Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in recess under the previous order.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak out of turn.

Mr. President, historians who take a clear-eyed look at the last 30 years will tell you, and in particular economists will tell you, productivity has been rising, our economy has been expanding, and the workers responsible for our Nation's prosperity have not reaped anywhere near their share of the benefits which they have earned.

In 2005, the real median household income in America was down almost 3 percent from the median income in 2000. That is understanding that productivity has sharply increased among American workers. In Ohio, median income was down almost 10 percent. Meanwhile, the average CEO makes 411 times more than the average worker. As recently as 1990, the average CEO made 107 times more; so from 107 times more than the average worker in 1990 to now, 411 times more than the average worker.

Let me explain it another way. In the Agriculture Committee a couple of months ago, a young woman in her mid-thirties, with a 9-year-old son, came and testified about food stamps. The average food stamp beneficiary in our country gets about $1 per meal per person. She and her son got about $6 a day for food stamps. She works full time at a $9-an-hour job. She has no health care benefits. She gets a food stamp benefit. She is president of the local PTA at her son's school. She volunteers to teach Sunday school. And

she is active in the Cub Scouts for her son. She works, as I said, full time, making $9 an hour, and gets a small food stamp benefit.

She says at the beginning of the month she serves her son porkchops a couple of times, and as the month goes on she takes him to a fast food restaurant once or twice, but by the last couple of days of the month she sits at the kitchen table with her son and doesn't eat. Her son asks her what is wrong, and she says she's just not feeling well. She simply runs out of money at the end of the month. This is somebody playing by the rules.

Later in the day, on the Banking Committee, a committee on which I sit with the Presiding Officer from New Jersey, Secretary Paulson was testifying, the Secretary of the Treasury, and I told him the story of this lady from Middletown, OH.

He said: Senator, you have to understand we have had 2\1/2\, 3 percent economic growth in the last year. Things in our country are going well.

Yes, things are going well in terms of profits for corporations. Things are going well in terms of top executives. But too often they really aren't. Just look at this chart from 1946 to 1973. Economic opportunities for poor and working families grew. The incomes of the country's workers are divided. The lowest 20 percent, second lowest, middle, and then the top 20, top 40 percent, and the top 20 percent here. Families who worked hard and played by the rules had a real chance of getting ahead. You can see those from 1947 to 1973, the lowest 20 percent of our wage earners had the highest growth in income; those who made the most had the lowest. So we are seeing all boats rise--boats rising a little faster for those in the lowest incomes.

Beginning in about 1973 and through to 2000, workers at the bottom and in the middle began to share less and less of the wealth they created. Even though their productivity was going up, their wealth didn't, their wages didn't. Economic growth flattened out for those same families. You can see there is still economic growth at the lowest 20, 40, 60 percent, but the fastest growth in incomes was in the top 20 percent. That was in 2000.

As the economic pie got bigger, the slice for most Americans got smaller. Here you can see the most devastating news of all in the last 4, 5, 6 years. The only people who had economic growth in this country were the top 1 percent. These are the five quintiles. The top 1 percent are the only ones who had economic growth, and those at the bottom fell the furthest and further behind.

Historians will also say that in 2006 the middle class spoke up and sent a message to Congress demanding change. This Congress raised the minimum wage for the first time in a decade. This Congress is fighting for fair trade like never before. And I speak today, Mr. President, in support of the Employee Free Choice Act, which goes to the heart of the plight of working families to reap the benefits of the productivity they created, to provide a home and health care and pensions for themselves and a college education for their kids.

The Employee Free Choice Act is a historic step for working families. It would give workers the right to organize so they can fight for fair wages and decent benefits. The efforts of labor organizers more than 100 years ago finally led to the progress made seven decades ago with the signing of the Wagner Act. The rights that became law then ensured fair pay and decent working conditions.

But more and more employers chose to flout the law by intimidating workers and suppressing union activities. All across Ohio, I talk with workers who have tried to form a union and who share with me the tactics taken by some employers--not all but some employers--to prevent workers from organizing.

I talked with Bill Lawthorn from Macomb, OH. Bill and his coworkers wanted a union so workers would be treated with the respect and dignity all laborers deserve. They hoped with the union they would get fair and decent wages, a decent retirement plan, and decent health care benefits. According to Bill, the company responded with threats, with intimidation, and harassment.

Bill said the company threatened to fire him even if the campaign for the union failed. The union lost the election, and the day after, Bill, in fact, was fired. Since then, various labor boards have held the company's actions were illegal. Bill has not been reinstated, though, or seen 1 cent of backpay, even though his firing was illegal. That is why we need the Employee Free Choice Act.

Despite the struggle, despite doing odd jobs to pay the bills and relying on friends, family, and neighbors, Bill says, if he had the chance to do it all over again, he would do everything exactly the same because he knew he was right. It was the right thing to do, he said, and the Employee Free Choice Act is the right thing to do.

In 2005 alone, 31,000 employees were awarded backpay by a very conservative pro-business National Labor Relations Board due to retaliatory firings and unfair labor practices. I repeat, 31,000 employees were given backpay because, according to the National Labor Relations Board, they were fired illegally and unfairly.

