sense to link the passage of an expanded version of trade adjustment assistance to these three FTAs. In fact, the only jobs lost to date have been those caused by the President's refusal to send these FTAs to Congress. His refusal to act has caused U.S. farmers, manufacturers, and service providers

to cede market share to our competitors in Panama, Colombia, and South Korea.

Given the state of the economy under this administration, one would think passage of these trade agreements--which were handed to the President wrapped up in a bow by his predecessor--would be the first order of business. Yet, here we are, more than halfway into this administration and the President has not even made a commitment to send us the trade agreements so we can consider them.

My colleague's amendment would help us assess the impact of the President's delay, and future Presidents as well, on the American economy.

The amendment would require the ITC to assess the negative impact to U.S. businesses if a trade agreement is signed but has not been considered by Congress within 2 years. Among other things, the ITC study would highlight lost U.S. export opportunities, the impact on the protection of U.S. intellectual property overseas, the impact on U.S. employment to date, and the prospective impact on U.S. employment if agreements are not sent to Congress.

If the President believes these trade agreements will create jobs, he needs to submit them to Congress. It is absurd that they are still sitting on the President's desk, while our companies and workers lose market share to our competitors in Colombia, South Korea, and Panama.

I encourage my colleagues to support this amendment.

I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from New Hampshire be permitted to make her remarks at this time.

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

Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the Casey-Reid amendment. Over the past several days we have had the opportunity to publicly discuss and debate a number of serious flaws in the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program and its proposed expansion. Perhaps the most egregious aspect is voting to spend more taxpayer dollars on an expanded domestic spending program of dubious value at the very same time our colleagues on the supercommittee are scrutinizing every penny of Federal spending in a bipartisan effort to get our Federal deficit under control.

It makes me wonder whether this body understands the gravity of the deficit we are facing. As a country, we are simply spending more money than we have. If it continues we are going to be bankrupt. We will bankrupt our country and leave behind a grim future for our children and grandchildren.

We will hear many of my colleagues talk about how important it is to spend this money, and I am sure a lot of them will feel good about their votes. But we all know the good feeling that comes from buying things we cannot afford is fleeting while the debt accrued hangs like a dark cloud over our daily lives. We simply cannot afford to continue to spend money our country does not have. This is why I, for one, am voting no.

Despite my concerns, I am convinced that this amendment and bill will pass. This spring, the President made it clear that if this domestic spending program was not expanded and approved he would abandon our allies in Colombia, Panama, and South Korea, and cede these growing markets to our foreign competitors. How shortsighted.

While the President may have been willing to accept that outcome, many of my colleagues were not. They stepped up to the plate and vowed to support efforts to move the process forward. As a result, the deck in favor of this bill was stacked long ago.

Still, I am glad we have had an open debate on the merits of this program. Earlier this year, the President attempted to shield TAA from strict scrutiny and debate by jamming it into the South Korea implementing bill. Doing so would have been a clear abuse of U.S. trade laws and would have denied the Senate an opportunity to fairly debate and amend TAA. The American people deserve better than this and Finance Committee Republicans fought hard to ensure that this did not happen. It is largely a result of their efforts that we are here today.

Even though the deck was stacked against our amendments long ago, this discussion has been a useful exercise. It has been over 9 years since the Senate engaged in a real trade debate on the Senate floor. Senators deserve an opportunity to have their voices heard on issues related to international trade, and by engaging in debate we are honoring our republican constitutional traditions. We are doing what the American people expect us to do: openly discussing problems and, in doing so helping to resolve them.

During this debate, a number of amendments were offered that enabled Senators to go on record regarding their trade priorities and core beliefs. For the first time in years, we were able to draw clear distinctions between rhetoric and action. Of course, there has been debate about the merits of the free-trade agreements themselves.

As I noted earlier, the President and many of my colleagues who purport to support these agreements made it clear that in reality they only support the FTAs in exchange for something else. That something else turned out to be a demand for more spending. I am worried that going forward this pattern will continue. I certainly hope not. As a nation we cannot afford to hold our international economic competitiveness hostage to unrelated demands for more spending or for a more liberal social agenda.

During the course of this debate, I have expressed concerns that the real cost of the TAA expansion bill is unknown. Recall that benefits under TAA are paid out on top of unemployment insurance, which is supposed to take care of those who are out of work. As more and more people take advantage of the program, and as the number of weeks of regular unemployment insurance contract, the cost of this entitlement program could spiral out of control. So a number of amendments were offered that would help constrain its future growth so we do not end up

sticking the American taxpayer with another out-of-control spending program.

