Sherrod Brown

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Madam President, there has been a lot of controversy in the last couple of weeks about the President's sending the Colombia so- called free trade agreement to the House of Representatives. Under this unusual law, there is something called fast track procedure. Fast track procedure--this is a lot of inside baseball--changes the way we do business in the House and Senate. Trade law is the only issue that changes the way that we do business. On no other issue that comes in front of the House and Senate, except the budget, are there limits on amendments, are there limits on required up-or-down votes, timetables-- all of that. The Senate rules do not apply on that legislation. It is the only time--in part because of who has written trade policy in this country in the last 20 years. We have seen trade agreements that always look out for the interests of the drug industry, look out for the interests of the insurance industry, of banking interests, of energy interests. But we have not seen trade policy written in this country, negotiated by the President of the United States, the U.S. Trade Representative, that has shown any of the same concern for workers, for the environment, for food safety, for the safety of consumer products. That is why we have seen what happened with all the toys that came into this country from China. It should not have been a surprise to us that at Eastertime, that at Christmas, that at Halloween last year, that consumer products, especially toys for small children, came into this country that were dangerous. It should not have surprised us because it was somewhat inevitable because of the way we do trade policy in this country. Professor Jeff Weidenheimer, a professor of chemistry at Ashland University, about 10 miles from where I grew up in north central Ohio, took his class to test children's toys last fall at Halloween and then did it again at Christmas and did it again at Easter. In case after case, they would go to a toy store or a discount store and they would buy a bunch of toys, very inexpensive toys, and they would test them for lead. Every one of these batches of toys had significant numbers of toys that had lead content-- lead in the paint that covered these toys--lead content way above on average what is considered safe. What is considered safe is about 600 parts per million. These were, in some cases, thousands of parts per million. What should not surprise us about that is the way we set up trade policy in this country. We don't write trade policy to protect our children or to protect our communities or to protect our workers. We don't write trade policy to protect our food supply. We write long trade agreements--this isn't one, but I have to gather these papers to show how long they are. We pass trade policies that are this long. If we wanted to eliminate tariffs, we would pass trade policies that are this long. You could write a schedule of eliminating tariffs in the Colombian free trade agreement of 2 or 3 pages. Instead, we write agreements that are hundreds, if not in some cases over a thousand pages, because they are full of protections--not for workers, not for communities, not for children, not for our kitchen tables, our families--but these are trade policies that are chock-full of protections for the drug industry, the insurance industry, the oil companies, the banks. That is what our trade policy is all about. That is why. Go back to Jeff Weidenheimer's class at Ashland University and look what happened. American companies decide they are going to shut down in this country because they would rather pay Chinese workers low wages and not have environmental laws and not have worker safety laws and not have to worry about consumer protection laws, so they shut down plants such as Huffy Bicycle in Sidney, OH, and they move to China where it is a whole lot cheaper. You don't have to worry about treating Chinese workers well because they are disposable. They did have to worry about treating American workers well, frankly, because many of them were union, and even if they were not, we have consumer protection laws, safe drinking water, clean air, environmental laws--all of those kinds of things. So these companies in Ohio and in the State of Washington where the Presiding Officer is from, all over our country, these companies shut down and they move to China. A company such as Hasbro, a toy manufacturer, moves their production to China. Hasbro then subcontracts with a Chinese company, they subcontract their work. They go to a country, China, that does not have the same environmental safety, worker safety, consumer safety, and wages we have in this country, and then they deal with Chinese contractors and they push those Chinese contractors to cut costs: You have to cut costs; you have to cut costs. Every year they cut costs over the year before, because that is good business. These American companies, when they outsource their jobs to China, force those Chinese contractors to cut costs. Do you know what happens? They use lead-based paints. Do you know why? Because lead-based paint is cheaper to apply, it is cheaper to buy, it dries faster. These toys, then, all of a sudden, instead of having a coating that is safe for little children instead now have a coating that has lead base in them, making them dangerous to children. But they do that because these American companies are pushing these subcontractors to cut costs. Forgetting for a moment--because these American companies don't seem much to care and the Chinese contractors don't seem to care much-- forgetting for a moment these people in China are working in these factories and are probably ingesting all kinds of toxic lead themselves--forget that for a moment, as bad as that is. These toys then come back to the United States. Do you know what the Bush administration did? The Bush administration has weakened consumer protection laws and cut the number of inspectors so these products come through the American regulatory system that used to be the best regulatory system, the best consumer product safety system in the world, the best Food and Drug Administration system in the world-- agencies that protected consumer products, about toys, especially--and agencies that protected food products that came into this country. And what do we end up with? We end up with toxic toys coming to our children's bedrooms, we end up with contaminated vitamins and other contaminated food coming into our kitchens. That is the result of American trade policy. It doesn't look out for our families, it doesn't look out for our children, it doesn't look out for our workers, it doesn't look out for our communities. Instead, it looks out for the drug companies, it looks out for the big toy manufacturers, it looks out for the big insurance companies, it looks out for the banks, it looks out for the oil industry. That is what is wrong with our trade policy. President Bush's answer is let's send another free trade agreement to the Senate, to the House of Representatives, the Colombia free trade agreement. It is more of the same. It will not work. The last point, Madam President, and I think we are pretty ready to adjourn for the night. When I came to Congress--I was elected the same year the Presiding Officer was elected, 1992--we had a $38 billion trade deficit. That means our country bought $38 billion more than our country sold to other countries around the world. Today, that trade deficit exceeds $800 billion--from $38 billion to $800 billion in a decade and a half. President Bush the First said for every $1 billion trade surplus or trade deficit, it amounted to 13,000 jobs. That means if we had a $1 billion trade surplus, if we were selling more than we were bringing in, it meant 13,000 net gain of jobs in country. If we had a $1 billion trade deficit, it meant we bought $1 billion more than we sold, we had a 13,000 jobs net loss. We have an $800 billion plus trade deficit. Do the math. Think about that. As we adjourn for the evening, think about what this trade policy is doing. It continues to fail the American people, continues to fail our communities, and it kind of begs the issue about which Albert Einstein once said: The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect a different result. We are getting the same result. It hurts our communities, it doesn't protect our families--consumer protection and food safety and all of that. These trade agreements are a bad idea. We can fix them. I, like Senator Dorgan, who has spoken on the floor many times about this, want more trade. We want plenty of trade. We just want it under a very different set of rules, rules that protect our families, protect our communities, that protect our workers--not just protecting the drug industry and the oil industry and the energy companies and those toy manufacturers that sort of forget about the safety of our children.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak up to only 5 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 516, which was submitted earlier today.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 9:30 a.m. tomorrow, Wednesday, April 16; that following the prayer and the pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for use later in the day, and the Senate then proceed to a period of morning business for up to 60 minutes, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each and the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the majority controlling the first half and the Republicans controlling the final half; that following morning business, the Senate resume consideration of H.R. 1195, the highway technical corrections bill.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Yes.

