Lamar Alexander

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record at the end of my remarks two articles by the Wall Street Journal, the first written by me on April 29 and the second written by the president of the Boeing Company, Jim McNerney, who is also chairman of President Obama's Export Council.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, now to make a few remarks about the actions that have caused this. I just left a hearing in the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on the middle class. One of the witnesses was the general counsel of the Boeing Company. As might be expected, given the notoriety of this case and the breathtaking scope of it, he got a lot of questions. Let me first say why there is such a breathtaking scope here. Up until the filing of the complaint, one would assume that a manufacturing company, such as Boeing or a smaller company that wanted to open a new plant to create new jobs could make its own decision about where to do that. Then in doing so, it could take into account such factors as the cost of labor. It could take into account such factors as the labor relations within a State, as well as the geographical location of the State and many other factors. The reason the decision by the acting general counsel has attracted so much attention is it basically says--or at least it suggests--to any company manufacturing a product in a State which is not a right-to-work State, such as Washington, that you better think twice before you open a new production line in one of the right-to-work States. Let me talk for a moment about why that has an impact on the middle class in America. Thirty years ago I was Governor of Tennessee. We were the third poorest State. My goal was to raise family incomes and to create an environment in which they could be raised. I was a young Governor, but I knew enough to know the government did not raise the incomes but it might create a good environment for that to happen. I went to my first White House dinner with the President of the United States. The President was then Jimmy Carter. The President said to us Governors at a very nice dinner--just the Governors and their spouses and the President and Mrs. Carter: Governors, go to Japan. Persuade them to make in the United States what they sell in the United States. I remember I called Dean Rusk, who had been Secretary of State, and asked him to visit with me. I talked to him about how to do this. Off I went to Japan, which is not something I planned to do when I was walking across Tennessee trying to be the Governor. I met with the Nissan officials in Tokyo in the fall of 1979. At that time, Japanese companies seemed so powerful that there were books coming out saying they might take over the United States economy, but they were not making here what they sold here. They were making Nissan cars and trucks in Japan. They were making a decision about where to locate in our country. I took with me a photograph of the United States at night taken from a satellite. They asked: Where is Tennessee? I said: It is right in the middle of the lights. That reduced the shipping and transportation costs. Then the next decision was: Where in the center did they want to go? Every State north of us did not have a right-to- work law. Tennessee and the States around us did. Nissan chose Tennessee, and they and the General Motors plant that later came and the Volkswagen plant and thousands of suppliers have helped our middle class raise incomes over the last 30 years. A third of our jobs are auto manufacturing jobs because we provided an environment in which automakers can compete in the world marketplace. Nissan said today that soon they will be making in the United States 85 percent of what they sell in the United States, which makes them a very American company. That is what we want. But this decision says we throw a big wet blanket over all the auto suppliers and manufacturers who might be thinking about moving into Tennessee or opening new plants in Tennessee or suppliers who might be wishing to follow Boeing to South Carolina because it says you cannot make that decision. We have never had that kind of law in the United States. We have had a right-to-work law on the books since 1947. States have a right to adopt it or not to adopt it. The legislation I am offering today on behalf of 34 Senators does not change that, but it does preserve the right of States to adopt a right-to-work law, the right of employees to join or not to join a union, and the right of employers to make decisions about where to locate their plants and their ability to speak in public about what they are doing. This is a most consequential decision. It is one that deserves the attention of every Senator because as the Boeing chairman, who is the head of President Obama's Export Council, wrote in the Wall Street Journal this week, a union State would not be able to attract a manufacturer because a manufacturer might be afraid that any expansion could never be done in a right-to-work State. By simple mathematics, if Boeing, which is our largest exporter--155,000 employees in the United States, another 15,000 around the world--has a disincentive or if it cannot expand a new production line in a right- to-work State and if it might think twice about expanding in any other State, then where is it going to go? It is going to go to some other country. This decision by the acting general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board is the single most important action I have seen in years that would rush American jobs overseas in pursuit of an environment in which they can build and manufacture competitively. It is just the reverse of what President Carter said to the Governors 30 years ago when he said: Governors, go to Japan. Persuade them to make here what they sell here. We did that. They came here. They are making 85 percent of what they sell here. We want Volkswagen to do that. We want General Motors to do that. We want Ford to do that. We want Boeing to do that. And if we say to them, But we are going to tell you, the Federal Government is going to tell you where you have to locate your plants, you are going to override section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act which was passed in 1947 and which has created an environment which has permitted American manufacturing to succeed. All one has to do is read David Halberstam's book ``The Reckoning'' in the late 1980s to see that if our entire auto industry were still locked in Detroit, it would not be as competitive as it is today--cars made in America. I know that firsthand because I saw it happen when Nissan came to Tennessee. They did not hire a bunch of people from Japan to run the plant. They went to Detroit. They got Ford executives who knew how to run a plant but were not allowed to by the environment there, and they put them at a start-from-scratch place and created the most efficient automobile plant in North America. We welcome also the General Motors plant and the United Auto Workers to their Spring Hill location in Tennessee. That is what a right-to- work State is where you can choose to join a union or not to join a union. Both can operate. Employees make the decision. But when the Federal Government starts telling any company--a Boeing or a Boeing supplier, an auto company or an auto supplier or any manufacturing company--you cannot locate in a right-to-work State, they probably will not locate in a non-right-to-work State. Where are they likely to go? Mexico, Europe, Japan. Boeing