Many companies decide to fire union supporters. Even if employees later successfully prove their case, the penalties all too often are an insufficient deterrent. These practices must end. The Employee Free Choice Act is the first step.

For the first time in our history, our sons and daughters do not have the opportunities their moms and dads had. A son, in 1994, earned 5 percent higher wages than his dad did in 1964. You can see how wages went up in that generation. But in 2004, a son's wages were down 12 percent from what his father made in 1974. You can see, too many kids are pessimistic about their futures.

We cannot continue this course. Unions are an agent for change. History will show that this Congress responded to the ever-increasing gap between the haves and have-nots. Fair trade, fair wages and benefits, the right to join a union--all three are basic to a society where work is rewarded and worker intimidation is not tolerated. Majority Leader Reid is committed to moving forward on fair trade issues, on fair wages and fair benefits issues, as we already have, and equally importantly, the right to join a union.

The Employee Free Choice Act is a major step for working families. I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, June 19, 2007, at 9:30 a.m., in open session to consider the nomination of the honorable Preston M. Geren, to be Secretary of the Army.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, June 19, 2007, at 10 a.m., in 215 Dirksen Senate Office Building, to consider an original bill entitled the ``Energy Advancement and Investment Act of 2007.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, June 19, 2007, at 10 a.m. to hold a nomination hearing.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, June 19, 2007, at 2:30 p.m. to hold a hearing on the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on Tuesday, June 19, 2007, at 9:30 a.m. in order to conduct a hearing entitled: ``The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and the Federal Government: A Model Public-Private Partnership Accelerating Research Toward a Cure.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 19, 2007 at 2:30 p.m. to hold an open hearing.

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

I ask unanimous consent to proceed as in morning business.

Madam President, today we are considering the Energy bill. When you talk about energy policy, you think about--you almost can't separate it from trade policy, from manufacturing policy, from what is happening to American jobs and American industry. American manufacturing has been a bedrock of our country's strength and prosperity for much of this country's existence, certainly for the last century and a half. Our current trade policy has caused our Nation to hemorrhage manufacturing jobs and devastated communities in my home State of Ohio and across the Nation. Last week, Senator Stabenow and others participated in a manufacturing summit with leaders from Government and industry, trying to figure out how we remain competitive, how we shape trade and tax policies to help, not hurt, our small companies or medium-size manufacturers.

I live in a state, from Steubenville to Toledo, from Ashtabula to Dayton, where job loss has way too often been the order of the day-- manufacturing jobs lost, often jobs going to Mexico when plants close, often jobs outsourced to China--so often devastating communities. When a plant shuts down in Lima or Mansfield or Zanesville or Marion, that is not just a loss to those workers or to those families, but it is layoffs of firefighters and police officers; it is fewer schoolteachers to teach children in those communities where parents may have lost their jobs. It is pretty clear as a Nation we need to fight back.

When I look at what this Energy bill can be about and the leadership of Senator Bingaman and what he is doing with this energy legislation, I think about Oberlin College. Oberlin College, a school in northern Colorado, is the site of the largest building on any campus in America that is fully powered by solar energy. Yet the solar panels in Oberlin College to power this solar building, this building on Oberlin's

campus, were all purchased in Japan and Germany because we don't make enough of them in this country.

The same can be said for wind turbines. As we have begun to construct wind turbine fields around the country, looking at places such as Lake Erie and the Great Plains and other places, we know that most of the components for these wind turbines are built abroad. That is something where a manufacturing policy and an energy policy come together.

At the same time, we have seen across the hall, in the House of Representatives, a move afoot with the Bush administration to pass two more trade deals, a trade agreement with Panama and a trade agreement with Peru. The trade policy in this country--you have to wonder how many more trade deals are we going to pass before the powers that be in the White House understand our trade policy has failed? Fourteen or fifteen years ago, when I ran for Congress, we had a trade deficit in this country of $38 billion. Today that trade deficit exceeds $700 billion. It is a growth of almost 20 times.

To understand in some sense what a $38 billion trade deficit that a decade and a half later is a $700-plus billion trade deficit means, think about it in these terms. The first President Bush said a billion dollar trade deficit translates into 13,000 lost jobs. Do the math and you can see why we have had the devastation across particularly the industrial Midwest, but also every State in this country has lost significant manufacturing jobs. Five million manufacturing jobs have been lost during the Bush administration, hundreds of thousands of those in Ohio, in places such as Bryan and places such as Portsmouth, in places such as Xenia and Springfield.

The President said he is willing to sign now a trade agreement with Peru and Panama, with labor and environmental standards in those trade agreements. That was the announcement the President recently made, the U.S. Trade Representative recently made. But go back and look. We have a history with this administration of not doing what they promised in trade agreements. Go back to an administration before, the North American Free Trade Agreement. They passed labor/environmental standards as a side agreement in those trade agreements, something probably they plan to do with Peru and Panama. Those side agreements for labor and environmental standards in the end meant absolutely nothing.

