Sherrod Brown

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I have an idea. What if we, say, break Medicare apart and ask seniors to shop in the private insurance market if they want to piece it back together. Seniors could buy one private plan to cover doctors visits, another to cover hospital stays, a third to cover home health services, and maybe a fourth to cover prescription drugs. Perhaps they could purchase an Aetna plan for outpatient care, a Kaiser plan for the physical therapy coverage, and maybe Golden Rule will offer insurance for medical equipment. Does this sound absurd? Why is it less absurd to isolate prescription drugs and require Medicare beneficiaries to carry a separate private stand-alone you-are-on-your-own policy for that benefit? That is what the Republican prescription drug plan is all about. It privatizes the prescription drug plan. It says to senior citizens, ``Here is a voucher. Here is a little bit of money,'' although they give the money to the insurance company, actually not directly to the senior citizen. ``Here is a plan, here is some money. Go out and find your own plan.'' If the GOP prescription drug plan is a back door attempt to privatize Medicare, something that Republicans have wanted to do since 90 percent of them voted against the creation of Medicare 35 years ago, and occasionally say, in more recent years, that they want to privatize Medicare, my colleagues should come out and tell us that they want to privatize Medicare. If their goal truly is to help America's elderly, my Republican colleagues need to go back to the drawing board. Better yet, follow our lead. The best way to complete the Medicare benefits package is to complete the Medicare benefits package. That means adding a new drug benefit to the existing Medicare program. Medicare has worked for senior citizens in this country, half of whom had no health insurance 35 years ago. Medicare has worked for senior citizens in this country, making it probably the most popular government program in the history of this Nation. Why should we privatize it? Why should we take prescription drugs and make it into a private insurance stand-alone you-are-on-your-own kind of program? It means we should add the new drug benefit to the existing Medicare benefits package. That is what works. We know that works. That is what this Congress should pass. Unless my colleagues can explain why the existing Medicare program somehow is not worthy of a prescription drug benefit, they should abandon their private insurance scheme and join us. Last Friday, a week ago today, I chartered a bus and took about 20 senior citizens from Lorain County and Medina County, Ohio, on a 2\1/2\ bus trip to Windsor, Ontario, Canada. They took their prescriptions with them for medicine. Most of them were Medicare beneficiaries, some were younger than that. They took their prescriptions with them. We got a doctor in Canada to write a similar prescription. We went to a drugstore in Windsor, Ontario, and every senior citizen on that trip, every single senior citizen on that trip, saved at least $100 on prescriptions. On the average, the 15 or 20 senior citizens saved $200, and some of them saved as much as $300 to $400 on one prescription, on the one prescription that they had brought with them. The fact is, Canadians buy the same drugs, their drug stores sell the same dosage of the same prescription drugs made by the same company, usually an American company, for half the price that American drugstores charge. It is not the drugstores, it is the fact that prescription drug companies, the big name brand drug companies in the United States of America, sell their drugs in Canada at half the price as they do in the United States. We are the only country in the world, underscore that, we are the only country in the world, that allows the drug companies to unilaterally, monopolistically, discriminatingly sell their drugs to the United States with no interference. In every other country in the world the prices are lower. In every other country in the world, from Germany to France to Israel to Nigeria to Brazil to Japan to England, none of those countries allows the drug companies to set their price in a monopolistic and discriminatory way. America's elderly pay twice as much for drugs as America's HMOs, big insurance companies, and the VA sell them for. Americans buying drugs pay twice as much on the average as people in every other country in the world. Americans, in fact, pay more for their drugs out of pocket at a drugstore for the same drug than if they go into a pet store and buy the exact same drug and the exact same dosage for their pets. Mr. Speaker, I ask that this Congress put aside the risky insurance scheme and pass a Medicare drug benefit.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment offered by my friend, the gentlewoman from Colorado (Ms. DeGette), and thank her for her good work. This amendment would help protect the public by funding a study of security of chemical facilities to help protect the public from releases of dangerous chemicals into the air. The Clean Air Act requires chemical facilities to develop risk management plans, including worst case accident scenarios, for the EPA. These plans were to be made available to the public so that anyone, fathers, mothers, coworkers, teachers, could learn about the potential for a chemical accident in his or her own community. Last year, concerns were raised that terrorists would use the worst case scenario information to attack chemical facilities. In response, this Congress passed and the President signed legislation restricting release of the information. In May, the administration released a proposed rule sharply restricting public access to the data on chemical hazards. Mr. Chairman, I remain skeptical of these severe limits on the public's right to know about chemical hazards in our community. Chemical accidents are a daily reality in this country, sometimes taking the lives of fellow workers, of neighbors, of parents, of children, of travelers, while terrorist attacks are rare, indeed. If these chemical facilities, however, are indeed tempting targets for terrorists, our focus should be on restricting terrorists' access to them, rather than restricting the public's access to information about them. Last year the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry investigated several chemical sites and found it easy to walk in through unguarded gates and unattended entrances. This amendment will reprogram $750,000, as requested by the Attorney General, from the counterterrorism fund to carry out the study authorized last year by this body. If terrorism truly is a threat at chemical sites, this is a small amount of money to spend to investigate that risk. If terrorism is not enough of a threat to justify $750,000, I then question the restrictions that have been placed on community access to chemical accident information. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to vote for the DeGette amendment.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Hinchey-Brown-Waxman amendment. As the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Health and Environment, which has jurisdiction over the Safe Drinking Water Act, I am very concerned about the report language of the Committee on Appropriations with respect to arsenic. The committee report language essentially tells the EPA not to enforce current law regarding arsenic. The current standard of 50 parts per billion was established in 1975 based on a public health standard originally established in 1942. However, arsenic is now understood to be much more toxic than we thought it was even 10 years ago. In addition to more evidence on skin cancer, sufficient evidence has been found to link arsenic to fatal lung and bladder cancers and to other organ cancers. Arsenic is a known human carcinogen. The EPA is in the process of revising the arsenic drinking water standard to be more stringent, but the new standard will not go into effect until 2004 at the earliest. It would be irresponsible for Congress to instruct the EPA to ignore cases in which drinking water supplies do not even achieve the current standards of 50 parts per billion. This appropriations rider makes a significant change in national policy on drinking water, but the Subcommittee on Health and Environment, which successfully reauthorized the Safe Drinking Water Act just 4 years ago, has not been given the opportunity to review it, nor have any bills introduced in this Congress on arsenic in drinking water. This anti-environment rider in the report is bad procedure and bad policy. I strongly urge my colleagues to vote yes on the amendment.