Sherrod Brown

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam President, I appreciate very much Senator Sessions' comments, and even more I appreciate his work on this legislation. He was one of a couple of real key players in this legislation passing because he did such a good job of explaining to colleagues why this is a plus for American manufacturing and a plus for job growth in our country. I think about his comments, and the major opposition to this bill has been an accusation or a contention from opponents--whether from some Members of the Senate or the House or some newspapers or economists-- who say this would result in a trade war. Fundamentally, as Senator Sessions' comments indicate, the Chinese are not going to initiate a trade war against their largest customer. We buy one-third of Chinese exports. Of all the hundreds of billions of dollars of exports they do around the world, one-third comes to the United States of America. Pretend you are in business for yourself and you have a customer who buys one-third of your products, and they do something to make you mad. Are you going to declare war on them? No. You are going to sit down and figure out how to make it work. We can never predict the future on darned near anything with certainty, whether it is the Minnesota Twins finishing in last place this year, Madam President--which I never would have predicted because they were a good team in previous years--or whether it is trade law or the economy. But we knew that as soon as we passed this, two things would happen. One is that the Chinese--in this case it was the People's Bank of China, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I think, and the Ministry of Commerce--would immediately squawk: Trade war, trade war, trade war. Unfortunately, some others in this body and the newspapers mimicked that, but it wasn't going to result in that. The other thing we could pretty certainly predict based on history is that the Chinese, after this strong vote--which we got, thanks in large part to Senator Sessions--of 62 votes earlier today, are probably going to let their currency appreciate a little bit because they know we are calling their bluff. But for sure it doesn't make sense for them to initiate trade wars. They may fight on some individual issues. They may fight on some products that were made in Ohio or Alabama and fight back one issue at a time, and we will go to the WTO, the World Trade Organization, and have at it in a legal way, and we will win most of them because they are gaming the system. We might lose one of our manufacturers, but we know in the end it will work out. That is why Senator Sessions is dead right that this is right and that it is going to create jobs in our country. We have seen the trade deficit increase, and increase almost three times what it was when this started 10 years ago. We are going to be in a much better place--not tomorrow or the next day, but next year, if we can get this through the House of Representatives--I am not assuming we will get this passed today; I think we will here--if we get it to the House of Representatives, overwhelming support, 60 Republican cosponsors, 150 Democratic cosponsors, something like that--they will want to move the bill in the House. The President and the Republican leadership in the House aren't quite where Senator Sessions and I are, but public pressure will get to them, and we expect this bill to get to the President's desk. I think he will sign it in the end, and I think it is good for Alabama, good for Ohio, and good for the other 48 States. American manufacturing is what built this country. You really only create wealth through mining, agriculture, and manufacturing. The Presiding Officer's home State of Minnesota has done all of those very well over the years--mining where she grew up, and agriculture, which is huge and which is why she is on the Agriculture Committee, as I am. And manufacturing; Minnesota has done a lot of manufacturing. In my home State of Ohio, we are third in the country in manufacturing output, behind only Texas, twice our size, and California, three times our size. So we know how to produce. We just want a level playing field to do it. I thank the Presiding Officer, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. The fight for women's rights and fair pay and protections for the disabled, none of those fights were easy, yet in the last few years, we celebrated the 90th anniversary of the 19th amendment, the 75th anniversary of Social Security, the 45th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. What have we done here this year? How will we show the march toward justice is the mark of our Nation's progress? We do so by marching with his spirit rather than standing in his shadow. Dr. King said of Reverend Shuttlesworth, he ``proved to his people that he would not ask anyone to go where he was not willing to lead.'' That is a testament to his courage. Four years ago, then a candidate for President, Senator Obama escorted a wheelchair-bound Reverend Shuttlesworth across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. It was symbolic. It showed yet again Reverend Shuttlesworth leading us across another bridge. On behalf of a grateful State, Ohio, and in partnership with Senator Portman from Ohio, Senator Shelby from Alabama, and Senator Sessions from Alabama, I offer my deepest condolences to the Shuttlesworth family and to all of his friends and to all of his loved ones. Mr. President, I will offer this resolution, and I think we will be looking at it later today, offered by Senators Portman, Sessions, Shelby, and myself. I will ask for passage later.