Then go back to the year 2000, where both Houses of Congress passed-- I supported it--the trade agreement with Jordan. That trade agreement had strong labor and environmental standards. But one of the first things President Bush's Trade Representative did--back then it was Robert Zoellick--was to send a letter with the Jordanians regarding dispute resolution, saying they would not enforce, telling the Jordanian Government they were not going to make them enforce their labor and environmental standards.

What happened, you got a good trade agreement with strong labor and environmental standards with Jordan. When you don't enforce those standards, you end up with Jordan being a sweatshop and an export platform, with mostly Bangladeshi workers imported into Jordan, making textiles and apparel, mostly apparel, sewing clothes, as a sweatshop that simply violated all we say we stand for with American values and all we said we stood for in this trade agreement.

The point is, before we pass trade agreements, we need labor and environmental standards at the core of the agreement; we need commitment from the administration that they will, in fact, unlike in the past, enforce these labor and environmental standards; and we need benchmarks--as Senator Dorgan has said many times, benchmarks that allow us to gauge whether these trade agreements serve our national interest. We pass a trade agreement, and we then begin to measure its success. Does it mean more jobs or fewer jobs for American workers? Does it mean a trade increase in the trade deficit or does it mean a shrinking of the trade deficit? Does it mean an increase in income or does it mean stagnant incomes, as we have seen for so many American workers?

We know profits are up. We know salaries are up for top management. But we also know wages for most American workers--especially manufacturing workers but most American workers--have been flat. This was brought home to me at Senator Stabenow's manufacturing summit a week or so ago when John Colm, a businessman from Cleveland, handed me a stack of auction notices about this high. There were 47 of them he had received since December 2006. These were auction notices from small companies which were selling off their assets in machinery, which were cannibalizing their plants, selling off at rock-bottom prices because they can't compete with cheap imports and can't compete because of this unlevel playing field because of trade agreements and because of tax law in this country that is simply so uneven.

That is why, before we consider trade promotion authority, before we consider the Peru or Panama trade agreements, before we consider Colombia or South Korea trade agreements, we have to ask ourselves the question: Are these trade agreements fair to American workers? Will they help our communities? Will they help us strengthen the middle class or will these trade agreements continue to contribute to an exploding trade deficit, to lost jobs, to devastating communities all over my State of Ohio and all over the country? That is the fundamental question on trade policy--what does it do to strengthen the middle class? If it fails that test, these trade agreements should fail in the Senate.

We will hear more in the upcoming months about these trade agreements and about U.S. trade policy and how we cannot just oppose bad trade agreements but bring forward trade agreements with benchmarks that help American workers and help to strengthen the middle class.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that during consideration of the Clean Energy Act of 2007 that Katie Fechko, a fellow in my office, be granted the privilege of the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 20 minutes time be divided among myself, Senator Stabenow, and Senator Dorgan and that we will, during this 20 minutes, do a colloquy and discussion.

Mr. President, it is pretty clear, as we survey the landscape around our great country, what has happened to manufacturing jobs and what has happened to our economy. Over and over, in my State of Ohio, I know, and Senator Stabenow's State of Michigan, we have seen huge job losses, especially in manufacturing. In my State, since 2000, Ohio has lost 1,800 manufacturing companies, more than 200,000 jobs with average wages of $48,000, according to the Northeast Ohio Campaign for American Manufacturing. We also know that American workers, when it is a level playing field, can outcompete workers, can outcompete small businesses, can outcompete companies all over the world--when there is a level playing field.

Last week, Senator Stabenow and others participated in a manufacturing summit. She brought leaders of small businesses and large manufacturers to the Nation's Capitol with labor leaders and other people who care about manufacturing. We discussed how we remain competitive, how we shape trade policies to help not hurt our small- and medium-sized manufacturers. At that summit, an Ohio businessman named John Colm walked up to me with a stack of fliers. They were auction notices. He had received 47 of them in the last 4 months. These notices were for ``going out of business'' sales; they were companies selling off assets, in essence cannibalizing their companies, selling their machinery at rock-bottom prices--all that this manufacturing crisis has done to small manufacturers and large manufacturers but especially small companies in our communities.

We also know how U.S. trade policy has failed American business, especially small business, especially small manufacturers. We know the year I first ran for Congress, in 1992, we had a trade deficit in this country of $38 billion. Today our trade deficit, whether you count services or not, exceeds either $700 billion or $800 billion--from $38 billion to $700 billion to $800 billion in a decade and a half. Our trade deficit with China went from low double digits a decade and a half ago to somewhere in the vicinity of $250 billion today.

President Bush, Sr., the first President Bush, said for every $1 billion in trade deficit, it costs a country somewhere in the vicinity of 13,000 jobs. You do the math and you figure how many jobs we have lost, in part, because of our trade policy.

The response of the administration is: Let's do more of these trade agreements. We have already had NAFTA, we have already had PNTR with China, we have already had CAFTA and Singapore and Chile and Morocco and Jordan; let's do more, let's do a trade agreement with Panama, let's do one with Peru, let's do one with Colombia, let's do one with South Korea. The fact is, this trade policy is the wrong direction for our country.