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, in 1994, supporters of free trade and globalization painted a very positive picture of how the Uruguay Round and GATT would influence and shape the U.S. and the global economy. They declared it would not erode U.S. sovereignty or undermine environmental health or food safety policy. It would, they promised, improve labor standards worldwide. Five years into its implementation, though, it has become clear that these promises have failed to materialize. Instead, we have suffered through global financial instability, massive ballooning of the U.S. trade deficit, and ever-increasing income inequality in the United States, and especially in the developing world. As we have engaged with developing countries in trade investment, democratic countries in the developing world are losing ground to more authoritarian countries. Democratic countries, such as India and Taiwan, are losing ground to more totalitarian nations, such as Indonesia, where the people are not free and the workers do as they are told. In the post-Cold War decade, the share of developing country exports to the U.S. for democratic nations fell from 53 percent a dozen years ago to 34 percent today. In manufacturing goods, developing democracies' share of developing country exports fell from 56 percent to 35 percent. Companies are relocating their manufacturing bases from democratic countries to more authoritarian regimes, where the workers are docile and obedient and where unions and human rights are suppressed. As developing nations make progress towards democracy, as they increase worker rights, as they create regulations to protect food safety and protect the environment, the American business community punishes them by pulling their trade and investment in favor of totalitarian countries and totalitarian governments, such as China and Indonesia. The WTO has clearly undermined health, safety and environmental standards, human rights and democratic accountability. One of the most tangible examples is the WTO's refusal to permit poor nations to gain access to low-priced pharmaceuticals, which puts essential medicines out of the reach of hundreds of millions of people in poor nations. Hundreds of millions of people continue to suffer from diseases that are treatable. Some governments have sought to use policy tools, including compulsory licensing and parallel imports, to make drugs more accessible to the poor. Compulsory licensing and parallel imports are permissible under WTO rules on intellectual property. Nonetheless, the U.S. Government has threatened to impose unilateral trade sanctions and the USTR used WTO as a hammer for the American pharmaceutical industry. Mr. Speaker, until such time as the administration really does do an honest assessment of the WTO, the WTO remains a tool for multinational corporations and should not receive our support.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, the last couple of weeks have produced some of the most spectacular propaganda we have seen here in some time. It relates to the Republicans Medicare prescription drug proposal. First PHRMA, the drug industry and prescription drug manufacturers' lobbying group, launched an advertising campaign in the newspaper Roll Call and other papers claiming that a plan like the Republican proposal could cut prices by 30 to 39 percent. By expressing their exuberant support for this plan and its alleged results, the drug industry as much as said it can comfortably weather price cuts in the 30 to 39 percent price range. If that is the case, the drug industry should do us all a favor and simply make the cuts in price. It is a lot easier than requiring seniors to go into a prescription drug coverage market that does not exist to purchase a stand-alone product that cannot stand alone. The second wave of rhetoric came yesterday when Chairman Thomas announced the GOP prescription drug plan which relies on private insurers to offer individual prescription drug coverage saying it would cut prices twice as much as the Democrats Medicare based plan. If only it were true. The Congressional Budget Office said the Republican drug plan may cut costs by 25 percent, not through lower prices but by restricting access to medically necessary drugs. It is an important division. I will say it again. The Republican plan saves money not by miraculously convincing drug companies to lower their prices but instead by limiting access for senior citizens to medically necessary prescription drugs. It cuts costs by decreasing the value of the prescription drug benefit. The insurers win, the drug companies win, the government wins but senior citizens lose. The Republican plan gives insurance companies carte blanche to do what they are doing today, that is, put price tags on treatment decisions and deny coverage for medically necessary treatment. Sound familiar? The President's plan is explicit in requiring coverage, on the other hand, for any medically necessary drug prescribed by a doctor, which makes sense given it is the doctor, not the insurer, who should be and is making medical decisions and who is actually treating the patient. The Republican plan guarantees nothing other than assistance for low income seniors. Prescription drugs, however, are not just a low income problem. Seniors who thought they were financially secure are watching their savings go straight into the pockets of drug makers. Some of my colleagues are trying to tell seniors that there will be a choice of reliable, affordable private prescription drug insurance plans available to them. Based on what? Certainly not history. Even the insurance industry is balking at the idea. It says something that insurers do not sell prescription drug coverage on a stand-alone basis today, even to young and to healthy individuals. That is because it does not make sense. Medicare is reliable. Medicare is a large enough insurance program to accommodate the risks associated with prescription drug coverage. Individual stand-alone prescription drug policies are not. Some in this body are actually trying to convince seniors who stand firmly behind Medicare that expanding the current benefit package is less efficient, more onerous, than manufacturing a new bureaucracy, as the Republican plan does, and conjuring up a new insurance market. Seniors are simply too smart for that. I do not want to ask seniors in my district and across the country to rely on a market that does not want the business to provide a benefit not suited to stand-alone coverage to a population that, let us face it, has never been served well by the private insurance market. I do not want seniors in my district and across the country to be coerced into managed care plans in order to avoid dealing with three different insurance plans, with Medicare, with Medigap and with individual prescription drug coverage. I do not want seniors in my district or across the country to receive a letter from their employer telling them that their retiree prescription drug coverage has been terminated on the premise, quote, that the government is offering private insurance now. I do not want to forsake volume discounts and economies of scale by segmenting the largest purchasing pool in this country, and then waste trust fund dollars on insurance company margins, on insurance company market expenses, on insurance company huge executive salaries. I do not think the individual health insurance market is a reasonable model for Medicare prescription drug benefits. In fact, as anyone who has had to purchase or sale coverage in that market knows the individual health insurance market is not even a good model for individual health insurance. It is the poster child for selection problems, for rate spirals and for insurance scams. The very fact that the drug industry backs Citizens for a Better Medicare supports the private plan approach is a giant strike against it. The drug industry and their puppet organization clearly feel that undercutting seniors' collective purchasing power, relegating seniors to private stand-alone prescription drug plans, is the key, underscore this, is the key to preserving discriminatory monopolistically set outrageously high prices. Mr. Speaker, I hope that Members of this Congress read the fine print when we decide these Medicare prescription drug bills.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, in a ``Dear Colleague'' he circulated today, the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) shared some exciting news about the GOP Medicare prescription drug plan. If only it were true. He asserts that the Republican plan, which relies on private insurers to offer individual prescription drug coverage, would cut prices twice as much as the Democrat's Medicare-based plan. That is a strong selling point. It is also complete rubbish. The Congressional Budget Office says the GOP drug plan may cut costs by 25 percent, not through lower prices, but by restricting access to medically necessary drugs. It is an important distinction. I will say it again. The Republican plan saves money, not by miraculously convincing the drug makers to lower their prices, but by limiting access to medically necessary prescription drugs. It cuts costs by decreasing the value of the drug benefit. The insurers win, the government wins, senior citizens lose. The Republican plan gives insurance companies carte blanche to do what they are doing today; that is, put price tags on treatment decisions and then deny coverage for medically necessary treatments. Sound familiar? The President's plan is explicit in requiring coverage for any medically necessary drug prescribed by a doctor, which makes sense since it is the doctor, not the insurer, who is actually treating the patient. I ask my colleagues to read the fine print of the Thomas proposal.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, tuberculosis is the greatest infectious killer of adults worldwide. It is the biggest killer of young women. tuberculosis kills 2 million people each year, 1 percent around the world every 15 seconds. Tuberculosis hit an all-time high in 1999 with 8 million new cases, 95 percent of them in the developing world. We have a small window of opportunity during which stopping tuberculosis is very cost-effective. The costs of Directly Observed Treatment, Short Course, so-called DOTS, can be as little as $20, that is $20 to save a life. If we wait, if we go too slowly, so much drug- resistant TB will emerge that it will cost billions of dollars to control with little guarantee of success. Multi-drug resistant TB is more than 100 times more expensive to cure than nondrug resistant TB. I have introduced the Stop TB Now Act with the gentlewoman from Maryland (Mrs. Morella) in an effort to control tuberculosis. The bill authorizes $100 million to USAID for tuberculosis control in high incidence countries, mostly using the Directly Observed Treatment, Short Course, so-called DOTS. It calls on USAID to collaborate its efforts with CDC, the World Health Organization, the National Institutes of Health and other organizations with tuberculosis expertise. The measure provides funding for combating Multi-Drug Resistant TB, which is spreading at an alarming rate. Multi-drug resistant TB has been identified on every continent. According to the World Health Organization, multi-drug resistant tuberculosis ultimately threatens to return TB control to the preantibiotic era where no cure for TB was available. An effective DOTS cure program can prevent the development of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis. A recent World Health Organization study in India found in areas where effective TB treatment was implemented, the death rate from tuberculosis fell by more than 85 percent. TB accounts for one-third of AIDS deaths worldwide and up to 40 percent of AIDS deaths in Asia and in Africa. Eleven million people are currently affected with TB around the world and with HIV. The good news is that TB treatment is equally effective in HIV positive and HIV negative people. So if we want to improve the health of people with HIV, we must address the issue of tuberculosis. WHO estimates that one-third of the world's population is infected with the bacteria that causes tuberculosis; two billion, two billion people. An estimated 8 million people develop active tuberculosis each year, and roughly 15 million people in the United States are infected with tuberculosis. The threat TB poses for Americans derives from the global spread of tuberculosis and the emergence and spread of strains of tuberculosis that are multi-drug resistant. Up to 50 million people worldwide may be infected with drug-resistant tuberculosis. Incidence is particularly high in selected regions and populations such as Russian prisons where an estimated 5 percent of prisoners have active multi-drug resistant TB. In the U.S., TB treatment, normally about $2,000 per patient, skyrockets to as much as $250,000 per patient, as it did in New York City in the early 1990s when we had to treat multi-drug resistant tuberculosis. Treatment may not even be successful. MDR drug-resistant TB kills more than half those infected, even in the United States and in other industrialized nations, and it is a virtual death sentence in the developing world. The President recently visited India. I contacted him before that trip to discuss our bill. India has more tuberculosis cases than anywhere else in the world. Their situation illustrates the urgency of this issue. Two million people in India develop TB every year, and nearly 500,000 die from it each year. More than 1,000 Indians a day die from this infectious disease. The disease has become a major barrier to social and economic development, costing the Indian economy $2 billion a year. Three hundred thousand children are forced to leave school in India each year because their parents have tuberculosis, and more than 100,000 women with TB are rejected by their families due to social stigma. India has undertaken an aggressive campaign to control tuberculosis, but they also need western help. Not surprisingly, the statistics on access to TB treatment worldwide are pretty grim. Fewer than 1 in 5 of those with TB are receiving DOTS treatment. Based on World Bank estimates, DOTS treatment is one of the most cost-effective health interventions available, costing the developing world as little as $20 to save a life. DOTS can produce cure rates of 85, 90, even 95 percent, even in the poorest countries. Mr. Speaker, Gro Bruntland, the Director of WHO, has said that TB is not a medical issue, but a political issue. We have an opportunity to save millions of lives now and prevent millions of needless deaths in the future.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) for yielding me this time, and also thank her for her amendment on the Trade Adjustment Act, monies in support for the China PNTR bill. Everyone knows that our trade deficit, $70 billion and counting, with China will grow after the passage of PNTR. Ten years ago, it was $100 million. Three years ago, it passed $40 billion. Today it is $70 billion. We know it will continue to grow. Everyone also knows that the China PNTR vote will cost American jobs. It is only right when we see a plant close, we see a Huffy Bicycle plant close, jobs move to China. Phillips TV job plant closes in Ohio, jobs move to Mexico; one after another after another. We know we must do something for those workers. Passing these trade bills, this Congress has done. It passed NAFTA in a close vote. It passed PNTR in a close vote. At least with NAFTA we had some trade adjustment assistance. We should do the same thing with PNTR. This amendment makes great sense, the amendment of the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, on January 1, 1999, approximately 400,000 Medicare beneficiaries were dropped unceremoniously by Medicare managed care plans. On January 1 the next year, 2000, 400,000 more were dropped unceremoniously by Medicare managed care plans. We can expect at least that much disruption again on January 1, 2001. By the way, fly-by-night coverage is just one of the shocks potentially awaiting plus-choice Medicare enrollees. Bait and switch. Supplemental benefits are another. All of us in this body have heard from Medicare beneficiaries who joined a plus-choice plan to gain access to prescription drug coverage or reduced cost sharing only to have those benefits cut back or stripped out just in time for the new year. Why is the plus-choice Medicare program failing seniors? Ask the Medicare managed care plans, and they will say it is because the Federal Government is underpaying them. Ask other experts and they will say it is because Medicare managed care plans overestimated their ability to operate more efficiently than traditional Medicare, refused to cross-subsidize between high and low reimbursement areas and underestimated the costs of providing supplemental benefits. Maybe the truth is in the middle, more likely. The specifics do not matter all that much. Most likely private managed care plans simply cannot serve two masters, the public interest and the corporate bottom line. Whatever is going on, the most expedient ways of responding to the program's failings are also the most irresponsible if our goal is to act in the best interest of Medicare beneficiaries. We could do nothing. We are pretty good at that here. Is it fiscally responsible to continue pouring public dollars into plus-choice plans? I would rather my tax dollars help finance health care coverage that is more predictable. Insurance that does not give one peace of mind is not good insurance. In Medicare's case, it is peace of mind for beneficiaries and their families alike. Health care coverage that is about as stable as a house of cards simply does not cut it. We could always pay managed care plans more, but if we do that without exacting a guarantee that these plans will provide stable benefits and continuous coverage, we are perpetuating the same double standard that protected the Medicare choice plan from the beginning. Somehow, managed care plans can cost Medicare more than the fee-for- service program; can pick and choose which counties they will serve and which ones they will dump; can attract seniors on the promise of extra benefits, then eliminate those benefits, another cost-cutting strategy unavailable to the fee-for-service program, and still can be touted by many in this institution, including Republican leadership, as the long- term solution for Medicare. How can Medicare privatization proposals be taken seriously when they feature the same private insurance companies and system that excluded half of all seniors in 1965 and treats them miserably 35 years later in the year 2000? I do not get it. When the traditional Medicare program spends more than expected, they tell us it is because public programs are big, bad and inefficient. When private managed care plans spend more than it is expected, it is because big, bad government was not paying them enough to begin with. In my view, private managed care plans do not belong in Medicare. They do not belong because they are unwilling; and frankly, they cannot prioritize the welfare of Medicare beneficiaries above the welfare of their business. If we commit to paying managed care plans this year, then they will want even more next year. If we ask managed care plans to voluntarily commit to staying put and providing reliable benefits, they will tell us businesses require flexibility, and they do. But Medicare beneficiaries require consistency, stability, reliability. Private managed care plans cannot put many Medicare beneficiaries first. Yet, that is what Medicare must do in order to serve the public interest. If private Medicare managed care plans cannot serve the public interest, we should not pay them a dime. But regardless of my personal views on Plus Choice, the reality is, right now, millions of seniors depend on it. Policy makers have an obligation to try to make Plus Choice work. If we cannot make the Plus Choice program work, then we have an obligation to get rid of it. I am offering legislation today to try to make Plus Choice work. Under the Plus Choice Reliability Act, private health plans would sign a contract to provide continuous service within a service area for 3 years. Health plans would agree not to terminate this coverage within the service area and would be required not to reduce their benefit package during that time period. Health plans would receive payments for enrollees equivalent to what Medicare would have spent had the enrollees stayed in-fee-for service, no more, no less. If we pay private health plans what it would cost fee-for-service to cover these individuals, and if private plans still cannot cover them and provide stable benefits or guarantee continuous coverage, as the fee-for-service program does, then it would be fiscally irresponsible and a breach of the public interest to permit these plans to stay in Medicare. It is as simple as that. I hope my colleagues will join me in promoting a Medicare Plus Choice option that actually provides continuity and stability, attributes that should be a given under our Medicare program.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Stark) for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, here in Congress we pride ourselves in our commitment toward the spread of democratic ideals and the improvement of human rights around the globe, but something in our China policy is amiss. During the weeks approaching this vote, America's most prominent CEOs walked the halls of Congress and told us they want access to the 1.2 billion Chinese customers, what they do not say is that their real interest is in access to 1.2 billion Chinese workers, workers whom they pay 20 cents, 30 cents, 40 cents an hour. These CEOs will tell us that increasing trade with China will allow human rights to improve. They will tell us that democracy will flourish with increased trade. But as these CEOs speak democratic ideals, their companies systematically violate the most fundamental of human and worker rights. Engagement with China, 10 years of engagement has not worked because investors in China have not wanted change. In the last 5 years, Western investment in developing countries has shifted from countries like India, a democracy, to countries like China, where workers are paid only a few cents an hour, from countries like Taiwan, a democracy, to countries like Indonesia with authoritarian regimes. The share of developing country exports to the U.S. for democratic nations fell from 53 percent to 34 percent. In manufacturing goods, developing democracies saw their share of developing country exports fall 21 points from 56 percent to 35 percent. The money went from developing democracies to developing authoritarian countries. Western corporations want to invest in countries that have below- poverty wages, poor environmental standards, no worker benefits, no opportunity to bargain collectively. As developing countries make progress towards democracies, as they increase worker rights and create laws to protect the environment, the American business community punishes them by pulling its trade and investment in favor of a totalitarian government. Decisions, Mr. Speaker, about the Chinese economy are made by three groups, the Chinese Communist party, the People's Liberation Army, and Western investors. Which one of these three want Chinese society to change? Does the Chinese Communist party want the Chinese people to enjoy increased human rights? I do not think so. Does the People's Liberation Army want to close the labor camps in China? I do not think so. Do Western investors want Chinese workers to bargain collectively and pay higher wages? I do not think so. Mr. Speaker, passing PNTR will lock in the status quo: More slave labor, more child labor, more human rights violations, more threats against Taiwan, more crackdowns on religious freedoms. Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues vote ``no'' on PNTR.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Whitfield/ Strickland amendment. Workers in the nuclear weapons complex serve in our nation's defense, and it is time to make amends to those who have fallen ill in the line of duty. In the 1940s, the City of Lorain, Ohio in my district was home to a beryllium plant that produced nuclear weapons components. Exposure to beryllium dust can cause chronic beryllium disease, which is incurable and results in a lingering death. Although the Lorain plant burned down in 1948, the effects of beryllium have not been forgotten, and I continue to hear many tragic stories of the deaths of loved ones from beryllium disease. A few former workers are fighting for their lives even today. Non-workers in Lorain also fell ill. The Ohio health department identified 16 cases of beryllium disease in people who did not work in the plant, but lived across the street or washed their husbands' dusty clothes. These individuals or their survivors should also be eligible for compensation. Mr. Chairman, I strongly support this amendment. I also urge prompt hearings and committee action on H.R. 2398, the Energy Employees Occupational Illness and Compensation Act.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, before we talk about the ``Made in China'' report and the literally slave labor conditions under which literally millions of young women in China, almost all young and mostly women, I want to follow up on some things that the Democratic Whip talked about in terms of human rights. We have, for 10 years, been engaging with China. We have traded with China. We have opened our markets to China. During that entire 10-year period, the Bush administration, even the Reagan administration before the Bush administration, the Clinton administration have told us over and over that China would be freer, that engaging with China would really help. You can look in these last 10 years and see how things are growing worse, they are continuing to go downhill. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior) mentioned the State Department's Country Report outlining the conditions in China actually were worse this past year. As China has tried to woo us to get into the World Trade Organization, conditions were worse last year than the year before. In fact, if we look at last year's Country Reports, the language that describes China's behavior towards Tibet and towards other outlying areas from the central government and towards minorities, in the language that the Country Reports describes Serbia's treatment of Kosovo, the language was almost identical. We bomb Kosovo, yet we give trade advantages to China. The National Religious Commission that the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior) mentioned talked about religious persecution in China. The animosity and the hostility of the central government of China towards religion in China is worse than at any time since the cultural revolution in the mid 1960s. The United Nations Commission on Human Rights the Chinese continue to ignore. So some in this body want to put faith in this congressional commission that has been suggested as some way to deal with problems of labor rights and human rights. The Chinese do not pay attention to our official Department of State Country Reports. The Chinese has not paid any attention to the Religion Commission. The Chinese have not paid any attention to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. Why would they pay any attention to a congressional task force that this body might pass in tandem with permanent most favored nation status trading privileges for China? As William Saffire, a generally conservative columnist in the New York Times, said in the paper yesterday after conversing, interestingly, with Richard Nixon, who told him that this engagement and trade and probably right before Nixon died had probably gone too far, Nixon said, I think we may have created a Frankenstein, talking about human rights abuses, talking about all the child labor and all of that in these countries. Safire said that we in this country have continued to feed the military machine in China. That is really what we are doing with engagement. We are feeding the suppressive regime, not just their military, but their police state, feeding of the police statement machine, too. And that is why the crackdown on religion, the crackdown on human rights, the oppression of workers, all of that have continued to get worse in China because the state apparatus is getting wealthier and wealthier, has better and better technology as they continue to get technology from American business and western business in China, as they continue to upgrade their oppressive regime and that regime is fed by all the investment and all the dollars that we send to China through our business investments. One more point I would like to make. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior) mentioned the ``Made in China'' report that really does outline the behavior of several U.S. businesses: The Kathie Lee, Wal-Mart, Alpine, Huffy, which permanently laid off 850 Ohio workers making $17 an hour about a year ago, replacing them with Chinese workers, all young, almost all female, all under 25, many of them 16 and 17, making literally less than 2 percent of what they were making in China. But this report underscores one other thing about why engagement with China is not working, and, that is, that investors from the West, investors from the United States and other western nations have begun to shift in the last 5 years, have massively shifted their investments in the developing world from democracies to authoritarian countries. They are less interested in India, a democracy, and more interested in China, an authoritarian government. They are less interested in Taiwan, a democracy, and more interested in Indonesia, a police state. Investor dollars from the West have been attracted to these kind of regimes because they can hire people at 20 and 30 and 40 cents an hour. Any time these workers have even complained about working conditions, they are fined or penalized or jailed in some cases and sometimes even worse. This workforce in China is young, it is female, it is inexperienced, it is docile, it does not talk back, and it does not fight back. That is the kind of workforce that investment dollars from the United States seems to be attracted to. That is why passing permanent most-favored-nation status trading privileges for China will lock in that oppressive regime, will cost American jobs, will hurt the Chinese, will lock into this life-style, this slave labor life-style that too many Chinese workers already are subjected to and will make things worse. Mr. Speaker, if I could add one more point. One other thing that seems to be happening is that the United States, Federal law from the 1931 Trade Act and from the 1992 agreement with China says that in this country we are not allowed to accept into the country products produced by slave labor. When we have documented that workers are making between three and 35 cents an hour and in many cases those workers are charged for their room and their board and their clothing from that three to 35 cents an hour, it is pretty clear that an awful lot of these products, Kathy Lee handbags at Wal-Mart, shoes from Nike and Keds, all kinds of other products at Wal-Mart, bicycles from Huffy, that these products are made by slave labor when somebody is making only cents an hour and much of that is taken back from them by charging them for the clothes and the food they eat, the clothes they wear and the beds they sleep in. When that is happening, our government should say we are not going to accept those products made by slave labor. That has only happened once in the last 10 years, in 1991, did our government say you cannot let a product into the country that was made by slave labor. But we are aware as Harry Wu, a very courageous Chinese man that lives now in the United States who spent 20 years in prisons went back to China and documented case after case after case of products that were made under slave labor conditions and sold into the United States, our administration, the Republican leadership in this Congress and the administration should say, we are not going to vote on Chinese most- favored-nation status trading privileges until we investigate whether these slave labor products are being brought into the United States. It is illegal, and we ought to get to the bottom of it. We have no business voting on this until we really do find out if these are slave labor products.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, if a bill were to come before this Congress asking for the legalization of rape, torture, murder and religious persecution, it would be voted down without question. If our President were to lower the working age to 15 years old and call for 14 hour workdays, 6 days a week, the people of the United States would be outraged. Why then do so many in this Congress seek to allow trade practices with a country that allows and encourages such atrocities? In the People's Republic of China, these types of events occur every day. This behavior is not punished by the Chinese Communist Party, but it is condoned and encouraged by this Chinese government. Although the government of the United States obviously has no authority to stop directly this abusive behavior, we do have the ability to check on the human rights practices of the Chinese through our current trade agreement. The U.S. State Department reports on human rights violations in China, ``Beijing's poor human rights record deteriorated markedly throughout the year, as the government intensified efforts to suppress dissent.'' Even with our investigations into the human rights issue, China has not changed. Even if we do not consider the $70 billion trade deficit or the threat of jobs going overseas to China, we should deny China permanent normal trade relations based on these human rights violations done and allowed by the Chinese government. Many of the victims of government oppression in China are young children. Two of the main concerns of many U.S. citizens regarding trade with China are child labor and working conditions for all Chinese, especially young women. Chinese are used as cheap labor, often forced to work in awful conditions for abnormally long hours. They are often punished cruelly. Many are tortured brutally, some are raped by their employers. The Chinese government acknowledges the use of child labor, and while the exact number of child workers is unknown, the number of minors out of school and in the workforce exceeds by far 10 million young people. Companies looking for cheap labor attract apprehensive students with promises of money and success. These children are forced to work in cramped spaces for long hours. Fourteen-year-olds often faint from exhaustion and heat, often working 6 days a week, 16 hours a day. Not only do the Chinese practice and allow child labor, slave labor is also common in labor camps throughout China. Chinese citizens are kidnapped, they are forced to work, often without wages or food. These workers, often very young, often 40 of them or more, are forced to stay in makeshift houses of less than 20 square meters, with leaking roofs and rat infestation. If the U.S. allows China to obtain PNTR, then