Mr. BROWN. Madam President, today is tax day. People all across America are heading to the post office to get that all-important ``April 15'' postmark. OK, not everybody waits until the last minute, but there are enough procrastinators among us that this is sort of a rite of spring. The first week in Washington brings the cherry blossoms. The 15th of the month brings long lines near midnight in front of the main post office just a few blocks from the floor of the Senate. For some taxpayers, 2007 was a very good year. Huge fortunes were made on Wall Street by people who correctly bet against the housing market, and some of those of the very wealthiest people were given huge tax breaks that the middle class never saw. But for the people who live in all of those homes, those homes that Wall Street people were betting against in some sense, 2007 was a very tough year. The home ownership rate has actually fallen over the past 6 years, both nationally by a slight amount and close to 2 percent in the Midwest. What is extraordinary about this fact is that it came during a period of the lowest interest rates since the Eisenhower administration. With the economy expanding, with interest rates at record lows, home ownership should have expanded. Instead, it shrunk. The reason is another trend that has received too little notice by the Nation's newspapers and the Nation's media: economic growth, simply put, has not benefited most Americans. Instead, income and wealth are more and more flowing to the most affluent in our country. The middle class, meanwhile, must work harder and longer to try to maintain its standard of living. Real wages have been in decline for the past several years. The only way a lot of families have kept up is, first, the entry of more women into the workplace--women in greater numbers; second, workers in this country working longer and longer hours, overtime if they can get it, two jobs, sometimes even three jobs; and third, the only way families have kept up is by taking on more and more debt. The third strategy can be a recipe for disaster; sooner or later, the bills come due. You can't borrow your way very long to a decent standard of living. Economic security begins with economic opportunity. That means good- paying jobs. It means the kind of training that enables workers to diversify their skills and take on new challenges. It means high- quality primary, secondary, and, yes, higher education. Our Nation is the wealthiest in the world. Overall economic growth has been strong. Working families should be thriving. By and large, they are not. Working families are struggling to find and maintain good-paying jobs to keep their health benefits, to keep their pension benefits if they have them, and those benefits, those health and pension benefits, are being scaled back. It costs more and more, as people painfully know every day, to fill the gas tank. People are borrowing in record amounts just to cover day-to-day costs. So many Ohioans from Galion to Gallipolis are struggling. The Center for American Progress looked at some key statistics over the past 5 years and found that the average job growth is one-fifth the rate of previous business cycles. The average job growth is one-fifth-- 20 percent--the rate of previous business cycles. Wages have been flat. Only 28 percent of middle-class families have the financial resources to sustain themselves through a period of unemployment. The average family took on debt equal to 126 percent of disposable income just to manage its day-to-day expenses. Having witnessed the weakest economic expansion in modern history--in other words, the growth in our economy, the expansion in our economy was weaker than the expansion of the economy at any time in recent history--we now find ourselves in a recession once again. So we didn't have very strong growth when things were supposedly good--when profits were up, when there was economic growth--but it wasn't spread around very well. Now we find ourselves in a recession once again. We have had three straight months of job losses. Consumer confidence in Lima and in Zanesville and all over my State is understandably shaken. Our Nation cannot afford to take these statistics in stride, just hoping that the precarious financial position of working families is a temporary phenomenon linked to the ebbs and flows of our economy, because it is not. Our economy as a whole is losing ground. As our trade deficit skyrockets, energy and health care costs spiral upward, good-paying jobs are too often shipped overseas, and our Federal deficit climbs higher and higher and higher. Yet, when Congress tries to address any of these problems, we find ourselves faced with filibusters, one after another after another, as well as veto threats. When we tried to react to the Housing crisis last fall, Republicans objected. When we tried to tackle the topic in February, the Republicans objected and we faced a filibuster. Even today, the President threatens to veto the bill passed by the Senate. Sixty-five filibusters, as Senator Durbin and others have said, 65 filibusters-- more filibusters already in the year and 3 months this Senate has been in session than in any 2-year period in the history of the U.S. Senate. Sixty-five filibusters. It means we haven't been able to do what we ought to do in education, on health care, on infrastructure, and, most importantly, on the war in Iraq. Today, as an example, we are simply trying to pass a technical corrections bill to a highway bill. Yet our Republican colleagues are filibustering and slow walking the legislation once again. Sixty-five filibusters. We spend $3 billion a week in Iraq, with no questions asked. Halliburton can rob us blind, but we avert our gaze. But to try to build a road, a bridge, or some other public works in the United States, and you will meet with filibusters, delays, and obstructionism by the Republicans. In other words, taxpayers are paying $3 billion and building hundreds of water systems in Iraq--spending that money with Halliburton and Bechtel--and the money goes to these contractors instead of that money coming back to local businesses and building water and sewer systems in Defiance, Findlay, Bryan, Napoleon, and Perrysburg, OH--places that are being squeezed and are not able to afford the reconstruction of the water and sewer systems they need. We should be doing a lot more construction and a lot less obstruction. Our roads and bridges, in too many cases, are falling apart. If my colleagues don't like a project, they can make their case and offer an amendment instead of the obstructionism, instead of blocking these issues, instead of their 65 filibusters. The American people are tired of this kind of delay. Their taxes should pay for a government that will work on their behalf, rather than only on behalf of the wealthiest and most powerful people in this country. We cannot continue down a path that undermines the middle class. We cannot just hope for real economic recovery. You simply cannot get there from here.

Mr. BROWN. Yes, there is strong support. I appreciate the comments of the Senator from California. There is strong support for this bill, but not just in those groups. I had in my office building trades people from Mansfield, Lima, Cleveland, Dayton, and Columbus. They were talking about the kinds of jobs--good-paying jobs--in our State on road crews, such as the operating engineers and laborers and all kinds of workers that are paid decent wages. It is a stimulus, as the Senator says. It injects money into our economy immediately. These are ready- to-go projects. We need to fund them so we can work immediately to create these jobs, which will spin off and create other jobs. But it is the same old story. We have had 65 filibusters from Republicans to stop us from moving forward on everything from health care, to education, to ending the war in Iraq, to jobs programs such as this. This is the best kind of jobs and economic development program. Not only will it create jobs immediately, but it makes it much easier for economic development and for people to bring new business into communities because the infrastructure is more modern.

Mr. BROWN. I thank the Senator for this information and for all she is doing. I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, earlier this month, President Bush sent up another trade agreement to the House of Representatives. This agreement is a bilateral trade agreement with Colombia. He calls it a ``free trade agreement,'' a term we use around here--I am not sure why, except that it sounds good, because these trade agreements generally are--I don't have it in front of me, but it was too thick to bind in its original printing. It is about seven or eight hundred pages. NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement--which the Presiding Officer opposed 15 years ago, as I did--was even longer than that. The way they sell these agreements is they say we are eliminating the tariffs on the trade relationship between--in this case it is Colombia, and Colombia still has tariffs on American goods. We have eliminated tariffs on Colombian goods. If we were to pass a real free trade agreement, it would be three, four, five, six pages long and eliminate the tariff schedule, making a real free trade agreement. These are not free trade agreements the President sends us, nor are they free trade agreements that Presidents in the past sent. They are hundreds and hundreds of pages of protectionism, pages outlining protections for the drug companies, protections for the energy companies, for financial services companies, banks and others, and protections for the pharmaceutical industry. That is what these supposed free trade agreements are. It is interesting that those of us who oppose these ``free trade agreements'' because they don't protect our communities, frankly, are called ``protectionists.'' If we are going to write these agreements and build in protections for the drug companies, the oil industry, and the other energy companies, the financial services companies, the banks, and the insurance companies, we also should build in protections for our workers in New Jersey and in Ohio, protections for our communities in Lima, and Mansfield, and Tiffin, OH, protections for food safety, and build in protections for consumer product safety. But that is not what they do. What is most curious about these agreements that the President has sent up--in this case the most recent is Colombia--it reminds me of the old Einstein saying that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over again and expecting a different outcome. We have seen, in almost 15-plus years in the House of Representatives, and now in the Senate--and it is roughly the same period of the Presiding Officer--we have seen our trade deficit go from $38 billion in 1992, to in excess of $800 billion last year. It is hard to know exactly what that means. A $38 billion deficit--that means we buy $38 billion more in this country than we sell to other countries. It is $800 billion more that we buy in this country than we sell to other countries. That is a huge amount of dollars, obviously. That $800 billion--it was boiled down by the first President Bush, who said that a billion dollar trade surplus, or deficit, translated into 13,000 jobs. So if you have a trade surplus--in other words, if you are selling more than you are buying as a nation, a billion dollars, according to President Bush the first, would add up to about 13,000 new jobs--net gain of jobs in your country. But if you have $1 billion deficit, it means it is a 13,000 net job loss in your country. We have not a billion dollar trade deficit but an $800 billion one. Do the math. What does that mean in lost jobs? It means an awful lot of lost manufacturing jobs in my State, from Cleveland, to Dayton, to Lima, to Canton, to Kent, to Ravenna, to all over our State. It means a lot of other lost jobs, not just manufacturing jobs. When American Standard shuts down in Tiffin, and when a company shuts down in Bucyrus, or in Ashland, it means fewer firefighters, fewer schoolteachers, fewer restaurant workers, fewer realtors, and fewer people who serve those jobs--those people who had the manufacturing jobs. So it is pretty clear that the trade agreements, in addition to other damage they have done, clearly--when you have a trade deficit that goes from $38 billion to $800 billion in a decade and a half, they have done significant damage to our country and, most importantly, to our communities and our families. I will close on something specifically unique to the Colombia trade agreement. We know that in Colombia they have had a significant number of murders committed against union activists. I heard a Member of the House say today there were more union activists--organizing union leaders--murdered in Colombia than anywhere in the rest of the world combined. Although President Uribe of Colombia says union violence has come down and his spokespeople in this body say the same, the fact is that union murders, deaths of union activists in the first 3 months of 2008 are almost twice what they were in 2007. Adding insult to injury, we have seen fewer and fewer convictions. Only about 3 percent of these murders have resulted in convictions of the people who have been guilty of the murders. To add even further insult to this whole issue, the American Government, the State Department has said the paramilitary vigilantes who are allied often with the Uribe Government who have killed the union activists are classified by our State Department as terrorists. We, in essence, are supporting the Uribe Government that is allied with paramilitary vigilantes who are called terrorists by our own Government. I don't quite see why we would want to reward that Government. I want President Uribe to succeed. I think he has done decent works. But I don't think we should reward him with a trade agreement and lose the leverage we have to try to get the activist murder rate down and also so that the people have the opportunity to join unions in Colombia. Fewer than 5 percent of the Colombian workforce is unionized. That is the lowest or second lowest in the Western Hemisphere. They are not doing what they need to do to bring working families into the middle class, as we have seen in our country. The reason we have a prosperous Zanesville and a prosperous Springfield, OH, in part is because of people's ability to join a union and bargain collectively for better wages, health care, and pensions. In the country of Colombia, they do not have those opportunities. For us to put the imprimatur of the U.S. on a free-trade agreement for that social structure and government to me makes little sense. The House of Representatives delayed the bill for several months. If it gets to this body, I am hopeful Members will do the right thing and say to President Bush: It is not time to do a trade agreement. This trade policy in our country has failed. It is not working for our country, it is not working for our national security, it is not working for our communities, it is not working for our families, and it is not working to build the middle class in this society the way we should. I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. BROWN

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

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, at the conclusion of my remarks, I will yield to Senator Stabenow of Michigan who will also talk about trade adjustment assistance in Michigan and Ohio and all that our States are going through in large part because of misdirected trade policies. Yesterday, President Bush announced he would send a proposed Colombian Free Trade Agreement to Congress for a vote. He does this over the opposition of the Democratic leadership in the House and in the Senate, in defiance of our desire to work on a bipartisan basis, and in direct opposition to the desires of a growing number of Ohioans and Michiganders and Americans all over this country. In doing so, President Bush has nailed shut the fast-track coffin. As my colleagues know, this agreement was negotiated under the so- called fast-track provisions. It is an extraordinary procedure provided only for trade agreements, not for any other kind of legislation. Trade is that special and that important to a very narrow but very powerful, very influential group of people in this country. Congress decided years ago to delegate an enormous amount of power to the executive branch to negotiate trade agreements. In nothing else does this body, charged under the Constitution with specific duties and responsibilities, give that much power to the executive branch as it does with these trade agreements. Under the fast-track provisions, once presented to Congress, a so- called free-trade agreement triggers a 90-day clock for consideration of the agreement. No amendments can be offered to improve it, unlike anything else here. Congress is given a take-it-or-leave-it decision. Much of the talk about this agreement centers around the violence and impunity in Colombia, especially as it relates to trade unionists, and for good reason. International organizations and human rights groups look at Colombia's record with urgency and alarm. Human rights defenders, trade unionists, and community leaders in Colombia are today receiving death threats from the rearmed paramilitary group, known as the Black Eagles, and are reeling from a new wave of violence. This leaflet blown up, of course, was distributed at a March 6 rally in Colombia. The beginning says: Death to the leaders who march for peace and justice. This was a peace and justice rally. The Black Eagles handed out this leaflet to state their point of view, if you will. Before, during, and after this countrywide rally on March 6 against paramilitary and all forms of violence, at least two march organizers were killed. Union leaders Carlos Burbano and Carmen Cecilia Carvajal were killed for trying to voice their views. At least three other leaders were killed in events also associated with the march. March organizers all over the country received death threats such as these. One organizer's house was attacked with gunfire a week before the rally on February 29. These human rights issues are exceedingly serious. Yet the administration cavalierly casts them aside, barely acknowledging the culture of violence and impunity. Just the merits of the Colombian Free Trade Agreement is another fundamentally flawed trade pact in the long line of trade agreements such as NAFTA and CAFTA, in the long line of bad trade policies such as PNTR with China. If these are really ``free'' trade agreements, if it did what its supporters tell us, simply knocking down trade agreements, it would be a smaller document. It would be a couple of pages, just getting rid of tariffs. Instead, it is many more pages, such as NAFTA. NAFTA was 900 pages of rules and regulations, having little to do with trade because instead of simply eliminating tariffs, which we would like to do, these agreements are packed with rules on investment, services, procurement, telecommunications, drug patents, and more. So why do we get thousands of pages of seemingly nontrade issues in a trade agreement? Because these trade agreements are rules to protect corporations, not rules to protect workers. These trade agreements are rules to protect the drug companies, not to protect the environment; rules to protect hedge funds, not rules to protect consumers; rules to protect Wall Street, not rules to protect Main Street. Notice the word ``protect.'' They--the editorial writers, the Harvard economists, the CEOs, the Wall Street bankers, the corporate lobbyists, the big-time lawyers, the hedge fund managers--try to label people such as us ``protectionists.'' I guess it depends on whom, Mr. President, you want to protect. NAFTA, CAFTA, and Colombia protect the drug companies and the investment banks. They protect the corporate interests. Theirs is sort of a high-class protectionism. But protecting labor, protecting consumers, that is not protectionist. That is the duty of Government. Many in this Chamber will recall the debate on the Central American Free Trade Agreement. We had a coalition of religious people, consumer advocates, environmentalists, small business, medium-size manufacturers, and organized labor in opposition to CAFTA. CAFTA's proponents said if it did not pass, poverty would get worse in Central America. CAFTA, they promised, would promote economic growth and curb the violence in Central America and would serve as a model for strengthening democracy. The U.S. Trade Representative, Mr. Zoellick, said ``if CAFTA stumbles, labor rights in Central America will not be strengthened,'' as if anybody in this administration really wanted to strengthen labor rights. The reality is that there have been disturbing developments in the region, including the recent passage by the Honduran Government of a law to create exception zones that will allow foreign factories to pay less than the national minimum wage. How does that help Honduran workers that there is a zone in which they pay a subminimum wage? Labor ministries in Central American countries still lack the staffing and the resources to implement their programs. In many cases, budgets have actually been reduced since the passage of the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Consistent with its history of repeating the same act and expecting different results, the administration now wants Congress to approve a deal with Colombia, a country where there are increased and continued death threats against labor activists, followed by assassinations of labor activists, followed by nothing, followed by no prosecution, no attempts to find the killers, continued excuses from President Uribe, and continued excuses from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the U.S. Trade Representative and, frankly, yesterday, President Bush himself. The administration has shown no willingness to enforce labor and environmental rules at home, so it is hardly surprising it would ignore violations among our trading partners. There have been well-documented abuses of sweatshops in Jordan, despite the supposedly better labor standards in that agreement. Jordan, to its credit, has taken steps to crack down on these companies and work with nongovernmental organizations and others in promoting the standards intended in that agreement. It is important to note that the Bush administration, however, did not use the enforcement tools available to it in that trade agreement to require labor compliance. So why do we think they will use the provisions in this trade agreement, the Colombian Free Trade Agreement, to require labor compliance? Of course, they won't. But when there is a commercial dispute or a drug patent dispute, the administration comes down on a country with all the fury it can muster. Protect the drug companies? The administration says yes. Protect workers? No thanks. Protect oil interests? The administration says, of course. Protect the environment? The administration says, no thanks. Protect the banks and the financial institutions? The administration says: Where do I sign up? Protect food safety for our children, protect toys for our children, food safety for our families? The administration is not particularly interested. Why then should we consider a trade agreement with a country such as Colombia which is known as the most dangerous country in the world to be a union activist? In fact, Colombia has an unbroken record in recent decades of leading the world in trade unionist killings. Violence against unionists continues at extremely high levels. The vast majority of trade union assassinations remains unsolved. Preliminary figures show that between 12 and 17 trade unionists were killed in the first 3 months of 2008. Among those murdered was Carmen Ramirez, a teacher and member of the teachers union. She was killed on her way to work on March 4. Gomez Rozo Leonidas, the director of the National Union of Bank Workers, disappeared on March 5 and was found dead 3 days later. A subunit of the attorney general's office was established in 2006 in Bogota to accelerate resolutions of assassinations of trade unionists. Despite more resources for these cases, convictions have lagged behind murders, leaving the unsolved murder/conviction rate at 98 percent. Of the 2,283 murders between 1991 and 2007--2,283 murders of union activists in that 17-year period--there have been 50 convictions. There have been 50 convictions out of 2,283. Does that sound like the Government really is interested in going after hate groups like this? We need to craft trade policies that deliver the long-term results we need, not just the short-term profits a few multinational companies crave. When it comes to trade and the Bush administration, idealogy trumps outcomes. Special interests always--always--trump U.S. interests. Congress needs to reject this agreement. The Senate needs to make a clear statement that we stand for a better approach to trade, one based on using our market as leverage to raise living standards in Latin America, in Michigan, in Montana, in Ohio, and our whole country. Mr. President, joining me today is Senator Stabenow of Michigan, who, during her almost 7\1/2\ years in the Senate and time in the House, has been a stalwart advocate for workers in Michigan and across this country, and she is particularly interested in this trade adjustment work, with the problems in Michigan. She has stood strong, and we are joining together today. I yield to Senator Stabenow.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Thank you, Mr. President. China Human Rights Violations Mr. President, in a little more than 4 months, the world will witness one of its great quadrennial events: the Summer Olympic Games. The games have been billed as a way for China to reintroduce itself to the international community. China has done everything, virtually, to prepare. It has pulled out all the stops: $38 billion in infrastructure improvements, including a brand new 91,000-seat stadium, 300 miles of new roads, and an entirely new terminal at Beijing's international airport--all done for the Olympic Games. What China will not be highlighting is its human rights record. That is because its human rights record is abysmal. Last year, Amnesty International, the nonpartisan, nonaligned, highly respected international group that monitors human rights, said of China that: An increased number of journalists . . . were harassed, detained, and jailed. Thousands of people who pursued their faith outside officially sanctioned churches were subjected to harassment and many to detention and imprisonment. Thousands of people were sentenced to death or executed. Migrants from rural areas were deprived of basic rights. The report went on to say: Severe repression of the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region continued, and freedom of expression and religion continued to be severely restricted in Tibet and among Tibetans everywhere. Acts of repression include indiscriminate use of the death penalty, torture, kangaroo courts, arbitrary detention, and the policy of cultural, religious, and linguistic eradication. Beijing will continue to attempt to paint its repressive regime in the best light possible, as we have seen them try to do in the last month with the unnerving tragic events in Tibet. Our Nation must not implicitly condone human rights abuses by ignoring them. Our Nation must not implicitly condone religious persecution by minimizing it. Our Nation must not implicitly condone economic exploitation by perpetuating it. The repression in Tibet is, unfortunately, nothing new. For close to 60 years, Tibetans have survived under Beijing repression. The Uyghur people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region have been subjected to the same grueling conditions. We must not allow the pomp and circumstance--as it comes over the broadcast networks in our country--we must not allow the pomp and circumstance of these Olympics to obscure the real China, the China that too often represses its people, the China that too often manipulates its currency--as the senior Senator from New York, the Presiding Officer, has worked on--the China that makes a mockery of its trading partners. Communities across America feel the reverberations of this policy. We have lost more than 3 million manufacturing jobs in the United States. My State of Ohio has lost 200,000 in the last half dozen years. Our trade deficit with China was only about $12 billion when I first ran for the House of Representatives in 1992. Now it exceeds $250 billion, and it hits new records almost every month. Massive Government subsidies, slave wages, and lax worker safety and environmental laws--if they ever actually enforce them--enable Chinese manufacturers to undercut U.S. companies. We are certainly not innocent, as U.S. companies outsource jobs, devastating American communities, with the damage they have done to places such as Tiffin and Bryan and Toledo and Lima and Marion and Mansfield. The American companies go to China and subcontract with Chinese subcontractors who do not observe any kind of wage, environmental, or worker safety laws. By minimizing the importance of these anticompetitive tactics, our Nation is walking down a dangerous road, and by dismissing the importance of human rights violations, we are treating our own values as negotiable and arbitrary. Americans are far more resolute in our beliefs than that, and as their elected officials we should be too. The Olympic Charter states that the goal of the Olympic Movement is to contribute to building a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport practiced without discrimination of any kind. The Olympic Charter makes clear the goal of an Olympic spirit which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity, and fair play. The charter is a good blueprint for the way leaders should treat their people and countries should treat one another. That is the underlying and fundamental purpose of the Olympics. Instead of giving China a pass during the Olympic games, we should use the games as an impetus to hold that country accountable on fair trade, on religious freedoms, on human rights. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER [Mr. Pryor]. The clerk will call the roll.

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

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Madam President, for months and months almost every newspaper in the country has been filled with stories of the tremendous toll the housing crisis has taken on communities across our Nation. My State set an unenviable record for foreclosures last year--more than 83,000, according to Ohio's Supreme Court. That is more than 200 every day of the week--Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Every week 1,500 families lose their homes. Almost 4 percent of all home loans in Ohio are in foreclosure, the highest rate in the Nation. The end is nowhere in sight. In Ohio, there are another 120,000 home loans that are delinquent. Nationally, one rating agency is now predicting a 50-percent default rate for subprime loans made in the fourth quarter of 2006, many of which will reset in the fourth quarter of this year. Think about that. One of every two subprime loans made in the fall of 2006 will go bad. That is not lending, that is gambling with someone else's home. In the face of this crisis, the Bush administration has largely taken the view that prosperity is around the corner; the Government need not do anything; voluntary efforts and market forces will be enough. Last summer and earlier in the year, the Bush administration was still arguing that the problem was contained. So long as the problem was contained to places such as Ohio and Michigan, to Nevada and California, the administration was content to do almost nothing. But what a difference an address makes. When the problems moved from America's Main Streets to Wall Street, the administration sprung into action. In a single weekend, the executive branch jumped to rescue the investment bank Bear Sterns from bankruptcy. If the Government can leap into action to prevent the bankruptcy of a single bank, how can we turn our backs on the tens of thousands of Ohio families and the millions of American families who need our help? Congress must act in the face of this crisis. Majority Leader Reid tried a month ago to bring legislation before the Senate that would take several steps to help homeowners faced with foreclosures in the communities in which they live. We are trying again today. We seem to be able to afford to spend $3 billion in 1 week, every week, 52 weeks a year, in Iraq, but the President hasn't been able to find $4 billion in 1 year to help the towns and cities across the country that are being gutted by foreclosures. We are able, it seems, from Chairman Bernanke, to spend $30 billion buying a basket of mortgages from Bear Sterns that JPMorgan wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole. Why can't we help cities rebuild? The needs of communities are critical because this crisis has an impact far beyond just the people who lose their homes, as big as those numbers might be. Whenever a home goes into foreclosure, the value of neighboring properties is reduced. In many areas, local vandals move in quickly to strip the copper pipe and the aluminum siding from a home. Crime goes up just when property tax revenues in these cities are plunging and the resources of a city and town are stretched to the limit. Senator Reid's bill would include some $4 billion in funding for the Community Development Block Grant Program, so communities that have been the hardest hit could renovate or rebuild or even in some cases raze these properties. The bill would provide an additional $10 billion to housing finance agencies to be used to refinance mortgages, to help first-time home buyers, and to create more multifamily rental housing. The majority leader's legislation would also provide $200 million on supporting the efforts of nonprofit agencies across the country to counsel homeowners on how to work with a lender to stave off foreclosure. We have great neighborhood counseling organizations in Columbus and in Toledo and in Dayton and in Cincinnati and all over my State. This is no easy task. Once upon a time, you took out a loan with your local bank to buy a home. If I borrowed money from a local bank, the banker had just as much interest in my paying down my loan, my staying up to date on my loan, he had just as much interest as I did in making sure I paid my mortgage. You knew the people at the bank. They knew you. You had that kind of relationship. Today, especially for subprime loans, that is seldom the case. So help in navigating the mortgage maze is essential. That is why those neighborhood counseling organizations are so important. The majority leader's bill would also improve disclosure of the terms of a mortgage. In the last year--the last 14, 15 months since I came to the Senate--I have held about 95 roundtables in 60 of Ohio's counties talking to people about what issues matter to them the most in their communities. I heard from one Ohioan after another, from Marietta to Lima, from Bryan to Chillicothe, from Zanesville to Youngstown. I have heard from one Ohioan after another who never understood the real risks and dangers of the mortgages that were sold. Senator Reid's bill also provides bankruptcy judges the ability to modify the mortgage on a primary residence in the same way that a judge can today with a vacation home or investment property or even a boat. We know lenders and their servicers cannot keep up with the flood of foreclosures they are facing. Much has been made of the number of loans that have been changed as a result of voluntary efforts. I do not discount those efforts at all. But tacking late fees and penalties on the back end of a loan does not do much to help a family make their monthly payment. One woman who called me reported a loan modification that reduced the interest rate on her loan from 11 percent to 10 percent. With the late fees and penalties folded in, her monthly payment barely budged. Modifications like these are simply not going to help. It is essential that we permit the bankruptcy courts to serve as their backstop. My Republican colleagues apparently think it is OK for a bankruptcy judge to modify the mortgage on a multimillion-dollar vacation home, but it is not OK to provide the same relief to a family facing bankruptcy in their $100,000 home. When lenders are only recovering 35 cents on the dollar in my State-- it is a little higher nationally; only 35 cents in my State on the dollar--on a foreclosed property, I do not think they have anything to fear from an alternative process supervised by the bankruptcy courts that may result in avoiding foreclosure. The bankruptcy provisions are a significant change in our law, to be sure. But they are a responsible reaction to some extraordinarily irresponsible underwriting. I understand the importance of protecting contract rights. But think for a minute about the contracts that are in question. The vast majority of subprime loans went to refinance homes. They were designed to do three things--to generate fees, strip out equity, and quickly become unaffordable. Do we really want to take the position that these contracts should be beyond the reach of a bankruptcy judge? I think not. We have much work to do in dealing with this foreclosure issue. Every day we delay more than 200 people--more than twice the membership of this body--lose their home in my State. They deserve more from us. I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWN. Madam President, this weekend the Department of Defense confirmed the death of SSG Keith ``Matt'' Maupin, an American patriot from Batavia, OH, near Cincinnati, who bravely served our Nation in Iraq. Sergeant Maupin had been listed as missing and captured for nearly 4 years. He went missing on April 9, 2004, after his fuel convoy, the 724th Transportation Company, was ambushed just west of Baghdad. Since that tragic day, Sergeant Maupin's mother and father, his family, have worked tirelessly to locate their son. My prayers are with them, those who have endured years of gut-wrenching uncertainty and unfathomable heartache. We owe this family a tremendous debt of gratitude, not only for their extreme sacrifice but for their determination to prevent other parents from experiencing an information vacuum when their deployed son or daughter goes missing. There are three other soldiers currently missing and captured in Iraq. The nightmare is not over for their families. On their behalf and in honor of Sergeant Maupin, our Nation must find those soldiers. Time must be perceived as the enemy. There can be no pause in the search, no ebb in the sense of urgency. Upon finally hearing news of their son a few days ago, Sergeant Maupin's father said: Matt is coming home. He's completed his mission. His words echo those of a grateful nation. the housing crisis

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, a great son of Ohio, Senator Howard Metzenbaum passed away March 12, in Florida. He was personally inspirational to so many. He changed the lives of Ohioans. He changed the lives of so many Americans through his lifetime commitment to public service. I am honored to hold his seat in the Senate and I am honored to follow in his footsteps. Senate tradition dictates that many Members of the Senate carve their names in the desk drawers of the desks that have been lining the rows of the Senate. Whoever has Senator Metzenbaum's desk can, with all of us, share in the legacy of his greatness. Senator Metzenbaum and Senator John Glenn, who served together for almost two decades, made an unparalleled team for Ohio. In the Senate, as Senator Reid mentioned, Metzenbaum was a child of poverty. He was a child of prejudice growing up in the east side as a Jew and suffered both from his family's poverty and anti-Semitism, in all too many cases. He worked his way at a job, as a 10-year-old. He worked his way through Ohio State. In the Senate, Senator Metzenbaum was a master of a constant presence in an often empty Chamber. Once, when a 2-week filibuster was cut off, Metzenbaum was still determined to block action on lifting natural gas price controls. He and a partner sent the Senate into round-the-clock sessions by demanding rollcall votes on 500 amendments. He didn't care if he angered his colleagues. He didn't care if he was liked every day by his colleagues. What he cared about is fighting for economic justice and social justice for the 10 million citizens whom he represented and for the 250 million Americans or so when he served in the Senate. According to the Washington Post, in 1982, the Senator saved $10 million by blocking special interest tax breaks and porkbarrel programs. I remember watching him. I served in the House, the beginning of my House career and the end of his Senate career, and I watched him as a younger elected official in State politics. He stood in front of an audience; the energy just burst from him, and the fiery passion for economic justice and social justice poured forth from him. He would start on the podium, the first politician I saw do this, and as he worked his way into the speech, he would come from the podium and he would walk into the audience. People would always respond with the same kind of passion and be inspired by him. That is my clearest, favorite memory of him. His legislative record, of course, was so important too. One of the most important things he did was the plant closing legislation, giving a 60-day notice to workers who, too often, have seen their jobs disappear with nothing to show--pensions and more. He fought for people who had less privilege than he did, and he always fought for opportunity for people of both genders. That is what he will be remembered for. I particularly admire his family. Howard was a great family man, a man who cared very much about Shirley, his wife, and four daughters, Shelly, Amy, Susan, and Barbara. He will be greatly missed. He later became head of the Consumer Federation of America, never giving up his passion for fighting for ordinary people and being a warrior for social and economic justice.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 4155 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. BROWN. There are now 2 minutes of debate equally divided prior to the vote on the Graham amendment, No. 4170. Who yields time? We are going to have 2 minutes of debate on each amendment. The Senator from South Carolina is recognized.

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

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, this amendment is cosponsored by Senators Snowe, Stabenow, Feingold, and Clinton. To increase employment in manufacturing, Congress needs to address training and retraining of manufacturing workers. This amendment does that. More than 3 million manufacturing jobs have been lost since 2000, more than 200,000 in my State of Ohio alone. Susan Helper, a business professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, wrote in the Washington Post recently about ``paving the high road'' for American manufacturing. The high road manufacturing agenda includes significant Federal investment in Federal tax credits for research in the Manufacturing Extension Partnership and in worker training and retraining programs, which is what this amendment does. Manufacturing training is a tool to help businesses succeed, especially small manufacturers. I urge my colleagues to support the Brown-Snowe-Stabenow-Feingold- Clinton amendment.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, Senator Kennedy and Senator Metzenbaum were so often fighting for same causes and the same issues and showed the same courage. They both were and are heroes to many. I thank the majority leader for the time. A great son of Ohio, Senator Howard Metzenbaum, passed away last night in Florida. He was personally inspirational to so many. He changed the lives of Ohioans, as he changed the lives of so many Americans through his lifetime commitment to public service. I am honored to hold his seat in the Senate and to follow in his footsteps. According to Senate tradition, many Members of the Senate carve their names in the drawers of the desks that line the rows. Whoever has Senator Metzenbaum's desk can, with all of us, share in the legacy of his greatness. As different as they were, Senator Metzenbaum and Senator John Glenn, who served together for almost two decades, made an unparalleled team for Ohio. Senator Reid mentioned that Howard was a child of poverty. He was a child of prejudice growing up as a Jew on the east side of Cleveland and suffered both from his family's poverty and antiSemitism in all too many cases. He worked his way in jobs, starting as a 10-year-old, through Ohio State. Senator Reid told us that in the Senate, Senator Metzenbaum was a master of the rules, a constant presence in an often empty Chamber, who would, when leaving the Chamber, post an aide to scout for an unexpected amendment or hastily scheduled floor action on various bills. Once, when a 2-week filibuster was cut off and Metzenbaum was still determined to block action on lifting natural gas price controls, he and a partner sent the Senate into round-the-clock sessions by demanding rollcall votes on 500 amendments. He did not care if he angered his colleagues. He did not care if he was liked every day by his colleagues. What he cared about was to fight for economic and social justice for the 10 million citizens whom he represented in Ohio and for the 250 million or so Americans when he served in the Senate. The Washington Post, in 1982, said that Senator Metzenbaum singlehandedly saved at least $10 billion by blocking special interest tax breaks and pork-barrel programs. I remember watching Senator Metzenbaum when I served in the House, at the beginning of my House career and at the end of his Senate career. I watched him as a younger elected official in State politics. Even as he was getting older and he began to show his age, when he stood in front of an audience, the energy just burst from him. Fiery passion for economic justice and social justice poured forth from Howard Metzenbaum. He would start at the podium--he is the first politician I saw do this--and as he would work his way up into his speech and begin to inspire people, he would come away from the podium and walk out into the audience, and he had a strong, powerful voice even when he was no longer speaking into the microphone. People would always respond with the same kind of passion and be inspired by him. That is my clearest, favorite memory of him. His legislative record, of course, was so important too. One of the most important things he did was the plant closing legislation, giving 60 days' notice to workers who too often have seen their jobs disappear with nothing to show for it--pensions, health care, all that. Howard Metzenbaum always fought for people who had less. He always fought for people who had less privilege than he had. He always fought for opportunity for people of all races and both genders and all social classes. That is what he will be remembered for. I particularly admire his family. Howard was a great family man--a man who cared very much about Shirley, his wife, and his four daughters: Shelley, Amy, Susan, and Barbara. He will be greatly missed. After his service in the Senate, as Senator Reid said, he became the head of the Consumer Federation of America. He never gave up his passion for fighting for ordinary people and for being a warrior for social and economic justice. Mr. President, I yield to Senator Kennedy, who was a comrade in arms in so many ways with Senator Metzenbaum.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. They have been.