In elections last fall, where Senator Stabenow, who has been a leader on trade and manufacturing, was reelected with a huge margin in a State that has been devastated by bad trade policies; in my State, and Senator Webb's, Senator Sanders', Senator Tester's, the Presiding Officer's, and Senator Cardin's--in all of our States, the voters spoke loudly and clearly that our trade policy has failed our middle class. Our trade policy has failed small business. Our trade policy has failed our communities. When a company shuts down with 300 workers in Steubenville or Lima or Dayton or Finley--when a company shuts down, it devastates a community. It means schoolteachers are laid off, police and firefighters are laid off. It means people are not as safe in their communities as their economy deteriorates.

I will close and turn the podium over to Senator Stabenow with a brief mention of energy. Senator Reid, the majority leader, spoke about energy. He spoke about Democratic accomplishments today and talked about the energy bill coming up. I wish to illustrate, for a moment, how energy policy can matter and make a difference in manufacturing. At Oberlin College, a community not too far from where I live, between Cleveland and Toledo, on the campus of Oberlin College is located the largest building on any college campus in America that is fully powered by solar energy. When speaking to David Orr, the professor who helped raise the money to build this building, he told me the solar panels that power this building at Oberlin College--a whole roof, a large expanse of roof or solar panels--they were bought in Germany and Japan because we don't make enough of them. Go west of there, where the University of Toledo is doing some of the best wind turbine research in the country. Yet we are not building the turbines and the components and the solar panels and solar cells in this country. This Energy bill we will discuss today, this week and next week, coupled with a real manufacturing policy as Senator Stabenow has articulated over the last several years, can mean more good-paying industrial manufacturing jobs in our country, can help to stabilize energy prices, and can make a difference in rebuilding the middle class in Ohio, Michigan, North Dakota--all over this country.

I yield the floor to Senator Stabenow and thank her for her leadership.

Madam President, I echo the words of the Senator from Vermont about the Energy bill being an opportunity for our country--an opportunity in terms of a better environment, global warming, to preserve our planet, an opportunity to stabilize energy costs, and an opportunity especially for good-paying jobs.

I come from a State that has taken a real hit from the Bush economic policy. I come from a State that has taken a real hit from trade policy through the last two administrations, Democratic and Republican administrations.

I look at what we are able to do with this Energy bill and better manufacturing policy.

I start with a story. Oberlin College is a school halfway between Cleveland and Toledo, not far from where I live. It is the site of the largest freestanding building on any college campus in the country fully powered by solar energy. The problem is that all of the solar panels were imported from Germany and Japan because we simply do not make enough solar panels in this country to do what we ought to be doing. It is the same with wind turbines. Toledo is especially well known for research in wind turbines and wind power. Yet with the exception of a plant in Ashtabula that makes a small component

for wind turbines, very little manufacturing is done in this country on that particular alternative energy.

With the right kinds of incentives and with changing tax law, changing trade law in the Energy bill, Ohio, as the industrial Midwest, can play a major role in alternative energy.

We have seen energy policy, tax policy, trade policy, and the failure to have a manufacturing policy cause significant job loss. My State has lost literally hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs since President Bush took office, in part because of the lack of a manufacturing policy and no leadership from the White House, in part because of trade policy, in part because of tax policy.

For us, as we look to the future on trade agreements and trade policy, it is not good enough just to oppose bad trade agreements, it is not good enough to oppose the next round of NAFTA or CAFTA, it is not good enough to try to fix PNTR with China. We need a much more forward-looking manufacturing policy. That means expanding efforts on exports. It means expanding the Manufacturing Extension Program that Senator Kohl has worked on and I have worked on, and others. And it means a different regimented trade policy.

The Bush administration has just announced with some Members of the House of Representatives, some Members of my party, that they want to move forward on the Panama and Peru trade agreements. Those are two trade agreements where the administration finally has decided they support environmental and labor standards, but this is also an administration that has never pushed very hard for environmental and labor standards in our own country.

I would look askance at the administration's promises without more proof of what, in fact, they are going to do on enforcement of labor and environmental standards. All one need do is look at the news stories that came out after the announcement from our U.S. Trade Ambassador Schwab and some House Democrats that there would be labor and environmental standards in the Panama and Peru trade agreements when soon after those news stories they said they may not be in the core trade agreements, that they may be in side deals, side agreements. We learned that lesson once with NAFTA where the labor standards and environmental standards were outside the agreement in a separate agreement, and that simply didn't matter. It didn't help that trade agreement work for American families in Steubenville or for workers in Toledo. It didn't work for communities in Finley and Lima and Mansfield.

We also know, listening to the discussions after the Peru and Panama trade agreements were announced with the labor and environmental standards, some people do not seem so certain that they are going to work as hard on enforcing these labor standards and environmental standards as they might have initially promised. All we need to do is look at the Jordan trade agreement passed in 2000, a trade agreement in the House of Representatives I supported but a trade agreement that had labor and environmental standards. Soon after President Bush took office, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick sent a letter to the Jordanians with a wink and a nod saying that because of dispute resolution issues, he wasn't going to enforce those labor and environmental standards.