we are accepting the outrageous treatment of laborers in China. Can we in good conscience allow this to happen in this Congress? One of the founding principles of the United States is freedom from religious persecution. Under communist rule in China, all religious activity must be approved and registered by the government. Religious sects not approved by the government include the Falun Gong and Tibetan Buddhism. The Chinese government has fought hard to restrict both these sects. According to the Students for a Free Tibet Organization, 6,000 Tibetan monasteries and shrines have been destroyed, 600 Tibetan Buddhists are presently in jail for practicing their religion. The Chinese government banned the Falun Gong in July and put tens of thousands of its members in psychiatric hospitals and in prisons for long, long terms. Prisoners are endlessly harassed, beaten and tortured. Often the Chinese government uses hospital and prisons to silence the spiritual leaders of their country. Not only are the spiritual leaders detained and imprisoned, but so are political party leaders. China continues to harass Taiwan with threats of bombing, simply because they held free elections and are now a Democratic Nation. The Chinese government attempts to squelch freedom and democracy, the two basic ideals on which our country was founded. Why are we willing to throw away these ideals because of corporate greed by U.S. CEOs? If the U.S. allows China to have permanent normal trade relations, we are condoning China's outrageous denial of human rights. We would not ignore this type of criminal behavior in our own country; we should not ignore these atrocities in China. We cannot turn our backs on the Chinese people simply because they do not inhabit our shores. We should expect no less from the countries with whom we trade than we do from ourselves. If we want to have a global economy, we should have a global morality. Can we allow the trafficking of women and children in the name of western corporate profit? Can we condone discrimination and abuse against women and minorities for profit? Mr. Speaker, free trade with China will prove to be very costly for our values, for democracy and for our Nation.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Religious persecution aimed at Falun Gong, Christians, Muslims, all kinds of religions.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Buddhists in China. But they cannot have the supporters of China for permanent trade advantages for China talk over and over that China has 1.2 billion consumers and we need access to them. What they do not tell us and what their real interest in China is it is a country of 1.2 billion workers, workers that, as the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior) said, workers that will be used as an export platform in China where investors will come into China, pay these workers as this Made in China Study has illustrated, pay these workers as little as 3 cents, 5 cents, 10 cents, 25 cents an hour, make them work 12 hours a day, 6 days, sometimes 7 days a week, live in dormitories, 16 people to a room, charge them from their meager 15 cents, 20 cents, 25 cents an hour wages, charge them for their dormitory space, charge them for their food, charge them for their clothing. So, in essence, these are slave labor workers. It is against the law in the United States of America for us to accept any products from another country made by slave labor. We have called, a group of us, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich), the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior), the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) have called on the Department of Justice and on the Department of Treasury to enforce that law and to investigate to see if those goods are made by slave labor that we are accepting in this country. When Kathy Lee handbags made for Wal-Mart are made from workers paid 3 cents an hour, where I come from, we call that slave labor. Those products should not be allowed in our country. We need to know more from our government about what is coming into the country made by slave labor before we vote on this China MFN bill next week. One other point I wanted to make, Mr. Speaker, is that these companies say they want to democratize, these people lobbying us, the CEOs that walk the halls all over the place in the last couple of weeks, trying to get us to give trade advantage to China, they tell us, if we are in China that things will get more democratic. The fact is, in the last 5 years, in developing countries, investment from the United States, people in the United States investing in developing countries, the amount of money invested in developing countries has moved from democratic developing countries to authoritarian developing countries.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, in a nutshell, it means that, rather than investing in India, a democracy, American investors, large businesses are moving those investors to countries like China. Instead of Taiwan, a democracy, they are moving those investments to countries like Indonesia. Why? Because they can pay 3 cents, 5 cents, 10 cents an hour, because they do not have to worry about workers speaking out and talking back, because they do not have to worry about their employees trying to form a union and unite and be able to demand better wages. Because it is not a democracy in China, they do not have to worry about environmental laws. They do not have to worry about worker safety laws. All the values we hold dear in this country simply are nonexistent in a totalitarian-authoritarian country. That is why investors in the West like to invest in China, want this permanent most-favored-nation status for China knowing there will not be democracy, knowing there will not be unions, knowing they will not have to pay high wages, know they will not have to worry about environmental worker safety laws. That in itself is why we should not believe the promises of the CEOs walking the halls of this Congress, telling us, well, China will live up to its promise, we will live up to its promises, we will make this a more democratic system. Because history in the last 10 years and especially the last 5 years have shown us this is simply is not true.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the gentleman from Michigan, and thank him for his leadership for a decade on trade issues. His comments tonight about NAFTA just make me sad in the sense that not nearly enough people in this institution have learned the lessons of NAFTA, have learned that NAFTA was an investment agreement that paid no attention to worker rights, paid no attention to the environment, did nothing to raise living standards in Mexico. In fact, Mexican living standards plummeted after NAFTA. As a result, NAFTA caused even more hardship in Mexico, cost more jobs in the United States, and really locked in a system where Mexican workers do not make enough money that they can buy products from the United States. That is the tragedy of NAFTA, and the same tragedy on the same stage this Congress is playing out in the legislation to give permanent trade advantages, permanent most-favored-nation status trade advantages to the People's Republic of China. The gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior) both talked about the promises made by supporters of giving trade advantages, permanent trade advantages, to China; that if we only would engage with China, if we would only open our markets, that things would begin to change. They talk in terms of China being 1.2 billion consumers, and we should get to those consumers before France or England or Germany does, because there is so much wealth to be created, so many jobs for Americans in selling to China. But what they do not say is, we have engaged with China with this failed policy for 10 years. We have engaged with China with something called the annual trade advantages to China. Why should we, when it is not working for 10 years, why should we make it permanent so we can have more of the same? More of the same means a trade deficit, back in 1988 and 1989 when President Reagan, President Bush, and now President Clinton have continued this policy; a trade deficit of $100 million in 1989 that has evolved into, as the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) said, $70 billion plus in the year 1999 and probably $80 or $90 or a $100 billion trade deficit in the year 2000. We have gone backwards in other ways in these 10 years since we have engaged with China. We have seen more human rights violations. If we pick up something called the country reports, which is what our State Department, the booklet in which our State Department discusses human rights violations, what the Chinese have done in Tibet and other minorities in China, the language used to describe that by our government is similar to the language used, the language that the State Department wrote about Serbia and what it did in Kosovo. We bombed Kosovo, yet we give trade advantages to the People's Republic of China. It makes no sense. In other issues, forced abortions in China where the government winks and sometimes encourages them. All of that has gotten worse in the last 10 years. The selling of nuclear technology to rogue States, countries that should not have nuclear technology, that has gotten worse in China. Slave labor has gotten worse in China. Child labor has gotten worse in China. All during this policy of engaging China.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, here in Congress, we say we stand together and in our commitment toward the spread of democratic ideals and improvement of the human rights. These last couple weeks I am not so sure. During the weeks approaching the vote for Permanent Normal Trade Relations for the People's Republic of China, corporate CEOs flocked to the Hill to lobby for increase unrestricted trade with China. They talk about access to 1.2 billion potential consumers in China. What they do not say is that their real interest is in 1.2 billion Chinese workers, workers whom they pay wage on the level of slave labor. These CEOs will tell us, increase trade with China will allow human rights to improve. Democracy will flourish with increased free trade as we engage with China. But as these CEOs speak, their companies systematically violate the most fundamental of human and worker rights. In the new report ``Made in China, The Role of U.S. Companies in Denying Human and Worker Rights,'' released by Charles Kernaghan and the National Labor Committee, we see evidence of American corporations exploiting the horrible conditions of human rights in the People's Republic of China. Companies such as Huffy and Nike and Wal-Mart are contracting with Chinese sweatshops to export to the United States, often with the assistance of repressive and corrupt local government authorities. 1,800 Huffy bicycle workers have lost their jobs in Ohio as Huffy shut down its last three remaining U.S. plants over the last 17 months. In July of 1998, Huffy fired 850 workers from its Celina, Ohio plant where workers earned $17 an hour. Huffy now outsources all of its production to developing nations, such as China, where laborers are forced to work 15 hours a day, 7 days a week and earn an average of 33 cents an hour, less than 2 percent of what Ohio Huffy bicycle workers earned. Wal-Mart makes its line of Kathie Lee Gifford handbags in China. There are a thousand workers at the factory, where they put in 14-hour shifts, 7 days a week, 29 or 30 days a month, one off day per month. The average wage of the factory is 3 cents an hour. Workers live in factory dormitories housed 16 in a room. Their ID documents have been confiscated; they are allowed to leave the factory only for one and a half hours a day. For half of all factory workers, rent for the dormitory exceeds their wages. Workers earn nothing at all and, in many cases, owe the company money. These people are indentured servants to Kathie Lee and to Wal-Mart. Some would simply call it slavery. The findings in Charles Kernaghan's report illustrates why democratic countries in the developing world are losing ground to more authoritarian countries in the developing world. Democratic nations, such as India, are losing out to more totalitarian governments such as China. Democratic nations such as Taiwan are losing out to more authoritarian governments such as Indonesia where people are not free and workers do as their told. The share of developing country exports to the U.S. from democratic nations fell from 53 percent 10 years ago to 35 percent today. Corporate America wants to do business with countries with docile workforces that earn below-poverty wages and are not allowed to organize to bargain collectively. In manufactured goods, developing democracies' share of developing country exports fell 21 percent from 56 to 35 percent. Corporations are relocating their manufacturing bases to more authoritarian regimes from democratic countries where workers do not talk back for fear of being punished. Madam Speaker, western corporations want to invest in countries that have poor environmental standards, no worker benefits, below-poverty wages, no opportunities to bargain collectively, and worse, as developing countries make progress toward democracy, as they increase worker rights and create regulations to protect the environment, the American business community punishes them by pulling its trade and investment from developing democratic countries to totalitarian governments and developing countries. Decisions about the Chinese economy are made by three groups, the Chinese Communist party, the People's Liberation Army, which owns many of the export factories, and western investors. Which of these three want to empower workers? Does the Chinese Communist worker want the Chinese people to enjoy human rights? I do not think so. Does the People's Liberation Army want to close the labor camps? I do not think so. Do western investors want Chinese workers to make better wages, have more democracy and bargain collectively? I do not think so. None of these groups has any interest in changing the status quo in China. I repeat, none of these groups, western investors, the Chinese Communist Party, the People's Liberation Army, none of these has any interest in changing the current situation in China. All three profit too much from the status quo to want to see human rights and labor rights improve in China. U.S. trade law forbids the trade of any products of slave labor, forced labor. The 1992 bilateral agreement between the U.S. and China prohibited the trade of goods manufactured by imprisoned workers. Congress needs to know more about working conditions in Chinese factories before we vote on permanent MFN for China. American people need to know more about how our major corporations are behaving outside the borders of the United States before we vote on permanent MFN for China. Based on evidence released into the Kernaghan Report, many of us in the Congress call on the Department of Labor and the Department of Treasury to conduct an extensive investigation into the working conditions and factories in China which are owned by American corporations, or where American corporations contract to manufacture their products before we vote on MFN for China. These investigations should report back its findings and a decision should be made as to whether any conditions in China violate U.S. law. Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to demand action to investigate these claims.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, this Congress is built upon a common desire to promote democratic ideals throughout the world. But as we strive to encourage democracy in developing nations, something is sorely amiss in our China policy. When the CEOs of multinational corporations lobby for increased trade with China, they talk about access to 1.2 billion Chinese consumers. What they do not say is that their real interest is 1.2 billion Chinese workers, workers whom they pay 10 cents, 20 cents, 30 cents, 40 cents an hour. These CEOs will tell us that increasing trade with China will force China to improve, that engagement with China will bring democracy to that Communist dictatorship. But as we engage with developing countries in trade and investment, democratic counties in the developing world are losing ground to more authoritarian countries. Democratic nations such as India are losing out to more totalitarian governments such as China where the people are not free and the workers do as they are told. In the post-Cold War decade, the share of developing country exports to the U.S. for democratic nations fell from 53 percent in 1989 to 34 percent in 1998. Corporate America wants to do business with countries with docile work forces that earn below poverty wages and are not allowed to organize to bargain collectively. In manufacturing goods, developing democracies' share of developing country exports fell 21 percent, from 56 percent to 35 percent. Corporations are relocating their manufacturing to more authoritarian regimes where the workers do not talk back for fear of being punished. Western corporations want to invest in countries that have below poverty wages, that have nonexistent environmental standards, that have no worker safety standards, that have no opportunities to bargain collectively. As developing nations make progress toward democracy, as they increase worker rights, as they create regulation to protect the environment, American business punishes them by pulling its trade and pulling its investment in favor of other totalitarian governments. Decisions about the Chinese economy are made by three groups: the Chinese Communist Party, the People's Liberation Army, which controls a significant number of the business that export to the United States, and, third, Western investors. Do any of these three want to empower workers? Does the Chinese Communist Party want the Chinese people to enjoy human rights? No. Does the People's Liberation Army want to close the labor camps? I do not think so. Do Western investors want Chinese workers to bargain collectively? Obviously no. None of these groups, I repeat, none of these groups, the Chinese Communist Party, the People's Liberation Army, and Western investors, none of these groups have any interest in changing the current situation in China. All three profit too much from the status quo to want to see human rights and labor rights improve in China. The People's Republic of China ignores the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights. The People's Republic of China ignores the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. They ignore the State Department's country reports, and the People's Republic of China has broken almost every agreement they have made with the United States. Why would the Chinese government pay any attention to the congressional task force? Passing PNTR, passing permanent Most Favored Nation status trading privileges for China, will only confirm that China's behavior will continue and worsen.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo) who has done yeoman's work in pushing this bill to the House floor.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman).

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for his leadership on this issue in organizing this special order, and special thanks to my friend, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) for her leadership and good will and good work on this, and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior), who has been fighting the right fight on trade issues, unfair trade issues, for at least this whole decade. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior) stood in this hall with me and several others, but he was here night after night during the debate on the North American Free Trade Agreement in opposition to it, and what he predicted and what he projected absolutely, unfortunately, has come true in relations with that country and our trading partners that way. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior) has a perfect understanding of what is happening with globalization. As we walk the halls in this job and go back and forth between committee hearings and meetings in our office and the House floor, we have seen more CEOs of America's largest corporations walking the halls than at any time of the year. Every time we vote on China trade relations, there are more corporate jets at National Airport, more CEOs walking the halls of this Congress. When one of them stops and talks to us, they invariably say that engagement with China will mean more democracy with China; that as we go to China, as we trade and engage with them more, as we sell them more and buy more from them, that democracy will be able to flourish in China. They have been telling us that for 10 years, when our trade deficit with China in 1989 was $100 million, million with an M, and today that trade deficit with China with this engagement that we have undertaken with the Chinese, our trade deficit now is $70 billion with a B, $70 billion. But they continue to tell us over and over, let us do more of this with China, more engagement, more trade, and things in China will get better. They tell us that there are 1.2 billion potential consumers in China. What they do not tell us is their interest is that China has 1.2 billion potential workers for those American corporations and other western companies that invest in China and sell products back to the United States. The real question on globalization and democratization, perceived democratization, predicted democratization of developing countries like China, the real issue boils down to this: that as we have engaged more with developing countries, as investors have gone into developing countries, western investment has shifted from those developing countries that are democracies to those developing countries that are authoritarian governments. We see fewer investment dollars going to India, a democracy, the world's largest democracy, and more investment dollars going to China. We see fewer investment dollars, relatively, going to Taiwan and South Korea, democracies, and more investment dollars going to countries like Indonesia, authoritarian governments. In the postwar decade the share of developing country exports to the United States for democratic nations fell from 53 percent to 34 period. In other words, corporations want to do business with countries with docile work forces, with countries where people earn below poverty wages, in countries where people are not allowed to organize and bargain collectively, in countries that pay 25 cents an hour. They have been moving away from democracies into authoritarian countries. In manufacturing goods, developing democracies' share of exports fell 21 percentage points, from 56 percent to 35 percent. Again, corporations, Western investors, are choosing to move away from democracies in their investments, developing democracies, and going to developing authoritarian countries, because U.S. investors like the idea of a docile work force, like the idea of workers that cannot talk back, like the idea of workers with low wages, like the idea of investing in countries where the government is not free, where workers simply do what they are told. In example after example, we can see investment moving from those democracies to countries like China. China has certainly been the largest one where that has happened. Again, these CEOs that roam the halls of Congress these days and tell us that if we engage with China it will mean more democracy in China, these same CEOs will have us believe that their interest in China, their going to China, will cause this blossoming of democracy, this blooming of democracy in China. But look who the major players in Communist China today are, those people who are the major decision-makers in the direction that Chinese society goes: the Communist Party of China; the People's Liberation Army in China, which controls many of the businesses that export to the United States; and Western investors. Which of those three entities, the Communist Party, the People's Liberation Army, or large Western companies, multinational companies, which of those three groups want to empower workers? Which of those three groups want to pay higher wages? Which of those three groups want more democracy in China? Which of those three groups want to change markedly Chinese society? I submit, Mr. Speaker, that none of these three groups want to see change in these societies. That is why Western investment finds its way into countries like China, rather than a country like India. If American business investors in China and around the world really want a democracy, they would not be going to China. They would not be taking development dollars out of democratic countries and putting them in authoritarian states. That is why the argument they make, that engagement with China will mean a more democratic world and a more prosperous and democratic China, is absolutely bogus. Mr. Speaker, we as a Nation, we as a Nation have no business rewarding investors that go to countries like China instead of countries like India. We have no business taking sides in that sense by rewarding those countries and those investors whose values run very different from ours, run counter to ours. In this country, in this Congress, we believe in democracy, we believe in free markets, we believe in people being able to move from one job to another, we believe in people being organized and bargaining collectively. We believe in the kind of democratic values that made this country great. Our passing PNTR is going to mean more of the same in China: more repression, more oppression from the government, a government that resists democracy because they have the power to. We will be making those same entities, the Communist party, the People's Liberation Army of China, much more powerful if we continue to pour monies in and give them most-favored-nation status. So, Mr. Speaker, I would again thank the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell) for this time. I congratulate the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) for the good work she does, and urge my colleagues to vote no on Permanent Most Favored Nation Status for the People's Republic of China.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).