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, as the manager of this bill and the sponsor of S. 1619, I am, first of all, pleased with the bipartisan support we have seen. We have five Republican and five Democratic sponsors as the lead 10 sponsors and another dozen or so sponsors in addition to that. The support from Senators Graham and Sessions and Burr--all three southern Republicans--and Senators Snowe and Collins--northern Republicans--joining with the first five Democratic sponsors, Senators Schumer, Stabenow, Casey, Hagan, and myself, have set the bipartisan tone here. That is why we had 79 votes in the first go-round on the bill. But what concerns me most, and what I hear from people in the House of Representatives--and I have heard it from opponents in the Senate, and I have heard it from large multinational corporations that have outsourced so many jobs to China--is this is going to start a trade war with China. That seems to be the thrust of their comments: This is going to start a trade war. First of all, I don't know where they are that they think that because most of America thinks we are in a trade war right now with China and, frankly, China is doing pretty darn well. It is not going that well for American workers, and it is not going that well for American manufacturers. Go to downstate Illinois or Albuquerque or Akron and look at the number of plant closings. In many cases, companies--large companies especially, because smaller companies can't do this the same way--will shut down their production in the United States--they will shut down production in Youngstown or Dayton--and they will move to Wuhan or Xian, China, start production there, and then sell their products back to the United States. I don't know that that has ever been done in world history. So the trade war was started by the Chinese, waged by the Chinese, and that is why we have lost 100,000 manufacturing jobs in my State. That is why we have seen the trade deficit triple in the last 10 years with China. That is why we go to the store and darned near everything we pick up, including sometimes American flags and things you can buy at the Capitol Visitor Center, are made in China. It is clear China has cheated. They cheat on currency. They just cheat, pure and simple. It is long overdue that we do something about it. They were admitted to the World Trade Organization because of a very bad vote 10 years ago that too many of my colleagues cast in support of China doing that for PNTR. The Presiding Officer, as I did, voted against it. The Presiding Officer from New Mexico was prescient enough to see that. But they said, if you let China into the WTO, they are then going to be a trading partner and they will play fair. Well, they never have accepted, frankly, the basic governing rules from the World Trade Organization. They don't follow the rule of law. So when we say, no, we are not going to let them do that, we are accused of a trade war. Excuse me, I don't understand that. It is a little bit like two sort of real-life examples. If somebody is eating your lunch and you take their dessert away, they are complaining? Of course they are going to complain. They want their dessert. But they can't say you are starting a war when they are already eating your lunch. Or if you have two gas stations, you go to Springfield, OH, and there is a gas station on one side of the street and another gas station on the other side of the street, the one gets a 30-percent discount on its oil for its gasoline from Shell, and the one from Exxon on the other side of the street doesn't get a subsidy on its oil or its gasoline, of course, the one is going to put the other out of business. That is what we do to China. We give them a 20- to 30-percent discount because they cheat on currency. And you call that a trade war because we are saying, no, we are taking that discount away? It is China that has played this protectionist game. Mr. Fred Bergsten, who is the director of the Institute for National Economics, the Peterson Institute, hardly a flaming liberal--free fair trade group; it is a conservative, generally free trade organization-- said that China's currency policy is the most protectionist policy of any major country in the world since World War II. And for us to say, Let's play fair, we are starting a trade war? It doesn't make sense. Let's debate the real issues. Let's not call names. Let's not say so- and-so is starting a trade war, so-and-so is protectionist, so-and-so is doing class warfare. We want more exports, we want more trade. But, remember, currency undervaluation makes our exports more expensive when we sell them into China and puts our manufacturers at a competitive disadvantage. I think this legislation makes so much sense. That is why it got 79 votes. That is why it has such a high number of bipartisan cosponsors. That is why people in this country understand that passing this legislation to level the playing field, to give our manufacturers an opportunity, makes so much sense. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I appreciate the words of my freshman colleague, Senator Kirk. I think he recognizes from his days as a foreign policy expert, when he worked for the government on foreign policy, that a Presidential waiver is essential. My guess is he would have attacked this bill if it had not had a waiver for the President, saying there is no way the President could possibly look out for national security at the same time as he executes this legislation. So that clearly is a nonstarter around here. Everybody recognizes that not having a Presidential waiver--because there is a case sometimes when the President does need the authority when it comes to national security, and I am concerned about national security in our trade with China. I have seen China, over a period of years--with our acquiescence as a nation, frankly--I have seen China build more and more national security infrastructure and in some cases seeing our national security infrastructure weakened because we don't do as well with steel and chemicals and all the things that go into our national security apparatus. So I am, in fact, concerned about that. I am also concerned; I hear two things, two main arguments. I have sat on the Senate floor as the manager of this bill for several hours over the last couple or 3 days and listened to this debate. It seems the Republicans' opposition--most Republicans voted for this, so I don't want to say it is overwhelming, but the people who have spoken against it have mostly been conservative Republicans who seem to pay a lot of attention to Club for Growth and those most conservative parts of their party. But I have heard two things. I have heard ``trade war, trade war, trade war,'' and that is interesting because that echoes the words of the People's Bank of China. It echoes the words of the Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China. It echoes the words of the Foreign Affairs Ministry of the Communist Party of the People's Republic of China. It mimics their words when I hear them say ``trade war, trade war, trade war.'' But what also concerns me is I listen to this debate and hear some of the opponents of this bill kind of playing the ``blame America first'' game. They seem to say this is not China doing this to us, this is us doing this to us--or perhaps we doing this to us, to be more grammatically correct. I am aghast that China games its currency system, that China undercuts our manufacturing because they ``cheat,'' and that there are some Members of the Senate who stood up right here and took the oath of office to the United States of America who are blaming America first for what China is doing to us. I can see blaming our government for not enforcing trade rules better. President Obama, while he has not come out yet for this bill, has enforced trade laws better than any President since Ronald Reagan, who actually probably set the gold standard for trade enforcement. We haven't seen it since President Obama. I am a bit intrigued that my colleagues are blaming the United States for this. It is a little like if there are gas stations on Detroit Avenue in Cleveland, in Westlake or in Rocky River or in Cleveland, one on each side of the road and one gets the gas 25 percent cheaper than the other from the supplier--from ExxonMobil or Shell--they can put the other one out of business. Do we blame the one that doesn't get the discount for going out of business? Is that what we are doing? To blame America first on this is blaming the United States when China cheats, and I don't buy that. I don't think there is any credence in that argument. I appreciate Senator Kirk's admonition, and I appreciate his celebration, if you will, of Caterpillar and many of these companies that are exporting tens of millions and, in a few cases, billions of dollars to China. More power to them. I want them to do more exports. Look at this chart. Look what happened. Exports to China have gone up. The year 2000 was when this Senate and the House--where the Presiding Officer from New Mexico and I sat--voted no on this when PNTR, permanent normal trade relations, with China was passed. Look what happened since then. Exports to China went up. I am glad U.S. exports with companies all over our States--Senator Kirk mentioned a handful in Illinois--went up. Look what happened to imports. Look at the number of imports that went up. Do we know why? Part of that reason is China has cheated on currency. When we did the first vote on Monday night--and all of us predicted what the Chinese Government is going to do. They are going to squawk and say: trade war, trade war, trade war. I didn't know a bunch of American politicians would mimic what they said and say: trade war, trade war, trade war. Here is what happened--listen to this--an article in the South China Morning Post on October 5, the day after that vote: In a rare move, the central bank, the People's Bank