If we are going to move forward on trade policy, it means stronger labor standards, stronger environmental standards, and stronger food safety standards. It means standards in the agreements, as part of the agreements. It means enforcing those agreements, and it means a manufacturing policy, the Manufacturing Extension Program, better assistance for small companies to export, better currency rules, particularly with China. It means benchmarks so that once these trade agreements pass, we can gauge whether the trade agreements helped our trade surplus deficit, our trade relations, and that there be benchmarks showing if there were job increases or job losses, did it mean a lower trade deficit or higher trade deficit, did it mean wages went up or wages went down for American workers. We need those benchmarks if we are going to pass trade agreements so we can look a year later and see if these trade agreements are working.

I contend they certainly are not working. The year I ran for Congress, the same year the Presiding Officer was elected to Congress, in 1992, we had a trade deficit of $38 billion. In 2006, our trade deficit exceeded $800 billion. Our trade deficit with China bilaterally in 1992 was barely in the double digits. Today, our trade deficit with China is upward of $230 billion.

President Bush 1 said $1 billion in trade deficit is equivalent to the result of about 13,000 fewer jobs, and if you just do the math and look at the trade deficit, multiplying times 20, from a factor of 20, the trade deficit is that much larger today than it was a decade and a half ago, you know it is costing us jobs. That is why a trade agreement with a tax policy, with a manufacturing policy that really does help American communities, that helps people in Toledo, Finley, Zanesville, Springfield, Miami Valley, and the Mahoney Valley in my State, will matter to help build a middle class.

I am hopeful that as we do this Energy bill and the House and Senate move ahead on trade policy in the next year, that we can link these so that it really does help to create a middle class, strengthen the middle class in our country with better trade, tax, and manufacturing policies.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, the trade policies set in Washington and negotiated across the globe have a direct impact on places such as Toledo and Steubenville, on Cleveland and Hamilton. That is why voters in my State of Ohio and across the country sent a message loudly and clearly in November demanding a new direction, a very different direction for our Nation's trade policy.

Working men and women in Ohio know that job loss doesn't just affect the worker or just the worker's family; job loss--especially the kind of job loss we have seen in the last 5 years, the kind of manufacturing job loss--when we see that kind of job loss in the thousands, that job loss devastates communities. It hurts the local business owner, the drugstore, the grocery store, the neighborhood restaurant. It hurts communities. It hurts schools. It hurts police forces. It hurts fire departments.

Two weeks ago, leadership in the House of Representatives and in the White House announced a new outline for trade policy, one that included labor and environmental standards. The fact that the Bush administration was willing to negotiate at all, the fact that they were willing to pay even lip service to labor and environmental standards, underscores the November elections' importance.

Every Member of Congress, in the Senate and in the other body, the House of Representatives, is now on notice that we will be held accountable for our trade votes--accountable to workers, accountable to business owners--accountable for our trade votes and accountable for American trade policy when we go home. However, since the announcement made by the Bush administration and some congressional leaders in the House about labor and environmental standards, backpedaling by the administration and sidestepping by supporters of the deal indicate that we may be in for another round of more of the same in our trade policy.

The administration already has hinted at side deals for labor standards instead of putting those standards in the central, core part of the agreement. They are talking now about not reopening negotiations with Peru and not reopening negotiations with Panama but instead adding a little sidebar, a little letter, a little statement of support for environmental labor standards but not actually putting them in the central core of the agreement. If that is the case, if these labor and environmental standards are not in the agreement but in a side letter of some sort, then really, frankly, nothing new is being offered. It is the same old jalopy with a new coat of paint.

Voters in my State demanded real change, not symbolic gestures.

What is even more disturbing about the new outline is it appears to rely in good faith on the administration to enforce standards. Given this administration's abysmal record on enforcement of labor standards and environmental standards, not just in trade agreements but enforcement of those standards in our domestic economy, we know what this administration--we know its failed environmental policies. Given this administration's abysmal record on enforcement, relying on blind trust isn't just foolish, it is downright irresponsible.

The Jordan Free Trade Agreement passed by the House--I supported it and many others did; it passed in both Houses overwhelmingly--the Jordan Free Trade Agreement was once held up as a standard in labor provisions. It had strong labor and environmental standards in it. It passed in the year 2000, but come 2001, with a new President of the United States, George Bush, and a new U.S. Trade Representative, Bob Zoellick, the Bush administration simply turned the other way while rampant human-trafficking plagues that nation of Jordan. Shortly after the Jordan agreement was enacted, the new USTR, Bob Zoellick, sent a letter to Jordan's Trade Minister saying the United States simply wouldn't enforce the labor provisions. So even though we passed a trade agreement with labor standards inside the core agreement, this administration, this same crowd who now says they will enforce labor standards and

they now will enforce environmental standards, this same crowd sent a letter to the Jordan Trade Minister saying: We are not enforcing, we are not going to push you, we are not going to push you on dispute resolution to enforce those labor standards.