sells airplanes all around the world. It can make airplanes all around the world. If we persist in policies such as this, instead of having a situation where our largest exporter has 170,000 employees, more than 150,000 of which are in the United States, we will turn that right upside down and they will be making 85 percent of their airplanes in the countries where they sell them, and the United States will have a lot fewer jobs. This is a consequential matter that I hope attracts Democratic as well as Republican support. It preserves the right-to-work law. It preserves the choices of employees. It preserves the decision of corporations to make their own decisions about where to locate. It would stop a Federal Government regulation which is the single most effective action I know about to chase American jobs overseas and lower family incomes. Exhibit 1 [From the Wall Street Journal, Apr. 29, 2011] The White House vs. Boeing: A Tennessee Tale (By Lamar Alexander) The National Labor Relations Board has moved to stop Boeing from building airplanes at a nonunion plant in South Carolina, suggesting that a unionized American company cannot expand its operations into one of the 22 states with right- to-work laws, which protect a worker's right to join or not join a union. (New Hampshire's legislature has just approved its becoming the 23rd.) This reminds me of a White House state dinner in February 1979, when I was governor of Tennessee. President Jimmy Carter said, ``Governors, go to Japan. Persuade them to make here what they sell here.'' ``Make here what they sell here'' was then the union battle cry, part of an effort to slow the tide of Japanese cars and trucks entering the U.S. market. Off I flew to Tokyo to meet with Nissan executives who were deciding where to put their first U.S. manufacturing plant. I carried with me a photograph taken at night from a satellite showing the country at night with all its lights on. ``Where is Tennessee?'' the executives asked. ``Right in the middle of the lights,'' I answered, pointing out that locating a plant in the population center reduces the cost of transporting cars to customers. That center had migrated south from the Midwest, where most U.S. auto plants were, to Kentucky and Tennessee. Then the Japanese examined a second consideration: Tennessee has a right-to-work law and Kentucky does not. This meant that in Kentucky workers would have to join the United Auto Workers union. Workers in Tennessee had a choice. In 1980 Nissan chose Tennessee, a state with almost no auto jobs. Today auto assembly plants and suppliers provide one- third of our state's manufacturing jobs. Tennessee is the home for production of the Leaf, Nissan's all-electric vehicle, and the batteries that power it. Recently Nissan announced that 85% of the cars and trucks it sells in the U.S. will be made in the U.S.--making it one of the largest ``American'' auto companies and nearly fulfilling Mr. Carter's request of 30 years ago. But now unions want to make it illegal for a company that has experienced repeated strikes to move production to a state with a right-to-work law. What would this mean for the future of American auto jobs? Jobs would flee overseas as manufacturers look for a competitive environment in which to make and sell cars around the world. It's happened before. David Halberstam's 1986 book, ``The Reckoning''--about the decline of the domestic American auto industry--tells the story. Halberstam quotes American Motors President George Romney, who criticized the ``shared monopoly'' consisting of the Big Three Detroit auto manufacturers and the UAW. ``There is nothing more vulnerable than entrenched success,'' Romney warned. Detroit ignored upstarts like Nissan who in the 1960s began selling funny little cars to American consumers. We all know what happened to employment in the Big Three companies. Even when Detroit sought greener pastures in a right-to- work state, its ``partnership'' with the United Auto Workers could not compete. In 1985, General Motors located its $5 billion Saturn plant in Spring Hill, Tenn., 40 miles from Nissan, hoping side-by-side competition would help the Americans beat the Japanese. After 25 years, nonunion Nissan operated the most efficient auto plant in North America. The Saturn/UAW partnership never made a profit. GM closed Saturn last year. Nissan's success is one reason why Volkswagen recently located in Chattanooga, and why Honda, Toyota, BMW, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai and thousands of suppliers have chosen southeastern right-to-work states for their plants. Under right-to-work laws, employees may join unions, but mostly they have declined. Three times workers at the Nissan plant in Smyrna, Tenn., rejected organizing themselves like Saturn employees a few miles away. Our goal should be to make it easier and cheaper to create private-sector jobs in this country. Giving workers the right to join or not to join a union helps to create a competitive environment in which more manufacturers like Nissan can make here 85% of what they sell here.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, now to make a few remarks about the actions that have caused this. I just left a hearing in the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on the middle class. One of the witnesses was the general counsel of the Boeing Company. As might be expected, given the notoriety of this case and the breathtaking scope of it, he got a lot of questions. Let me first say why there is such a breathtaking scope here. Up until the filing of the complaint, one would assume that a manufacturing company, such as Boeing or a smaller company that wanted to open a new plant to create new jobs could make its own decision about where to do that. Then in doing so, it could take into account such factors as the cost of labor. It could take into account such factors as the labor relations within a State, as well as the geographical location of the State and many other factors. The reason the decision by the acting general counsel has attracted so much attention is it basically says--or at least it suggests--to any company manufacturing a product in a State which is not a right-to-work State, such as Washington, that you better think twice before you open a new production line in one of the right-to-work States. Let me talk for a moment about why that has an impact on the middle class in America. Thirty years ago I was Governor of Tennessee. We were the third poorest State. My goal was to raise family incomes and to create an environment in which they could be raised. I was a young Governor, but I knew enough to know the government did not raise the incomes but it might create a good environment for that to happen. I went to my first White House dinner with the President of the United States. The President was then Jimmy Carter. The President said to us Governors at a very nice dinner--just the Governors and their spouses and the President and Mrs. Carter: Governors, go to Japan. Persuade them to make in the United States what they sell in the United States. I remember I called Dean Rusk, who had been Secretary of State, and asked him to visit with me. I talked to him about how to do this. Off I went to Japan, which is not something I planned to do when I was walking across Tennessee trying to be the Governor. I met with the Nissan officials in Tokyo in the fall of 1979. At that time, Japanese companies seemed so powerful that there were books coming out saying they might take over the United States economy, but