Every single one of these amendments was rejected by my colleagues across the aisle. Their passion for spending runs so deep that even an amendment by my friend and colleague, Senator Kyl, which implemented one of President Obama's recommendations to cut TAA funding for firms, was rejected. At a time when the supercommittee is struggling to cut spending in areas such as defense and health care, I find it astonishing that my colleagues cannot support eliminating a program that even President Obama agrees should be cut. That is a true rarity-- that is, that President Obama agrees to any kind of a cut, not that my colleagues will not support eliminating a program. That, we know, has happened around here for all of the 35 years I have been in the Senate. But even when President Obama, one of the biggest spenders in the history of the world, agrees that a program should be cut, they will not even do that.

My colleagues across the aisle also chose to reject an amendment to provide their own President with the authority to negotiate new trade agreements. Can you believe that? We all know the authority to negotiate trade agreements expired years ago. Since then the United States has been sitting on the sidelines while other countries negotiate agreements all around the world. Everyone knows if we are not in the game we do not even have a small chance to win. Right now, the United States is not in the game.

While it is true that the President is in the process of negotiating an agreement to create a transpacific partnership, we all know that the chances of it actually succeeding are actually almost nonexistent without trade promotion authority.

While the protrade rhetoric sounds good from the other side, when it comes down to concrete action, President Obama and his Democratic colleagues are absent once again. I am perhaps most disturbed by their rejection of my amendment which would have made the expansion of this domestic spending program contingent upon submission, approval, and signature of our pending free-trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. This amendment simply held President Obama accountable.

The President said there would be no FTAs unless Congress passed TAA. The insinuation is that if Congress does pass TAA, the President will submit, support, and sign all three FTAs.

Yet, even today we do not know if that is the case. My understanding is the White House has given no indication they will actually submit these agreements for a vote. That is truly pathetic. They are willing to spend more. They are willing to pass TAA so they can spend more regardless of whether they are sincere about doing these free-trade agreements that will provide almost 250,000 new jobs in this country, or at least jobs.

My amendment simply called for Presidential accountability. But even Presidential accountability was rejected by the other side. Once again, protrade rhetoric of the past several months has been shown to be nothing but a facade. I will be voting against the amendment to expand TAA, and if it is approved, I will vote against final passage of the bill. I simply cannot condone more spending on a program with dubious value at a time when our Nation is clearly broke. I remain hopeful President Obama will submit our pending free-trade agreements to Congress. If he does, and they are approved, I am confident President Obama and his team will drape themselves in the protrade flag and claim responsibility for moving these agreements forward. The fact of the matter is the authority to negotiate these agreements and the actual negotiation of these agreements themselves is due to the hard work of late nights of President Bush and his team. This is one instance where President Obama can rightly place responsibility at the feet of his predecessor.

My Republican colleagues and I put forward a number of amendments during the week to constrain government spending, open foreign markets for our products, and hold the President accountable for his rhetoric. Unfortunately, every single one was defeated, mostly along party lines. But we will not be deterred. We will continue to fight against out-of- control government spending. We will continue to fight for Presidential authority to open foreign markets to U.S. exports. We will continue to fight for transparency and accountability in our international trade policy. While we may not win the battle today, I am confident we will win in the end.

Over the next year I plan to conduct rigorous oversight of President Obama's trade policy. If these agreements are eventually submitted and approved, I will work hard to make sure they enter into force quickly. I also plan to conduct extensive and continued oversight of the operation of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program. I am convinced it is a flawed program and that strong congressional oversight will help expose those flaws. I will also work hard to make sure our next President, whoever that may be, has the authority to negotiate strong trade agreements that tear down barriers to American exports. Over the past several days many of my colleagues expressed interest in updating this authority. I welcome that interest and want to express my sincere desire to work with them to immediately see that trade promotion authority is renewed. Our Nation and our workers cannot afford to wait.

I ask unanimous consent that we divide the quorum call I am about to suggest equally between both sides.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, this is a caustic program of dubious value. In our hearings, the representatives of the administration couldn't come up with one job that would be lost as a result of these free-trade agreements.

There is no evidence that TAA works and, in all honesty, there is no commitment from the President we are going to have the free-trade agreements come up anyway. I have to say that even though we haven't done a trade agreement in years, TAA continues to grow and TAA is on top of unemployment insurance that we are paying anyway, and it isn't justified.

All I can say is, literally, this program should not be adopted at this particular point. And if it is adopted, it ought to be adopted based upon reason and so forth.

Madam President, I rise in opposition to this bill before us. It extends the generalized system of preferences program for 2 years, as amended and, as amended, expands the trade adjustment assistance program.

I want to be clear. I support the underlying bill passed by the House that extends the GSP Program. GSP helps American companies compete in the global marketplace while helping developing countries grow their economies and achieve sustainable economic growth to lift their people out of poverty.

As I have made clear over the past few days, I have serious concerns with expanding the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program as it has been amended by this bill. We can no longer afford to increase domestic spending on programs that have dubious value and unproven results. That is what this bill will do.

