Spencer Abraham

Mr. ABRAHAM

Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk on behalf of myself, Senator Kennedy, and Senator McCain in the form of a managers' amendment.

Mr. ABRAHAM. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I move to table the Bumpers amendment. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. ABRAHAM. Parliamentary inquiry. Have the yeas and nays been ordered on final passage?

Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, this program is a very small program. It is a maximum of 1,000 visas a year. It means people who come to this country to create jobs will be given a chance to do so. We have not examined or studied some of the complaints that have been brought forth in both today's debate and in the news media in our subcommittee. Until we do, I urge the Senate not to eliminate this program. I believe it is creating jobs, not taking them away.

Mr. ABRAHAM. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I move to table the second Kennedy amendment numbered 2417, and I also seek unanimous consent that the following rollcall votes be 10 minutes in duration.

Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, let me indicate the managers' amendment contains several components, one of which pertains to the issue of job training. We have worked very closely with Senator Lieberman, as I said earlier, with Senator DeWine, with a variety of other Members with respect to this issue. This amendment modifies the job training and scholarships sections authorized by S. 1723 as reported out of committee. In the job training end, the end product is the result, as I said, of work with Senators Kennedy, Wellstone, Lieberman, Robb, DeWine, and the chairman of the Labor Committee, Senator Jeffords. And without giving all the details, it would allow the Secretary of Labor to provide demonstration projects through part D of title IV of the JTPA Program for private industry councils or their successors or regional consortia, private industry councils or their successors. It would also allow the Secretary to support innovative technical skills training programs provided at the local level to help prepare workers with the skills necessary for the 21st century. In that sense, it conforms with the workforce development legislation we passed just last week. With respect to scholarships, I think we have already expressed during the discussion of Senator Reed's amendment the actions we are taking there. In addition, the managers' amendment, at the request of Senator Kyl and the National Science Foundation, also makes some changes in the way the panel study in workforce issues is to be organized. It contains various technical fixes to address a pay-go issue raised by the transfer of authority to process labor condition applications from the Department of Labor to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. It handles other technical corrections as well. Finally, it adds a prohibition. The Attorney General may not approve a petition for an H-1B petition if he or she concludes that the petitioning employer is assisting in the development of India's nuclear energy program or any other nation engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction. Obviously, a number of us in the Senate are concerned about the recent nuclear tests that have been conducted and the concern about the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and so we have given the Attorney General the power to intervene if she were to conclude that someone attempting to use an H-1B visa would be somehow connected to a program of that sort. I also indicate I will be working with all interested Senators--and a number of them have talked to us--about this to make sure these provisions are as effective as possible in preventing these visas from being used by anyone to assist in the development of weapons of mass destruction.

Mr. ABRAHAM. I move to table the amendment by the Senator from Massachusetts and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, our legislation puts America's workers first, and it severely punishes anybody who tries to do otherwise. But the provisions in the regulations that would be necessary to implement this amendment would give the Department of Labor dramatic intrusive powers to intervene in hiring decisions of high-tech companies involving temporary workers. In the permanent worker category, these kinds of provisions typically delay a hiring decision by as much as 2 years. We oppose that in the temporary category. It would have the effect, Mr. President, of setting back the entire temporary worker program when we need it most--as we are trying to address the year 2000 problem and other immediate emergencies before us. For that reason, I propose that we vote to table.

Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I did move to table earlier. I guess the Presiding Officer did not hear.

Mr. ABRAHAM. No. 2416.

Mr. ABRAHAM. Yes. I yield back the remainder of my time on the amendments as well, except I believe you still have Senator Bumpers' amendment. At this point, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent there be 2 minutes of debate equally divided between each of the stacked votes which I am about to propose; and I further ask unanimous consent the order of the votes be as follows: a vote on or in relation to the Kennedy amendment No. 2418, followed by a vote on or in relation to Kennedy amendment No. 2417, followed by a vote on or in relation to the Bumpers amendment 2416.

Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. ABRAHAM. And we also need to dispose of the managers' amendment prior to the beginning of the voting. We are hoping to begin the voting--the order calls for it to begin in 15 minutes.