Today, as a result, Bangladeshi workers enter Jordan--from one of the poorest countries in the world--they have their passports confiscated, and work in some cases up to 20 hours a day without breaks. Then Jordan exports those goods to the United States. There is no enforcement of labor standards, no enforcement of environmental standards. There is simply the continuation of the exploitation of some of the poorest workers in the world in order to reap more profits and backdoor those products into the United States.

If that is the plan, if that is the Bush administration plan--forget what they talk about on labor standards, forget what they promise on environmental standards--if that is the plan for Peru, if that is the plan for Panama, if that is the plan for Colombia, if that is the plan for South Korea, then they will simply not get the support for these trade agreements. They will not get the support from those who talked about fair trade in their campaigns, not from small business owners, not from small manufacturers such as the local tool and die shop in Akron, the local machine shop in Dayton, not from workers across the country who say: We don't want more of the same.

That is what the elections last fall were all about. I believe every single new Democratic Member of the Senate--there are nine of us--every single one of us has talked about fair trade, not free trade. If this administration thinks by simply saying: We are for labor standards, we are for environmental standards, we will put it in a little side letter here, and then a wink and a nod to their friends in the National Association of Manufacturers, a wink and a nod to the large corporations that benefit from slave labor and child labor, simply giving them a wink and a nod, if they think this Senate and the other body are going to pass this kind of legislation, they are wrong. We know our trade policies have failed. As I said, if they bring back this kind of trade agreement for Peru, for Panama, for Colombia, for Korea without labor and environmental standards in the core agreement and without real commitments to enforce those labor and environmental standards, then those trade agreements aren't going to fly here.

We know our trade policies have failed. When I first ran for Congress, our trade deficit in 1992 was $38 billion. Even in those days, President Bush--the first President Bush--said a $1 billion trade deficit represented about 13,000 jobs, mostly manufacturing--many manufacturing jobs. So if you had a $1 billion trade deficit, it meant it was costing your country a net loss of 13,000 jobs. If you had a trade surplus, it was a gain of 13,000 jobs. That was then a $38 billion trade deficit in 1992. In 2006, our trade deficit was in the vicinity of $800 billion--$800 billion. That means the trade deficit has grown by a factor of 20. If it is 13,000 jobs for every $1 billion trade deficit, you do the math. It is clear this trade policy has failed. It has failed our workers. It has failed our small manufacturers. It has failed our restaurants and our drugstores in those communities that suffer devastating job loss. It has failed our families. It has failed our country.

The current system is not sustainable. Senator Dorgan has said: We want trade, and plenty of it, but under new rules. That means benchmarks. When we pass trade agreements, we have to show how much this has done for America's wages, how much it has done for American job creation, and we want accountability, something we have never brought to the table on these trade agreements. That does not mean trying to pass off more of the same kind of trade policy, packaging it in a different way, speaking of all the platitudes of the administration and that some others in the House and Senate have spoken about, just simply saying it is new and improved.

Now is not the time for more bad trade deals. We need to pause. We need to have a national conversation about a new direction for trade in the 21st century, a conversation that includes everybody.

Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I missed today's votes on Iraq because I was attending the college graduation of my daughter, Elizabeth.

But I want to express my unqualified support for the amendment offered by my colleagues, Senator Feingold and Senator Reid.

This amendment says that our entanglement in another country's civil war has gone on long enough.

This amendment says that Congress must stop playing the role of spectator and start standing up for our over-taxed and inadequately protected troops.

This amendment says we must stand up for their families.

This amendment says that we have an obligation to support our men and women in uniform, not only by funding them, but by bringing them home.

The funding for our troops is assured, whether they are deployed in Iraq or redeployed from Iraq.

This amendment calls for their redeployment.

Those who claim this amendment would cut off funding for our troops are actually saying that the President, if required to redeploy our troops, would instead cut off their funding.

I may not see eye to eye with our President, but I don't believe him capable of that.

The Feingold-Reid amendment says ``enough is enough.''

A majority of Americans want our troops to come home. It is time to bring them home.

I thank Senator Feingold and Leader Reid for having the conviction and the courage to stand up for our troops.

Patriotism is not passive. It is not swayed by inflammatory rhetoric or false accusations.

In the case of Iraq, patriotism does not mean blindly following the current path, it means carving out the right one.

Bringing our troops home is an act of patriotism. The Feingold-Reid amendment is an act of patriotism, and I fully support its intent.

Mr. President, I will be unable to be in Washington from Tuesday, May 15, to Wednesday, May 16, due to the graduation of my daughter from Columbia University in New York. I therefore ask that I be granted leave from the Senate under rule VI, paragraph 2.

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

Mr. President, we continue the discussion today on S. 1082. I am joined by Senator Enzi as a cosponsor of that bill, with Senator Kennedy. We are considering several amendments this morning that are designed to and will increase access to lifesaving prescription drugs. I wish for a moment to talk about a couple of those amendments.

One is the Stabenow/Thune amendment No. 1011, cosponsored by Senator Lott of Mississippi and by me, which will stop drug companies from intentionally jamming up the Food and Drug Administration approval process for generic drugs, exploiting the citizen petition process to block price competition in the marketplace.