they were not making here what they sold here. They were making Nissan cars and trucks in Japan. They were making a decision about where to locate in our country. I took with me a photograph of the United States at night taken from a satellite. They asked: Where is Tennessee? I said: It is right in the middle of the lights. That reduced the shipping and transportation costs. Then the next decision was: Where in the center did they want to go? Every State north of us did not have a right-to- work law. Tennessee and the States around us did. Nissan chose Tennessee, and they and the General Motors plant that later came and the Volkswagen plant and thousands of suppliers have helped our middle class raise incomes over the last 30 years. A third of our jobs are auto manufacturing jobs because we provided an environment in which automakers can compete in the world marketplace. Nissan said today that soon they will be making in the United States 85 percent of what they sell in the United States, which makes them a very American company. That is what we want. But this decision says we throw a big wet blanket over all the auto suppliers and manufacturers who might be thinking about moving into Tennessee or opening new plants in Tennessee or suppliers who might be wishing to follow Boeing to South Carolina because it says you cannot make that decision. We have never had that kind of law in the United States. We have had a right-to-work law on the books since 1947. States have a right to adopt it or not to adopt it. The legislation I am offering today on behalf of 34 Senators does not change that, but it does preserve the right of States to adopt a right-to-work law, the right of employees to join or not to join a union, and the right of employers to make decisions about where to locate their plants and their ability to speak in public about what they are doing. This is a most consequential decision. It is one that deserves the attention of every Senator because as the Boeing chairman, who is the head of President Obama's Export Council, wrote in the Wall Street Journal this week, a union State would not be able to attract a manufacturer because a manufacturer might be afraid that any expansion could never be done in a right-to-work State. By simple mathematics, if Boeing, which is our largest exporter--155,000 employees in the United States, another 15,000 around the world--has a disincentive or if it cannot expand a new production line in a right- to-work State and if it might think twice about expanding in any other State, then where is it going to go? It is going to go to some other country. This decision by the acting general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board is the single most important action I have seen in years that would rush American jobs overseas in pursuit of an environment in which they can build and manufacture competitively. It is just the reverse of what President Carter said to the Governors 30 years ago when he said: Governors, go to Japan. Persuade them to make here what they sell here. We did that. They came here. They are making 85 percent of what they sell here. We want Volkswagen to do that. We want General Motors to do that. We want Ford to do that. We want Boeing to do that. And if we say to them, But we are going to tell you, the Federal Government is going to tell you where you have to locate your plants, you are going to override section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act which was passed in 1947 and which has created an environment which has permitted American manufacturing to succeed. All one has to do is read David Halberstam's book ``The Reckoning'' in the late 1980s to see that if our entire auto industry were still locked in Detroit, it would not be as competitive as it is today--cars made in America. I know that firsthand because I saw it happen when Nissan came to Tennessee. They did not hire a bunch of people from Japan to run the plant. They went to Detroit. They got Ford executives who knew how to run a plant but were not allowed to by the environment there, and they put them at a start-from-scratch place and created the most efficient automobile plant in North America. We welcome also the General Motors plant and the United Auto Workers to their Spring Hill location in Tennessee. That is what a right-to- work State is where you can choose to join a union or not to join a union. Both can operate. Employees make the decision. But when the Federal Government starts telling any company--a Boeing or a Boeing supplier, an auto company or an auto supplier or any manufacturing company--you cannot locate in a right-to-work State, they probably will not locate in a non-right-to-work State. Where are they likely to go? Mexico, Europe, Japan. Boeing sells airplanes all around the world. It can make airplanes all around the world. If we persist in policies such as this, instead of having a situation where our largest exporter has 170,000 employees, more than 150,000 of which are in the United States, we will turn that right upside down and they will be making 85 percent of their airplanes in the countries where they sell them, and the United States will have a lot fewer jobs. This is a consequential matter that I hope attracts Democratic as well as Republican support. It preserves the right-to-work law. It preserves the choices of employees. It preserves the decision of corporations to make their own decisions about where to locate. It would stop a Federal Government regulation which is the single most effective action I know about to chase American jobs overseas and lower family incomes. Exhibit 1 [From the Wall Street Journal, Apr. 29, 2011] The White House vs. Boeing: A Tennessee Tale (By Lamar Alexander) The National Labor Relations Board has moved to stop Boeing from building airplanes at a nonunion plant in South Carolina, suggesting that a unionized American company cannot expand its operations into one of the 22 states with right- to-work laws, which protect a worker's right to join or not join a union. (New Hampshire's legislature has just approved its becoming the 23rd.) This reminds me of a White House state dinner in February 1979, when I was governor of Tennessee. President Jimmy Carter said, ``Governors, go to Japan. Persuade them to make here what they sell here.'' ``Make here what they sell here'' was then the union battle cry, part of an effort to slow the tide of Japanese cars and trucks entering the U.S. market. Off I flew to Tokyo to meet with Nissan executives who were deciding where to put their first U.S. manufacturing plant. I carried with me a photograph taken at night from a satellite showing the country at night with all its lights on. ``Where is Tennessee?'' the executives asked. ``Right in the middle of the lights,'' I answered, pointing out that locating a plant in the population center reduces the cost of transporting cars to customers. That center had migrated south from the Midwest, where most U.S. auto plants were, to Kentucky and Tennessee. Then the Japanese examined a second consideration: Tennessee has a right-to-work law and Kentucky does not. This meant that in Kentucky workers would have to join the United Auto Workers union. Workers in Tennessee had a choice. In 1980 Nissan chose Tennessee, a state with almost no auto jobs. Today auto assembly plants and suppliers provide one- third of our state's manufacturing jobs. Tennessee is the home for production of the Leaf, Nissan's all-electric vehicle, and the batteries that power it. Recently Nissan announced that 85% of the cars and trucks it sells in the U.S. will be made in the U.S.