Mr. ABRAHAM. Thank you, Mr. President. I will respond to the amendments that have finally been offered, as well as to speak about the bill in general. With respect to these amendments, let me say this: Our whole intent in addressing this legislation from the beginning was to provide three things: A short-term solution to meet the current, very significant shortage in high-tech workers which our high-tech industry is confronting, a shortage which, if not met, will severely hurt the American economy and, in my judgment, dramatically reduce our economic growth. The second goal of the legislation is to address the long-term needs we will have for high-tech workers, skilled workers, information technology workers. We attempt to do that in this legislation. We do believe that American workers, American kids, have the skills and talent it takes. The goal is to have the right job training and educational opportunities so that people can develop these skills, and we are in the process, through this legislation, of setting in motion both a scholarship component as well as a job training component to assist in what is obviously a much broader, macro effort that must be undertaken to effectively, in a long-term sense, meet the challenges of the job market of the 21st century. At the same time, we felt it was important in this legislation to protect American workers so that these programs cannot be abused. Let me begin by saying I think these amendments are a solution in search of a problem. For those Members watching and listening right now, in the entire history of this program there have only been eight willful violations of hundreds of thousands of cases--only eight willful violations in this program, and each has been punished. Our legislation says even though that is a tremendous track record and a great expression of the fact that this is a program not being abused, we want to go further. We have dramatically toughened the penalties in such a way that if anybody willfully violates the provisions of using H-1B employees and H-1B visa holders and lays off someone--Mr. President, that has only happened one time in the entire history of the program--if it happens, if somebody is displaced for an H-1B employee, then the company involved will be debarred and prevented from even using the H-1B program for 2 years. In addition, they would pay a $25,000 penalty fine per violation. In short, we have addressed each of the things that have been raised by Senator Kennedy. In my judgment, we have addressed them in an effective way, considering the fact that in the history of the program there have been, in fact, so very few violations. I also say this. The solution proposed by the Senator from Massachusetts would give the Department of Labor a dramatically increased role in the supervision of the high-tech community and other businesses and entities using skilled workers. I do not personally believe either of these amendments could be implemented without the Department of Labor creating massive new bureaucratic regulations and micromanaging these companies. Indeed, I do not believe these companies would go forward and hire anyone on an H-1B program without getting some type of prior clearance from the Department of Labor. We have an attestation process in place, a recruitment process in place for permanent workers. It takes 2 years before the various hoops and regulations can be met. I am not saying that is wrong, but I am saying it is unworkable in the context of temporary workers. We have dramatic needs today for these workers. We have heard, as I said in my opening statement, about the year 2000 problem. We cannot wait 2 years to bring in additional workers to cure the year 2000 problem because we will already be in the year 2000. In a similar sense, we simply cannot take the existing program and undermine it with these complicated bureaucratic Department of Labor regulations. I have heard from the various companies and entities that are seeking an increase in the cap on H-1B visas. They have said an increase in the cap would be meaningless and totally nullified if these kinds of labor provisions are included. They go too far. They would undermine the whole program. And indeed, if they were to be enacted or passed in the form of these amendments, I would be inclined to encourage the majority leader to pull the bill down because I think it would create ultimately a greater problem than we already have today. We have a serious problem already. So, for those reasons, Mr. President, I urge our colleagues to support my motion which I intend to make to table those amendments, and I urge them to pass the legislation. It is vitally needed. It is important to our economy. It is important to our ability to meet the year 2000 challenges, and it is important for us to bring the academics here to train American students so that we will produce these additional workers. That is why it has such broad-based support, bipartisan support in the Senate, academic support throughout the academic community, business support throughout the business community, support among heritage groups, and others. Mr. President, this is not a situation where we are dealing in a zero sum game. People coming in under the H-1B program are not taking jobs away from Americans. In virtually every case, they are contributing to a business, a company, an organization that is growing; and they are creating more opportunities. That is the evidence we had before us in the committee. I think it is what will happen in the 5-year period for which we are seeking this increase, and that will give us time to solve the problem in the long term. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that letters I have received from various business groups in opposition to the Kennedy amendments to S. 1723 be entered in the Record:

Mr. ABRAHAM. The intent of the majority leader would be to have the votes on the amendments to begin at 5:45. I believe we already have an order entered into to that effect. And then final passage to follow on votes on the amendments for which votes were requested. I assume a vote will be requested on the amendment of the Senator from Arkansas. The Senator from Massachusetts has two amendments.

Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I thank the Presiding Officer and I yield the floor at this time.