Free market economies rely on price competition. When brand-name drug companies block price competition, they are not only cheating generic drug manufacturers, they are cheating consumers, businesses, and tax- funded health care programs. None of us can afford that.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates the Stabenow amendment will save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars over the next 10 years. Those are just the savings that accrue to tax-funded health programs. There will also be significant savings to consumers and employer- sponsored health plans.

This amendment preserves the rights, as we should, of citizens to petition their government. But it stops the gaming of the patent system by the name-brand drug companies which have very effectively stymied price competition. I think unanimously in this body we support the whole idea of price competition.

The savings of this bill will go to seniors and others who have seen large out-of-pocket expenses in their purchase of prescription drugs. The savings will go to businesses helping us globally compete better than we might otherwise. The savings will go to taxpayers, through a variety of different Government programs that help people buy their prescription drugs. So every Member's support is crucial on the Stabenow-Thune amendment.

I want to highlight an amendment that has been offered by my colleague Senator Brownback and myself. According to the World Health Organization, more than 1 billion people--nearly one in every six people worldwide--are affected by at least one neglected tropical disease. In addition, neglected tropical diseases claim roughly 500,000 lives each year.

However, less than 1 percent of the 1,400 drugs registered between 1975 and 1999--over a 25-year-period--fewer than 1 percent of the 1,400 drugs registered treated such diseases.

This disparity is clearly due to the lack of financial incentive for pharmaceutical companies to bring neglected tropical disease treatments to market because these diseases disproportionately affect low-income countries, with the poorest of the poor in those countries needing those medicines, most of them in Africa.

Creating incentives for companies to invest in treatments for these diseases is not only in our country's national interest, but it is consistent with our longstanding tradition of caring for those who are less fortunate around the world. In other words, it is consistent with American values.

Senator Brownback's and my amendment would award a priority review voucher to any company that brings a neglected tropical disease treatment to market. Priority review is an existing FDA process by which drugs are reviewed in 6 months, as opposed to the average review time of 18 months, significantly speeding the process.

The priority review voucher would be transferrable and could be applied to any drug in a company's pipeline. This amendment will help to bring about research and new drugs treating these tropical diseases and speed the process of getting them to market.

This voucher, which would be worth hundreds of millions of dollars for a company with a new blockbuster drug, would also benefit consumers. That is because it would give consumers earlier access to a new prescription drug. Most importantly, creating incentives for pharmaceutical companies to develop and to manufacture neglected and tropical disease treatments will save lives.

I commend Senator Brownback for his work on behalf of impoverished populations who desperately need our attention. He is offering Members of this body an opportunity to simultaneously save lives in developing nations, give U.S. consumers access to new medicines more quickly, and engage the drug industry in a win-win proposition.

It is a rare opportunity. I urge Members on both sides of the aisle to support the Brownback-Brown amendment.

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

Mr. President, Senator Dorgan is offering an important compromise. He is saying we should at least preserve the drug safety provisions in his reimportation amendment. These provisions are the result of significant discussion with public safety experts, and I believe the Senate should support the Dorgan amendment. Whether we agree on the issue of reimportation--and there is clearly a split in this body--we do agree on the importance of safety in our domestic supply. There have clearly been attempts to counterfeit inside the domestic supply. The Dorgan amendment brings us to a place that can help us answer those questions. I think the opponents to reimportation are wrong, but I understand they raise issues of drug safety. Those same issues of counterfeiting are present in our domestic supply, as Senator Dorgan said, under the law, under the situation we are in today.

It sort of begs the larger question of drug safety overall. One of the worst ways we compromise drug safety is by limiting access to affordable prescription drugs. That limitation of access is because of the high cost of prescription drugs. Too many of us know of situations where people have said to me, in Zanesville and Lima and Toledo and Cleveland: I had to cut a prescription in half so they last twice as long or I took the pills every other day. Until we can find ways, which this bill takes some steps in that direction with the citizen petition process and other things, of getting lower cost prescription drugs into people's hands when their doctors prescribe them, the reimportation issue was one way we could have done that better. I am hopeful we can work with Senator Dorgan on some of these issues to bring us to the point that we are satisfied that the domestic supply for prescription drugs is as safe as it can be.

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

Mr. President, our trade policy is fundamentally flawed. Years of wrongheaded trade pacts have sent millions of jobs overseas and have devastated far too many of our communities and have opened our Nation to new and serious homeland security concerns.

When we open our borders to trade, as we should, we open them to national security threats. Congress must assure the American people that we have done everything within our power to protect their safety, health, and welfare while promoting trade.

It is estimated that less than 10 percent of foreign cargo is inspected before entering our country--only 10 percent.

We must both ensure our ports are operating securely and with clear lines of accountability--unlike the deal to transfer ownership of six U.S. ports to a State-owned company controlled by the United Arab Emirates that this administration approved about a year ago.

The decision to allow a UAE-controlled company had significant national security implications, including warnings that the UAE was a financial and travel outlet for known terrorists. It took leaders of both political parties, here and in the House of Representatives, to call attention to this enormous blunder.