I cannot condone this spending, so I will vote no. I offered an amendment that would have ended the mystery surrounding the sequencing of TAA and the three pending free-trade agreements that have been the subject of much intrigue and speculation.

My amendment would have called off the expansion of TAA until our free-trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea were enacted. Everything would move together. Isn't that what this whole bargain is supposed to be about?

Well, that amendment did not pass and the White House still refuses to say when they will send up the FTAs for a vote. That does not seem right or fair to me. TAA is an unproven and costly and counterproductive program.

I urge my colleagues to also oppose this bill, but should it pass, I hope the President finally matches actions with words and sends the FTAs up for a vote. I am convinced all three will receive strong bipartisan votes. American businesses, farmers, and workers, and our friends and allies in Colombia, Panama, and South Korea cannot afford any delay.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to add Senator Mitch McConnell from Kentucky and Senator Cornyn from Texas as cosponsors on S. 1595, the Solidarity with Israel Act.

Madam President, I encourage all Senators to get on board with that bill. It is time to send messages that the U.N. will understand.

Madam President, it appears the leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, is going to request that the United Nations recognize Palestine as a member state. This action will create a major, unnecessary, and avoidable obstacle for peace. It is quite simply intolerable.

For that reason, yesterday I, along with 15 of my colleagues, including my colleague and friend from Kentucky, the Republican leader, introduced S. 1595, the Solidarity with Israel Act. Should the United Nations recognize a Palestinian state, this legislation would terminate the U.S. funding for the U.N.

I recognize that the consequences for recognizing a Palestinian state are severe, but they are appropriate.

Recognition of a Palestinian state at this point would undermine the peace process, and some have even questioned its legality. It would be a deeply irresponsible action that brings into further doubt the legitimacy of the United Nations as a good-faith actor in securing a more peaceful, more free, and more democratic world.

As I, and many of my colleagues have repeatedly stated on the floor of the Senate, the sole means to create a lasting and enduring peace between Israel and the Palestinians is through direct negotiations. By attempting an end run around these negotiations--and make no mistake, that is the aspiration of this Palestinian endeavor--the only result would be to delay the critical decisions which must be made to obtain a durable peace.

What is required is leadership--real leadership--to impress upon the Palestinians and the world community that if the United Nations capitulates and changes Palestine's status before a comprehensive peace agreement is reached, there will be consequences. Unfortunately, President Obama, in his speech to the United Nations yesterday, failed to provide that leadership and to take control of this quickly deteriorating situation.

Accordingly, yesterday, I and my colleagues introduced the Solidarity with Israel Act. The United States can and should exercise its Security Council veto if the Palestinians make good on their threat to attempt to change their U.N. status. However, the use of our veto power might not be enough to stop this subterfuge.

There are two methods by which the Palestinians could attempt to change their United Nations status. The first is to have the Security Council recommend to the General Assembly that Palestine become a member nation of the United Nations. But in the Security Council, the United States can veto a proposed change. However, the Palestinians also have another means to alter their status. They could petition the General Assembly directly--where the United States does not have a veto--and seek an upgrade from their current position as a permanent observer entity to a nonobserver state. If this occurs, the Palestinians will be in a much better position to manipulate U.N.- affiliated agencies, such as the International Criminal Court.

It should go without saying, but I will remind this body that the prospect of Palestinians bringing actions against Israel's leaders and military forces for defending our sovereign ally's right to exist is completely unacceptable.

We should expect more from the United Nations, but in spite of its sweeping statements in support of individual rights and peace, it has a mixed record at best when it comes to the treatment of Israel, a liberal democracy. The low point of its long and tarnished history on this subject was the General Assembly's contemptible 1975 resolution equating Zionism with racism. A General Assembly upgrade of the Palestinians to nonobserver statehood status would be another in a long line of hostile acts toward Israel and another hindrance to the peace prospect and process.

Deterring this outcome is the primary objective of the Solidarity with Israel Act. Israel is a friend and ally of the United States. It is a beacon of democracy and liberality in a part of the world that is too frequently lacking in both. Although the Palestinians have officially recognized Israel's right to exist, their rhetoric continues to bring the strength of this commitment into question.

Therefore, we cannot sit passively while the United Nations undermines Israel. Simply put, if the United Nations votes to harm our trusted ally by changing Palestine's U.N. status, this legislation would require termination of U.S. funding of the United Nations until a comprehensive peace agreement is reached with Israel.

The message of our legislation is also simple. The time for these types of games has ended. We will not stand by and allow a political spectacle to be created which only maligns our ally. The Solidarity with Israel Act seeks to deter those who would engage in false charades and redirect the international community toward promoting the only means to truly achieve a lasting peace: direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

It is my earnest hope that even greater numbers of Members will join us in this cause. I think this is an important issue, and I hope we can get every Member of this community, of this Senate, to join with us in this particular cause.