Mr. ABRAHAM

Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, Senator Hatch had hoped to be present for the launching of this legislation, and when last week it appeared, on either Wednesday or Thursday, that was going to take place, he was going to be in the manager's chair, at least initially, to begin the debate. He is not able to be here today, so we wanted to make sure his statement was included at the appropriate spot in the Record, which we have just done. Mr. President, we are here to discuss a piece of legislation, the American Competitiveness Act, which passed the Senate Judiciary Committee a few weeks ago by a 12-to-6 vote, a piece of legislation which is extraordinarily important, I think, to our country at this time if we wish to remain strong and competitive and wish to have an economy that continues to grow with the success we have seen in recent months. Basically, we are learning as we examine the economy that a very substantial reason for the recent economic growth stems from the tremendous success we have had in the development of our high- technology industries. Frankly, we are growing in those areas so fast that our labor force cannot even keep up with the speed of that growth. Indeed, studies conducted by a variety of organizations have suggested that we currently have a gap between the number of jobs in the information-technology and high-technology areas and the number of workers needed to fill them. A study by Virginia Tech University has indicated that there are an estimated 340,000 current vacancies in information-technology jobs in America today. A study by the U.S. Department of Commerce indicates a projected growth of information-technology and high-tech jobs over the next decade of approximately 130,000 per year, and yet that very same study suggests we will only be producing something in the vicinity of 25 percent of the graduates needed to fill these jobs over that timeframe. Clearly, that suggests we have to get busy to make sure that our educational system, our job training system, and so on, meet these challenges. We also know that this isn't just a bunch of statistics. You need only pick up the want ads of a newspaper or trade journal today and browse them and you will see, as these various newspapers I have here today suggest, the spectacular number of jobs available in these areas--high-tech jobs going unfilled, companies not able to find the skilled workers needed to fill them. At the same time, the extent to which companies are being forced to improvise in order to meet this challenge is also interesting as well. Recently, in fact, in the Washington Post, we read of the story of various young people in high school in Fairfax County, VA, who are being tapped to fill some of these positions. In fact, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record at this time one such story.

Mr. ABRAHAM. This story basically says, ``Teens with tech talent rise to the top. Not even out of high school, computer jocks rake in big bucks.'' And it talks about how high school students working just part time are making $50,000 here in the Virginia suburbs filling some of these high-tech jobs for which it is difficult to locate sufficiently skilled personnel. The unemployment rate, of course, as we all saw in the most recent numbers, is at a 30-year low, and that is great news. We want to see the unemployment rate go lower. But the fact that it is so low buttresses what these various statistics I have just described suggest; namely, that we are at a point now where we are having a hard time filling these high-tech jobs. And if we don't fill them and if the expansion can't continue, I fear we will start to see the unemployment rate going in the other direction, because we will not be able to sustain the economic growth we have and because, as a consequence of that, we will also start to see American companies forced to look elsewhere for the employees they need. But the bottom line is this. There is a gap, and what we need to do, in my judgment, to address it is to provide both a short-term solution and a long-term solution as well. The long-term solution is very dependent on better targeting and more efficient operation of our job training programs and an educational system, a K-12 educational system, that gets more young people headed in the direction of filling these jobs as well as a higher education system that properly trains them to take these jobs. The legislation which we have for consideration today, as I will indicate a little later on, aims to address the long-term solution that we are seeking. But until the education system can adjust, until the job training programs can be reconfigured, we need to do something in the short term, and that is also what S. 1723 is about. What we need in the interim is to attract and find, be able to bring to this country from anywhere on the globe where they might reside, the highest skilled workers we can find to fill these jobs until we can produce enough workers here in this country to fill them. And that is the goal of this legislation. There is a program under the existing immigration laws that allows people to come into this country on a temporary basis to fill high- skilled jobs. This is a program which is called the H-1B visa program. Since its inception about 8 years ago, the H-1B program has had a cap of 65,000 visas per year that may be made available for highly skilled people to come to this country to fill the types of jobs we are talking about here today. Until the 1997 fiscal year, however, we had never reached the 65,000 cap. It was not assumed we would reach it when the program was originally created. It was set at a fairly high level--at least it seemed to be the case at the time. But in 1997 the cap was hit, Mr. President. It was hit approximately early in July of 1997. What that meant was that at that point and from that point forward until the end of the fiscal year, companies in desperate need of high- tech workers, unable to find them in the United States, were also unable to bring them here from another country. We estimated at that time in the Immigration Subcommittee that the cap would be hit even earlier in the 1998 fiscal year, and our estimate was correct. The cap was hit 1 week ago Friday. It was hit, in other words, at the very beginning of May in this fiscal year. It is our projection that if we do not increase this cap, it will be hit even earlier in the 1999 fiscal year, perhaps as early as February. What it means for this year is very simple. Companies in the United States, high-tech companies that need skilled workers and cannot locate them here in the United States at this time--because in spite of all these want ads, there just aren't people adequately skilled to meet these specialized jobs--are not going to be able to bring another individual here until next October. What that means in terms of its implications on the economy is very significant. There are a lot of ramifications to not increasing the cap. First, as I have alluded to already, there will be the potential to impair our economic growth. If we can't fill these jobs, the companies are forced to defer and delay the initiation of new projects and new product lines and a variety of other similar types of programs, then clearly it will have an impact and effect on economic growth. It means key projects will be put on hold. And we have a list. Since this cap was hit the other day, Mr. President, I have heard from an array of companies indicating that they envision in this year being forced to either take people off payroll or not to hire prospective candidates because they will not be able to get the talent they need to fill these key spots. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the full list.

Mr. ABRAHAM

Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I rise to support the amendment to the National Defense Authorization bill offered by the Senator from Arkansas to address what is clearly a national defense issue--the conduct of Chinese companies, owned and operated by the People's Liberation Army, in the United States. It is based on a provision in a comprehensive bill I introduced last year, the China Policy Act. I believe that this bill is not only an appropriate place to consider this issue, it is the most appropriate, and is indeed an issue of supreme national security interest. Furthermore, Mr. President, if I thought the original bill that was passed by the House by a vote of 405-10 would actually be considered by the Banking Committee, it may be appropriate to wait. But it has been over six months, Mr. President, and no action has been taken. Given this is a national security issue, we need to discuss this here and now. Therefore, Mr. President, I wish to outline some of my specific national security concerns regarding these People's Liberation Army companies. First, we are all familiar with the well publicized examples of Polytech and Norinco, two companies caught trying to smuggle fully automatic AK-47 assault rifles, along with 4,000 clips of ammunition, valued at over $4 million, to supply street gangs and drug runners in the United States. During the course of this undercover sting operation, U.S. agents were offered a slew of other heavy ordinance, including shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles. Now Mr. President, these two companies are effectively controlled by the People's Liberation Army. In fact, the head of the Polytech parent company, Poly Group, is Major General He Ping, the son-in-law of Deng Xiao-ping. He heads Poly Group, a company that reports directly to the Central Military Commission of the People's Liberation Army. At the same time, Norinco is the parent company of 150 businesses, including the largest motorcycle maker in China and one of the country's most successful automakers. As state-owned enterprises, PLA companies frequently operate on non- commercial terms, conducting their affairs for such non-market reasons as military espionage and prestige considerations. Critics have also contended that the China Ocean Shipping Company, otherwise known as COSCO, have offered transoceanic shipping at well below market rates because of state subsidization and extremely low crew costs, in order to penetrate markets and further develop a strategic lift capability. Last, Mr. President, the profits from these companies will end up financing the Chinese military. Karl Schoenberger, writing in Fortune Magazine, estimated that the profits from these PLA activities is conservatively estimated at $2 to $3 billion. Based in part on this purchasing power and the Chinese military establishment's considerable use of off-budget financing, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency estimated that Chinese military spending is nine times what it announced. The question therefore becomes, Mr. President, do we want to know which companies in the United States are financing Chinese military expansion? Do we want to know which companies are financing the arm of repression in the PRC that has been extensively detailed on this floor over the past year? Do we want to give the American consumer the opportunity to know whether the product they are buying will help finance the oppression in Tibet? I believe that is our responsibility, Mr. President, and that this amendment will provide that vital information for our national security, by mandating that the Director of Central Intelligence and the Director of the FBI compile a list of these PLA companies operating in the United States. Finally, Mr. President, the President of the United States needs the additional authority to take decisive action against those companies that do threaten our national security. This amendment provides that economic authority to stop the operation of these front companies, and provides the only effective tools in this economic warfare--the prohibition of economic activity. Therefore, Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment as necessary, germane to the Defense Authorization bill, and vital to our national security. Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire addressed the Chair.

Mr. ABRAHAM

Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I object.