--making it one of the largest ``American'' auto companies and nearly fulfilling Mr. Carter's request of 30 years ago. But now unions want to make it illegal for a company that has experienced repeated strikes to move production to a state with a right-to-work law. What would this mean for the future of American auto jobs? Jobs would flee overseas as manufacturers look for a competitive environment in which to make and sell cars around the world. It's happened before. David Halberstam's 1986 book, ``The Reckoning''--about the decline of the domestic American auto industry--tells the story. Halberstam quotes American Motors President George Romney, who criticized the ``shared monopoly'' consisting of the Big Three Detroit auto manufacturers and the UAW. ``There is nothing more vulnerable than entrenched success,'' Romney warned. Detroit ignored upstarts like Nissan who in the 1960s began selling funny little cars to American consumers. We all know what happened to employment in the Big Three companies. Even when Detroit sought greener pastures in a right-to- work state, its ``partnership'' with the United Auto Workers could not compete. In 1985, General Motors located its $5 billion Saturn plant in Spring Hill, Tenn., 40 miles from Nissan, hoping side-by-side competition would help the Americans beat the Japanese. After 25 years, nonunion Nissan operated the most efficient auto plant in North America. The Saturn/UAW partnership never made a profit. GM closed Saturn last year. Nissan's success is one reason why Volkswagen recently located in Chattanooga, and why Honda, Toyota, BMW, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai and thousands of suppliers have chosen southeastern right-to-work states for their plants. Under right-to-work laws, employees may join unions, but mostly they have declined. Three times workers at the Nissan plant in Smyrna, Tenn., rejected organizing themselves like Saturn employees a few miles away. Our goal should be to make it easier and cheaper to create private-sector jobs in this country. Giving workers the right to join or not to join a union helps to create a competitive environment in which more manufacturers like Nissan can make here 85% of what they sell here.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I have come to the Senate floor today to introduce, on behalf of 34 Senators, the Job Protection Act. The Job Protection Act is occasioned by a decision by the acting general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board that filed a complaint to stop the Boeing Company from building airplanes at a nonunion plant in South Carolina, suggesting that a unionized American company cannot expand its operations in 1 of 22 States with a right-to- work law. The right-to-work law protects workers' rights to join or not join a union. For example, in Tennessee we are a right-to-work State. In the case of a Saturn employee, where United Auto Workers is the bargaining agent, a worker doesn't have to join the union or pay dues, but he has to accept the UAW as his bargaining agent. At the Nissan plant a few miles away from the General Motors plant, workers have three times elected not to have a union as their bargaining agent. That is what a right-to-work State is. There are 22 of them. The State of New Hampshire is in the process of deciding whether to become the 23rd. Their legislature is of one view, and their Governor is of the other view. The Job Protection Act, which I introduce today on behalf of 34 Senators, would preserve the Federal law's current protection of State right-to-work laws in the National Labor Relations Act and provide necessary clarity to prevent the NLRB from moving forward in their case against Boeing or attempting a similar strategy against other companies. Specifically, the Job Protection Act would, first, explicitly clarify that the board cannot order an employer to relocate jobs from one location to another; two, it guarantees an employer the right to decide where to do business within the United States; and, three, it protects an employer's free speech regarding the costs associated with having a unionized workforce without fear of such communication being used as evidence in an anti-union discrimination suit. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the names of the 34 Senators who are original cosponsors of the Job Protection Act.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record at the end of my remarks two articles by the Wall Street Journal, the first written by me on April 29 and the second written by the president of the Boeing Company, Jim McNerney, who is also chairman of President Obama's Export Council.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, on Friday, I visited Memphis to see the flooding along the Mississippi River myself, to meet with volunteers who were helping, and to see the tremendously well coordinated efforts of emergency workers who are meeting and working every day, long into the evenings, and have been doing so for the last few weeks and will continue to do so for the next several weeks. I want to make sure that as the Federal Government's role for helping arrives, we are doing everything we should be doing. It is quite a sight in Memphis. The Mississippi River today is 14 feet above flood stage. It is at a level that nearly equals the level in 1937. The river is normally a half mile wide. Today it is 3 miles wide. A great many people in Tennessee and Arkansas have been evacuated because their homes are flooded with water. As we saw a year ago in the Tennessee floods, which stretched from Nashville to Memphis, and as I saw last Monday in Hamilton County near Chattanooga, Tennesseans know how to respond to this kind of tragedy. They are doing it again by helping one another and helping to clean up rather than complaining and looting. It is an impressive sight. Bob Nations, who is the director of the Shelby County Emergency Management Agency, presides over daily meetings of maybe 50 or 60 people from a variety of volunteer and governmental organizations, who are carefully coordinated to deal with everything from watching the levees, to looking for sand boils, to helping people evacuate, to dealing with utilities that may be threatened by flooding. He is doing a tremendous job. COL Vernie Reichling, commander of the Memphis District Corps of Engineers, was there on Friday. He has had a tough couple of weeks. He was the one who had to blow up a levee in Missouri which hurt families in that area but saved towns, whole towns that are down river along the Mississippi River from irreparable damage, in northwest Tennessee and also in Missouri. He was there providing us with the latest information. Overall the Corps' work has been exemplary. So far none of the levees around Memphis has been breached, and it appears none will be breached, despite the high water. The National Weather Service, both State and local officials have been an important part of the efforts. The University of Memphis has contributed daily maps that will predict where the water will go, which have proved to be fairly accurate, which is enormously helpful to volunteers and others as they find a way to help people evacuate when they need to be evacuated, or before they need to be evacuated. I visited with volunteers who were filling sandbags near the Pyramid. These included off-duty military personnel from the Navy base nearby. These included people from land that is going to stay dry in other parts of Shelby County. They knew someone needed to help. I traveled to Mud Island where the flood waters were continuing to rise. Officials predict as many as 3,000 properties and 6 schools may be affected by the flooding. One of the most impressive stories is that of Hope Presbyterian Church and its pastor, Dr. Craig Strickland. The church has organized up to 13 shelters, each of which could hold 150 to 200 individuals. Two of them were filled when I was there on Friday. More of them are filling up. All of this is being done without any cost to the government, without any cost to the individuals who are being sheltered there. It is all being provided by the churches and synagogues of Memphis. Reverend Strickland and Hope Presbyterian Church deserve enormous credit for the role they are playing, along with others, in Shelby County. The Federal Government, through the efforts of the Corps, is leading the fight. This is the largest flood in the history of the Mississippi River and Tributaries project. The Mississippi is the third largest watershed. The problem is it received 600 percent more rainfall than it normally does in a span of 2 weeks. The Corps says it came in all the wrong places. Over 4 million people are protected by the comprehensive Mississippi River and Tributaries Project. It is being tested in ways that it never has before. But the system so far is performing as designed. The Corps has made some tough choices that I talked about earlier. It is going to continue to need to make tough choices as the water moves south. The Memphis District has been fighting the flood since the 24th day of April, relying on 500 people working 24 hours a day around the clock. The Federal Government, through FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is also helping State and local officials evacuate those in harm's way in advance of the floodwaters. Governor Haslam of Tennessee requested, and our entire delegation has supported, our State's request for emergency evacuation assistance to help move residents in Dyer, Lake, Shelby, and Stewart Counties to higher ground. The President responded quickly, and we thank him for that. Over the weekend, the congressional delegation also supported Governor Haslam's request for Federal assistance to help victims in 15 counties recover from the flood and severe storms that began impacting our State on April 19. Actually this is a different sort of request. The first was evacuations; this is to help those recover. The record rainfall and flooding has only added to the devastation caused by the storms. Last night I learned the President has approved Tennessee's request to make individual and public assistance available to families in the hardest hit areas. I would say to the Tennesseans who are affected by this, now that the President has approved opportunities for individual assistance, I hope they will take advantage of this. There is a telephone number to call. It is 1-800-621-FEMA. That is 1-800-621-3362. Unfortunately, we have had some experience with this telephone number in Tennessee in the last year. The floods that came exactly a year ago, which hit counties from Nashville to Memphis, produced enormous devastation, $2 billion alone in Davidson County. What we found with FEMA, once the President had granted the assistance, that Tennesseans who called that telephone number got a quick response, usually had an inspector there within a few days, and in most cases where there was damage, received a check of up to $30,000 within a few days. We hope that happens again, although we understand there is terrible devastation in hundreds of counties right now around the country, especially in Alabama and the eastern part of Tennessee. But I want to make sure that residents and neighbors in Tennessee know that the FEMA number, 1-800-621-FEMA, is available now to be called. The first thing they will do is ask for your ZIP code. After that, they will have a chance to provide help. The most important thing that Tennesseans can do in preparation for that is to document the loss. This flood will impact our State for weeks. The river only crested last night, the second highest flood stage ever recorded. It will take days for the waters to recede. Only then will we know the true extent of the damage. The volunteers and the emergency crews and the church shelters will be open for a long time after today. I am proud of the Tennesseans who are responding, from the Corps of Engineers' personnel, to the Hope Presbyterian Church shelters, to the professionals with Mr. Nations. It is an admirable sight. Senator Corker and I and our entire delegation are working together to make sure that we do all we can to expedite Federal help in response to this historic disaster that has occurred in the western part of our State. I ask unanimous consent that two letters I am passing to the desk be printed in the Congressional Record immediately following my remarks. They are the two letters our delegation has sent to the President making a request for a declaration for disaster assistance.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, reserving the right to object, then we would need to add 2 minutes to the Republican side, and I ask unanimous consent for that.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that over the next 30 minutes Republican Senators led by the Senator from Ohio, Mr. Portman, and including the Senator from Wyoming, Mr. Barrasso, Senator Cornyn from Texas, Senator Hoeven from North Dakota, and myself be permitted to engage in a colloquy.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, it seems as if every day there is some new action by the Obama administration that throws a big wet blanket over job creation in America. Republicans haven't been hesitant to point this out and talk about too many taxes, too many regulations, too much debt, higher gasoline prices, higher health care costs, and the health care law. Yesterday, Senators Graham and DeMint and I introduced legislation to reaffirm section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act to permit States, if they so chose, to have a right-to-work law, creating a competitive environment in which we can create more jobs in this country. This is in reaction to the action by the National Labor Relations Board that would basically say the Boeing Company could not expand into a nonunion State. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an editorial in the Wall Street Journal today called ``Congress vs. the NLRB.''

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, as important as it is to say what we don't like about the Obama administration's job policy, it is even more important for us to say what Republicans will do to create an environment to make it easier and cheaper to create private sector jobs. Senator Portman of Ohio has a strong background as a budget director, as a Congressman, and as a trade negotiator in the Bush administration, and he has a good understanding, representing one of our largest and most important manufacturing States, of exactly what kind of policy it takes to create an environment for job growth. He has been working with Republican Senators so that we can clearly state our progrowth plan. We would like to discuss that. I ask Senator Portman, what would be the keys to the Republican plan to make it easier and cheaper to create private sector jobs?

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, would the Senator have some more comments on the plan and about what has been said by some of our other colleagues?

Mr. ALEXANDER. To the Chair, if the 5-minute warning could be for the end of the 25 minutes because I intend to take 5 minutes after that.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I will take 1 minute and then conclude. I wish to thank Senators Portman, Cornyn, and Barrasso for this. We will be hearing often from Republicans who want to make clear what we are for as well as what we are against, and I thank the Senator from Ohio for his leadership. I wonder if, in the last 30 seconds or so, he wants to focus on trade and jobs, which has been his specialty.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. I ask unanimous consent for 1 additional minute.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, we have a vote at noon. I know there are a number of Senators who wish to speak. I will take about 5 minutes, I suspect Senator Cornyn wants to speak, and I know Senator Grassley wants to speak. I also see Senator Reid. The Senate is a body of precedent. One important precedent is that never in the Senate history has a President's district court nomination, reported by the Judiciary Committee, been defeated because of a filibuster; that is, because of a cloture vote. Once a nominee for Federal district judge has gotten to the floor, the majority of Senators have made the decision in an up-or-down vote. Therefore, I will vote for cloture in order to allow an up-or-down vote on the President's nomination of John McConnell, then I will vote ``no'' on confirmation because I believe he is a flawed nominee. I know most of my Republican colleagues are going to register their opposition to Mr. McConnell by voting to deny an up-or-down vote. I respect their decision. I understand how they feel. I also was outraged in 2003 when Democratic Senators filibustered President Bush's circuit court nominees simply because they disagreed with their philosophies. I made my first speeches on the floor of the Senate arguing against such a change in precedent. On February 27, 2003, I said on this floor: When it comes time to vote, when we finish that whole examination, I will vote to let the majority decide. In plain English, I will not vote to deny a Democratic President's judicial nominee just because the nominee may have views more liberal than mine. That is the way judges have always been selected. That is the way they should be selected. That is what I said in 2003. In 2005, Republicans grew so upset with the Democrats' continued filibustering of President Bush's circuit nominees, the Republican majority leader threatened to eliminate the right to filibuster in connection with judicial nominations. That proposal was called the nuclear option because it was said if Republicans succeeded in abolishing the filibuster, their actions would ``blow the place up.'' I suggested, in two Senate speeches, that a small group of Senators, equally divided by party, agree to oppose the filibustering of judges. The result of those remarks was the creation of the Gang of 14--the Gang of 14 Senators who preserved the tradition of up-or-down votes by agreeing to use the filibuster only in extraordinary cases. I have amended my own views to subscribe to the Gang of 14's standard for Supreme Court and circuit court judges. It is true the Gang of 14 agreement didn't explicitly distinguish between circuit and district judges. But the debate then clearly was only about Supreme Court and circuit judges, and the Senate always thought of district judges differently. District judges are trial judges. Circuit judges also must follow precedent but have broader discretion in interpreting and applying the law. Circuit judges' jurisdictions are broader. Their attitudes and philosophies are much more consequential in the judicial process. That is why the Senate has never allowed a Federal district court nomination to fail by denying cloture. According to the Congressional Research Service, in the history of the Senate----

Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Chair. According to the Congressional Research Service, in the history of the Senate, only three cloture motions have ever been filed on district judge nominations. In each case, the nomination eventually was confirmed. In 1986 cloture was invoked by a vote of 64-33 on Sidney Fitzwater despite opposition to the nomination by Democratic senators. Mr. Fitzwater was then confirmed 52-42. In 1999 cloture was not invoked by a vote of 55-44 on Brian Theodore Stewart's nomination because of Democrat opposition. He was confirmed two weeks later by a vote of 95-3. In 2003 a cloture motion was filed on Marcia G. Cook's nomination but it was withdrawn and she was confirmed 96-0. I certainly wish President Obama had nominated someone other than Mr. McConnell. During his confirmation hearings, questions arose about a possible role in stolen corporate documents, in soliciting contingency fee legal contracts, and about his judicial temperament. Some senators even feel misled by some of his statements. It was even said he is the only district judge to be opposed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in its 99-year history. Well, the Senate has more than a 200-year history. And that history is not to use the filibuster to defeat a district judge nomination. I am comfortable with the Gang of 14 precedent in the case of circuit justices and Supreme Court justices. I will continue to reserve the right to vote against allowing an up-or-down vote in an extraordinary case. I also understand the strategy of ``They did it to us, so we will do it to them.'' Unfortunately, that strategy, I am afraid, will lead us to a new and bad precedent, one which will weaken the Senate as an institution and come back one day to bite those who establish it. I thank the Chair and I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I rise today to talk about a piece of legislation which will be both a bill that Senator Graham and Senator DeMint and I will introduce tomorrow and an amendment that I have filed to the small business bill on behalf of the three of us. We are calling it the Right to Work Protection Act, and it is our intent to preserve the right of each State to make a decision for itself about whether it will have a right-to-work law and have an ability to enforce it. This is in direct response to an action that the National Labor Relations Board has taken against the Boeing Company and the plant they are building in South Carolina. The National Labor Relations Board has moved to stop Boeing from building airplanes at a nonunion plant in South Carolina, suggesting that a unionized American company cannot expand its operations into one of 22 States with right-to-work laws. These laws protect a worker's right to join or not to join a union. In fact, the New Hampshire Legislature has just approved its becoming the 23rd such State. This reminds me, this action by the National Labor Relations Board reminds me of a White House dinner in February 1979 when I was Governor of Tennessee. The occupant of the chair has been to those dinners. The President has them every year. The only ones invited are the Governors themselves and spouses. For me, it was always one of the highlights of the year. So my first such dinner was with President Carter in 1979. As a new Governor, I was paying close attention to what the President of the United States had to say. This is what he said: Governors, go to Japan. Persuade them to make here what they sell here. I walked 1,000 miles across Tennessee to be Governor the year before, and I don't remember one single Tennessean who said to me: Lamar, the first thing you do when you get in office is go to Japan. That was not on our minds. But it was tough economic times. Not many people were investing anywhere in the United States at that time. I thought, Well, if the President of the United States says, Governors, go to Japan and persuade them to make here what they sell here, I should do that. ``Make here what they sell here'' was then the union battle cry. It was part of an effort to slow the tide of Japanese cars and trucks entering the U.S. market. At that time, Americans were very worried about Japan. There were books about Japan being No. 1, and the fear was that Japan would overwhelm us economically. Cars and trucks from Japan were fuel efficient, they were attractive, they were selling, and manufacturers and the United Auto Workers here were concerned that we would lose a lot of jobs. So the cry was to the Japanese: If you are going to sell it in the United States, you need to make it in the United States. So off I went to Tokyo to meet with the Nissan executives who were then deciding where to put their first U.S. manufacturing plant. At that time, Japan had very few manufacturing plants in the United States. They made there what they sold here. I carried with me on that trip a photograph taken at night from a satellite showing the country with all of its lights on. Try to visualize that. Because what you see if you look at a photograph of the United States at night are a lot of lights east of the Mississippi River, but it is pretty dark almost until you get to California, and there are a lot of lights down around Texas. I was trying to make a point. The Japanese executives, who didn't know very much about Tennessee and I didn't know very much about Japan, would say to me, Where is Tennessee? I would point to our State and say, We are right in the middle of the lights. My argument, of course, was that locating a plant in the population center of the United States would reduce the cost of transporting cars to customers. That population center 70 or 80 years ago was in the Midwest where the American automobile was literally invented, and it made a lot of sense to build almost all the plants there, because transportation costs were less when you send these heavy cars and trucks to the customers. So you locate your plant near the population center. Gradually, that population center migrated south from the Midwest, where most U.S. plants have been, to Kentucky and Tennessee. Then the Japanese to whom I was talking examined a second consideration: Tennessee has a right-to-work law and Kentucky does not. That meant that in Kentucky, workers would have to join the United Auto Workers Union. Workers in Tennessee had a choice. In 1980, Nissan chose Tennessee, then a State with almost no auto jobs. Today, auto assembly plants and suppliers provide one-third of our State's manufacturing jobs. Tennessee is home for the production of the Leaf, Nissan's all-electric vehicle, and the batteries that power them. I am happy to report it works well. I have bought one, parked in the garage of the apartment where I live here. Recently Nissan announced that 85 percent of the cars and trucks it sells in the United States will be made in the United States, making it one of the largest so-called ``American'' auto companies and nearly fulfilling Mr. Carter's request of 30 years ago. But now unions want to make it illegal for a company that has experienced repeated strikes to move production to a State with a right-to-work law. What would this mean for the future of American auto jobs? Jobs would flee overseas as manufacturers look for a competitive environment in which to make and sell cars around the world. It has happened before. David Halberstam's 1986 book ``The Reckoning''--about the decline of the domestic American auto industry-- tells the story. Halberstam quotes American Motors president George Romney who criticized the ``shared monopoly'' consisting of the Big Three Detroit auto manufacturers and the United Auto Workers. Romney warned, ``There is nothing more vulnerable than entrenched success.'' Detroit ignored upstarts such as Nissan which in the 1960s began selling funny little cars to American customers. We all know what happened to employment in the Big Three companies. Even when Detroit sought greener pastures in a right-to-work State, its partnership with the United Auto Workers could not compete. In 1985 General Motors located its $5 billion Saturn plant in Spring Hill, TN, 40 miles from the Nissan plant, hoping side-by-side competition would help the Americans beat the Japanese. After 25 years, nonunion Nissan operated the most efficient plant in North America. The Saturn/UAW partnership never made a profit. Last year, GM closed Saturn. Nissan's success is one reason why Volkswagen recently located in Chattanooga and why Honda, Toyota, BMW, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, and thousands of suppliers have chosen southeastern right-to-work States for their plants. Under right-to-work laws, employees may join unions, but mostly they have declined. Three times workers at the Nissan plant in Smyrna, TN, rejected organizing themselves like Saturn employees a few miles away. Our goal should be to make it easier and cheaper to create private- sector jobs in this country. Giving workers the right to join or not to join a union helps to create a competitive environment in which more manufacturers such as Nissan can make here 85 percent of what they sell here. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the amendment and bill that I and Senator Graham and Senator DeMint will be introducing tomorrow and which we filed as an amendment today.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Chair. I wish to add that I saw today a representative of the Whirlpool Company which has 2,500 employees in Tennessee. He said Whirlpool makes 82 percent of what they sell in the United States here in the United States, but that they have a choice. They have plants in Mexico as well. It is one more example of why allowing States to have a right-to-work law keeps jobs in our country. I see on the floor Senator DeMint, whose State is directly affected by this NLRB decision. He and I are working together on this legislation. I am sure he has comments on the legislation and on the decision of the NLRB.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I would like to congratulate the men and women of our military for a courageous mission, and our intelligence community for accurate and important intelligence. I would like to congratulate the President for his persistence in bringing a mass murderer to justice, and I would especially like to salute the men and women of our military services who, for the last 10 years, have fought the indispensable consequences of the actions of terrorism. All of us, as has been said by many Senators today, especially have in our hearts and minds the families of the victims of 9/11 and hope that somehow, in some small way, this event helps bring some closure to what has happened to their lives.