Something else may be happening. This administration has recently signed a free-trade deal with South Korea and will soon ask this Congress to approve it under fast track, or trade promotion authority. One of the major goals South Korea sought in these negotiations was securing special treatment for products made in the Kaesong Industrial Complex, located in North Korea.

In Kaesong, South Korea, companies employ more than 11,000 North Korean workers. South Korea intends to expand the complex over the next few years and will employ close to 70,000--70,000--North Koreans by the end of this year, according to a Congressional Research Service report. U.S. negotiators had vehemently opposed including the Kaesong complex in the trade deal. But then, in a rush to sign a deal, our trade negotiators backed off--as they too often do when it comes to representing our national interests--and allowed room for future negotiations on the Kaesong complex.

This is a dangerous precedent, and it opens this agreement to a series of national security questions:

How much income, for example, does this Kaesong complex currently provide the North Korean Government? How much income can we anticipate it providing North Korea under its expansion plans? How are these North Korean workers treated? Under a fair trade agreement, would our government's actions be no different than the repressive North Korean Government?

Free-trade agreements, as currently written, live well beyond political administrations. We can't predict the future decisions and intentions of the South Korean Government, nor any other trading partners. As national security concerns continue to accompany efforts to promote trade, Congress must take proactive steps to ensure our homeland security needs are secured every bit as much as our economic well-being.

Last week, Senator Dorgan of North Dakota and I introduced the Trade- Related American National Security Enhancement and Accountability-- TRANSEA--Act. This act requires the Office of U.S. Trade Representative, in collaboration with the Department of State, the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Agriculture to submit a report to Congress detailing the national security considerations of proposed trade agreements prior to commencing negotiations and the trade agreement again after concluding the trade negotiations.

The bill also requires future trade agreements negotiated by the administration to include a national security waiver that allows the President to suspend any terms of the agreement should it be required in the interests of United States national security.

Lastly, as a final safeguard, the legislation creates a new Congressional Executive Commission on Trade Security, which requires the appointment of Commissioners by both political parties in both Chambers of this Congress. The Commissioners will be charged with annually certifying that the terms of the free-trade agreement do not pose a threat to U.S. national security interests.

Should the Commission find that compliance with the agreement would pose a threat, the President would be obligated to exercise his or her waiver to the extent necessary to ensure the safety and security of the United States.

In a post-9/11 world, U.S. economic policy can no longer be simply viewed

in a vacuum of bottom lines and profit margins. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said in 2006:

We have to balance the paramount urgency of security

against the fact that we still want to have a robust global

trading system.

It is the responsibility of our Government to ensure that while opening markets for our exporters--again, as we should--our first priority remains the safety and the security of the American people.

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

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

Mr. President, I, first, thank Senator Enzi, the distinguished Senator from Wyoming, for his terrific work, both as the ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee, but more precisely today and yesterday for the work he has done on this legislation in working out agreements on a set of very complicated issues.

His staff has been terrific in explaining some of the more archaic parts of this legislation, and I am very appreciative. I know Senator Kennedy is very appreciative, and I know Members on both sides of the aisle are as well. So I thank him for his leadership and his reasonableness in helping us to move forward in a particularly important way on this very important bill.

Unanimous-Consent Agreement

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order for the Senate to consider, en bloc, the following list of amendments that has been cleared by both managers; that the amendments, as modified, if modified, be considered and agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table:

Amendments Nos. 985, 1011, 1009, 1026, 987, 1006, 1005, 1004, 1041, 1019, 1053, 1050, 1049, 1047 and 1056; and that amendments Nos. 983 and 988 be withdrawn; that a colloquy between Senators Gregg and Kennedy be entered into the Congressional Record and then amendment No. 993 be withdrawn; further that any statements relating to amendments in this agreement be inserted in the Record; that when the Senate resumes consideration of S. 1082 tomorrow, Wednesday, May 9, the only amendments remaining in order be the following:

Grassley amendment No. 1039, a Grassley amendment No. 998, and a Durbin amendment No. 1034; that at the close of morning business, the Senate resume S. 1082, and there be a total of 60 minutes of debate remaining, to run concurrently on the bill and remaining amendments; with 10 minutes under the control of Senator Grassley or his designee; 5 minutes under the control of Senator Durbin or his designee; and the remaining time equally divided and controlled between the chairman and ranking member or their designees; that upon the use or yielding back of that time, there be 2 minutes of debate equally divided and controlled prior to a vote in relation to the Grassley amendment No. 1039; that upon disposition of that amendment, there be 2 minutes of debate prior to a vote in relation to the Grassley amendment No. 998; that upon disposition of that amendment, there be 2 minutes of debate prior to a vote in relation to the Durbin amendment No. 1034; that upon disposition of that amendment, the committee substitute, as modified and amended, be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table; the bill be read for a third time; the Senate proceed to vote on passage of the bill; with the above occurring without further intervening action or debate; that upon passage the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and the title amendment, which is at the desk, be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table; further, that the cloture motion on the bill be withdrawn.

I now call up amendments Nos. 1039, 998 and 1034, en bloc, and ask that once they are reported by number they be set aside.

I ask unanimous consent that there now be a period of morning business with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes.