Max Baucus

Mr. BAUCUS

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from Florida.

Mr. BAUCUS. Reserving the right to object, and I will not, before he leaves the floor, I thank the Senator from North Dakota. He has been helpful and constructive in getting amendments lined up. I spoke to the cosponsor of the amendment a short time ago, and she will, this afternoon, join the Senator. I thank the Senator for his cooperation. I have no objection.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside so that the Senator from North Dakota may offer his amendment.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I yield to Senator Gregg.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from North Dakota.

Mr. BAUCUS. That is the understanding. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendments be temporarily set aside so the Senator from New Hampshire may offer an amendment; and after he has spoken on his amendment, the amendments will be temporarily set aside so that Senator Graham may offer an amendment.

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

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

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Massachusetts, with the understanding that I will work to get more time for him. For the time being, I yield him 10 minutes.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I yield the remainder of my time to the Senator from Massachusetts.

Mr. BAUCUS

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I ask my good friend from Virginia, since he has such a good amendment, is the Senator prepared to go to a vote in favor of this amendment? This Senator is inclined to vote for the amendment, and I encourage all of my colleagues to vote for the amendment. Because we are going to accept this amendment, I wonder if the Senator could agree to a voice vote on his amendment so we can get to the spouses' dinner more quickly.

Mr. BAUCUS. There is no time to yield. There is a consent agreement.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that both sides be given an additional 3 minutes on this amendment.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, if we go into a quorum call, I ask unanimous consent that the time be divided proportionately.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, we have once again had a productive day. I thank all Senators. We adopted several amendments. First is the overtime amendment, an issue which has occupied the Senate for some good amount of time. The Senate also adopted the amendment of the Senator from Maine, Ms. Collins, her manufacturing jobs credit amendment. The Senate has also addressed the trade adjustment assistance amendment. We have a number of major amendments pending. In the morning, we hope to have debate on Senator Dorgan's runaway plant amendment which is already pending. Senator Graham of Florida has an amendment already offered, as well as Senator Breaux's repatriation amendment. We hope to vote early in the afternoon on all those pending amendments. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

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

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, there is another point that I would like to discuss with the chairman for the record, regarding a form of restitution that is often authorized for rebates in the case of regulated utility providers whose rates to consumers are regulated. Due to a change of circumstances or other factors, the rates that were charged for a particular period may be determined to be greater than should have been charged if all relevant factors had been known and properly accounted for. Due to the large number of customers and the relatively small amounts involved, the regulatory authority frequently permits the utility to adjust rates to provide compensatory rebates for all current customers. This avoids, for example, tracing former occupants of an address served by the utility or otherwise tracing former customers for relatively small amounts. It is my understanding that this type of procedure would qualify as restitution because substantially all the payments are directed to the actual parties that overpaid.

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

Mr. BAUCUS. I thank the Senator.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I will use my time. Mr. President, the point is this. It is quite simple. We in America are faced with immense competitive pressure worldwide. We are concerned about a lot of jobs being lost in America. Some are being lost within America; some are being lost in other countries. It is an offshore issue. It is a big question in America. There are a lot of Senators here who are trying to address this question but who are trying not to vote for so-called protectionist amendments; that is, amendments which say a company cannot do this or that. I agree with that sentiment. But I also think--and I daresay that most Senators would agree with this next point--that we should do something for our employees who lose their jobs through no fault of their own. We already have a very small program called trade adjustment assistance for manufacturing industry jobs that are lost on account of trade. We do not provide for service industry workers who lose their jobs on account of trade. Service jobs are lost by a larger margin than in the past simply because so much information in America is now being digitized and because of the advance of broadband telecommunications. So a lot of service industry jobs--analyzing programs, reading x rays, and other jobs--go overseas from American companies. Orders come over at the speed of light and the product goes back at the speed of light. What we are saying is this is a constructive, positive response by the Congress to deal with and help those people who lose their jobs on account of trade. It is not a massive program as has been described. Only about 150,000 people qualify today for TAA. Only 5 percent of American workers use it. We are saying just expand it to the service industry. That is not a big expansion. A very small percentage is going to be able to use it. It has not been pointed out by the other side that you have to be enrolled in a retraining program to use these benefits. The key is to have enough of a benefit so people don't just run off and who want to go into retraining to avoid taking a McDonald's job or some minuscule minimum wage job. I urge my colleagues to put this in the context of what is really going on and not get sidetracked by a lot of arguments that get down in the weeds but which really don't address the larger issue, which is that this is the one opportunity--and it is very minuscule--to help American workers who lose their jobs, and not only manufacturing but service industry jobs. It is a positive, constructive response; it is not a protectionist response. I urge my colleagues to support this one chance we have this year.

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, might I ask how much time is left on both sides?

Mr. BAUCUS. So it is true there is no lump sum payment.

Mr. BAUCUS. That is for persons, after today, for example, talking about service employees, who are out of a job on account of trade.

Mr. BAUCUS

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following fellows and interns be granted the privilege of the floor during consideration of the JOBS bill: Steve Beasley, Diana Birkett, Leopold Brandenburg, Simon Chabel, Jodi George, Scott Landes, Pascal Niedermann, David Schwartz, Matt Stokes, and Trace Taxton.