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I have just returned from visiting east Tennessee where there were devastating tornadoes last week. The President, at the request of our entire congressional delegation, has declared four of our counties--Washington, Greene, Hamilton, and Bradley--as disaster areas, and we thank him for his prompt attention to that. I visited today northern Hamilton County, just north of Chattanooga, north of where the new Volkswagen plant will be located. In Tennessee last week 36 men and women lost their lives as a result of these storms. The area I visited is one of the two areas most affected, the other being Washington and Greene Counties, where our Governor was today. Someone asked me following my visit if anything about it shocked me. I said: It always shocks me when I see the consequences of a devastating flood or especially a massive tornado. This one had winds of nearly 200 miles an hour. Wherever you stand, you try to put yourself in the shoes of someone who might have been there when the tornado came through and try to imagine what it would be like. You see this funnel coming and know it will only interfere with your life for about 20 or 30 seconds; but after that, it will all be devastation. There is no way you cannot be shocked by it, and there is no way I can put myself in the shoes of those who were there. I saw one man who was there, Arthur Bates, 70 years old, and I saw his house which was completely demolished. His upright piano was upside-down. He told me he had killed a calf and left to take some meat to the preacher. He had been gone for about 5 minutes when the tornado hit his house. Not so lucky was another family not very far away. All of the members of that family were killed except for an 8-year-old boy who was found in a tree and survived. Not far away, several families had signs that said: The Lord was with us. Surely, it had to seem to them providential that there could be such devastation almost in their front yards and yet their homes would be safe. Ironically, today, as I went from Nashville to Chattanooga, I was reading about a commemoration of the floods that hit Tennessee almost exactly 1 year ago--on May 2, 2010. These were floods that affected counties from Nashville to Memphis. In Nashville alone there was $2 billion worth of damage. People are still recovering from that flood a year later. Businesses have closed in some cases, but most have opened. The Grand Ole Opry was shut, but it was opened again. The Opryland Hotel is open again. Nashville is thriving again, and people are coming back to Nashville. But the commemoration today was for the large number of families in Tennessee who are hurting and some who are still in recovery. Then, if that weren't enough, in the western part of our State, along the Mississippi River, we have reports that the water is rising and will rise to levels that will be higher than at any time since the flood of 1937. People are already preparing shelters. Tributaries of the Mississippi are already rising. On Friday I will be going to Memphis to meet with the Army Corps of Engineers and local officials to make sure we are doing all we can. None of us in the Federal Government believe we can make anyone whole after a disaster like this, but we can help. As I said to those I saw today in Chattanooga, north of Chattanooga, there is a telephone number to call--2-1-1--which is a local number for help. There is a FEMA number to call--1-800-621-FEMA (3362). We found in the flooding of a year ago from Nashville to Memphis that was a big help to many Tennesseans. I hope the same will be true in east Tennessee and across our State today. A year ago Tennesseans distinguished themselves by not looting and complaining, but by cleaning up and helping one another. I saw that again today in Hamilton County. The sheriff told me within a few hours after the devastation there were 500 or so men with chainsaws out clearing debris and trees from the roads and from the yards helping one another. So, Mr. President, I speak today on behalf of all Members of the Senate in expressing to those in Tennessee our concern and our willingness to continue to do all we can to help. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record following these remarks a summary of the actions that we are taking in the events that are happening in Tennessee, as well as a letter from the congressional delegation to the President requesting disaster relief, which he granted promptly, and another to the general who was president of the Mississippi River Commission urging him to take every action possible to help the communities along the Mississippi River as water rises there.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I rise today to support the nomination of Kevin Sharp to fill a judicial vacancy on the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee. The Senate will be voting on the President's nomination within a few minutes. Kevin is an outstanding individual. I am pleased to be able to support his nomination today. As a Governor, I appointed about 50 judges. I tried to determine in doing that if he or she had the character and the intelligence and the temperament to be a judge, whether that person would treat people before the bench with courtesy, and most important whether they were determined to be impartial to litigants before the court. I believe Kevin Sharp meets these qualifications, and I am pleased that he will bring that character and skill to his service on the bench. I congratulate the President for nominating him. Kevin is a native of Tennessee. He is a founding partner of the national law firm of Drescher and Sharp where he has been an expert in employee law, employee benefits, and commercial disputes. He is a graduate of two Tennessee institutions of higher education. He earned his bachelor of science degree from Christian Brothers College, graduating summa cum laude. He earned his juris doctorate from Vanderbilt, where he was a Weldon B. White Scholar, an Associate Problem Editor on the Moot Court Board, a recipient of the Appellate Advocacy Award, and a research assistant on issues of constitutional law and habeas corpus. As a lawyer, Kevin Sharp has repeatedly earned recognition from his peers, being named one of the Nashville Business Journal's best of the bar in 2003, and each year from 2005 to 2009. Prior to becoming a lawyer, Kevin served in the U.S. Navy as a flight crew member on the P-3 Orion operating in patrol/reconnaissance, and the antisubmarine warfare capacities as part of the U.S. Pacific fleet. Kevin has broad support in Tennessee. Both the White House and my office and Senator Corker's office have received numerous letters from Republicans, Democrats, and those who didn't indicate any sort of partisan leaning, which is the way it ought to be. Although the President nominated Kevin on November 17 of last year for the first time, the seat that he has been nominated to fill is designated as a judicial emergency. It has been vacant for 4 years, since March 1, 2007. This is the third longest vacancy on the list of judicial emergencies, and the people of Tennessee deserve to have this vacancy filled. I thank the President for the nomination and the Judiciary Committee's prompt consideration of that nomination. I am grateful for the opportunity to join in support of the nomination of Kevin Sharp, and I encourage my colleagues to join me in supporting the nomination today. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

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

Mr. ALEXANDER

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