of China, the China Ministry of Commerce, the People's Republic of China's Foreign Affairs Ministry took simultaneous, coordinated action yesterday to express Beijing's strong opposition to the bill, aimed at forcing Beijing to let its currency float. They accused Washington of politicizing global currency issues. Where I come from, they say when you throw a rock at a pack of dogs, the one that yelps is the one you hit. Of course, the Chinese are going to yelp because they don't like this. We are saying to them they have to follow the rules--no more breaking the rules. They cannot cheat the way they have cheated. Of course, in the Communist Party, in the People's Republic of China, the Ministry of Commerce is going to squawk. Of course, the People's Bank of China is going to squawk. These are all arms of the Chinese Communist Party and arms of the Chinese Government. Of course, they are not happy when we do this. It does not mean it is not the right thing to do. It bothers me when I see American politicians mimic what the Chinese Communist Party officials are saying, their government is saying: trade war, trade war, trade war. This is not a trade war. Fred Bergsten, head of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, is a trade official--I believe an economist. He is very smart. The Peterson Institute for International Economics is a generally conservative operation that generally plays it straight on trade. If anything, they are a bit too free trade, in my mind, instead of fair trade. Fred Bergsten said: I regard China's current policy as the most protectionist measure taken by any major country since World War II. Its currency manipulation has been undervalued by 20 to 30 percent. Here is the key point: That is equivalent to a 20 to 30 percent subsidy on all exports and a tariff on all imports by the largest trading country in the world. The 30-percent penalty is why our exports don't go up very much. The 25-percent bonus for the Chinese is why our imports go up so much. We cannot sell into China's market very well because they are cheating. That is why our exports don't grow as much, and they can sell so much into our markets because we are giving that 25 or 30 percent bonus. This isn't a trade war--well, it is a trade war. The Chinese declared trade war on us in 2000 and look how they benefited from this trade war, and we are just going to stand here and allow them to do that? It doesn't work. That is why this legislation is so important. Last point. There are an awful lot of American businesses that think we need to fix this. I hear my friend from Illinois and other Senators come to the floor who oppose this bill. There are only 19 who voted no out of the 98 who voted. I have heard them come to this floor and talk about exports, that their businesses have exported. Some have and more power to them. I hope they can export more and create more jobs in the United States. We need to understand that those are mostly large companies that have in some cases the wherewithal to outsource jobs to China and in other cases to be able to export large numbers. There was a historic split in the National Association of Manufacturers, the largest trade organization for American manufacturers, over the last several years on what to do about this. Many of the small companies such as Automation Tool & Die in Brunswick, OH, and a company in Dayton that does printing, where I just spoke to Jeff Cottrell, who owns that company and has a number of employees in Dayton, OH--those companies understand currency undercuts them. The Bennett brothers at this company in Brunswick told me in Cleveland a couple days ago why they support this bill. They said they had a contract they thought was a million-dollar contract, and they began to change their assembly line, their production facilities, their production operation capacity. At the last minute, a Chinese company came in and underpriced them by 20 percent and got the contract. Why did they underprice them 20 percent? Because we gave them a 25-percent bonus to do it. We have disarmed this trade war that we are not beginning. We are playing defense and we are fighting back. I think the American public overwhelmingly says fight back when they play the games, fight back when they game the system. Don't blame America on this one. Stand for American interest. It is good for our exporters, big companies and small companies alike. It is good for American manufacturing. We know what that means to workers in Chillicothe, Zanesville, and Toledo. We know what it means for our local vitality and prosperity. It means so much as we begin to restore American manufacturing. I ask for support for S. 1619. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. I ask that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. I have just a couple comments with regard to those of the Senator from South Carolina. He was the ranking member on the Economic Policy Subcommittee on which also sat the Presiding Officer from Oregon in 2009 and 2010. We held a series of hearings on manufacturing policy, and there were some agreements between Senator DeMint and me on having a manufacturing strategy. We are the only major industrial country in the world without a real strategy on manufacturing. There are three ways to create wealth in this society: manufacturing, mining, and agriculture. Manufacturing has been a dominant force and a significant creator of the middle class, and I think we agree on that. We agree we want more of it in our country. Thirty years ago, more than 25 percent of our gross domestic product was manufacturing. Today that number is less than half that, and there are countries around the world--Germany, for instance, which has had a manufacturing strategy, and they have almost twice the GDP and twice the workforce. So while Senator DeMint and I disagree on this China trade bill, I agree with the other Republican Senator from his State, Mr. Graham, who has been a significant leader. He and Senator Schumer have worked on this for, I believe, more than half a decade on responding to the cheating the Chinese Communist Party and the People's Republic of China have done in the world trade structure. I don't believe, in any way, we are starting a trade war. Almost any economist will tell us the Chinese have been committing a trade war for a decade. That is why our trade deficit is three times what it was 10 or 11 years ago. It is why so many manufacturing jobs in Senator Graham's and Senator DeMint's State of South Carolina, the Presiding Officer's State of Oregon, and my State of Ohio have been lost, not only because of China's currency, but that is clearly a significant contributing factor. I go back to the illustration of gas stations, one across the street from the other, in Akron, OH. If one gas station could buy its gasoline with a 25-percent discount, it would soon put the other gas station out of business. That is really what has happened with China. China understands they have a 25-percent advantage given to them because they game the currency system. I know what that means. The Presiding Officer from North Carolina has seen what has happened to manufacturing in her State, a major manufacturing State. Our trade problems are not so much with companies in China, they are with the government. It really is our companies against the government. When they can game the system with a 25-percent bonus--when they sell into the United States, they get a 25- percent bonus, and when we try to sell into China, we get a 25-percent penalty on our companies' products--that hardly seems fair to me. So as Senator Graham and Senator Schumer, the two leaders in this for many years, have said, they just want to level the playing field. They don't want us to have an advantage over China. Let's play fair and straight. Really, that is what the question is, and that is what this currency bill will finally do.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Love to.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I said to Senator Inhofe I will be no more than 10 minutes and I appreciate his courtesy and his being here. I rise in opposition to the Hatch amendment. I respect and appreciate my colleague from Utah and his proposal to negotiate a solution with China and other nations on currency. I have worked with him on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, as the Presiding Officer has, and I appreciate his concern on all these issues and his wide range of knowledge. My firm belief, however, is his amendment is not going to work. I know he generally does not want to take the same direction we do in standing up to the Chinese. I think, when we talk about multilateral negotiation, we are pretty much saying to the Chinese: Please stop the strategy, however unfair and in violation of international norms, that has helped your country accumulate enormous wealth. Please stop. We hope you will stop. Please stop, or we are saying please stop what Fred Bergsten says is the ``most protectionist policy any major country has taken since World War II.'' We have tried this. We now have the ability to do multilateral negotiations. Senator Hatch is right. The administration has not particularly led on that. He is also right to add that the Bush administration also did not particularly lead on that. Before that, the Clinton administration did not particularly lead on that. We have the ability, without amendment No. 680--because it would add nothing significant to the procedures and the steps that are already in place as a matter of current law and practice--to do these negotiations. We have an administration, a Treasury Department that may change political parties from time to time but doesn't change strategies in dealing with the Chinese. It is always: Please stop. We hope you will do something differently. We would like it if you would change what you are doing. We think it would be better if you are not cheating on currency and cheating on international trade policies. We would like, now that we let you into the World Trade Organization, that you actually follow the rules of the WTO. We think it would be great if you follow the force of law and the rule of law. Saying those things has gotten us nowhere. That is why, while I respect Senator Hatch, amendment No. 680 doesn't get us anywhere. It doesn't change the law. It just delays. We know how the Chinese like it when we delay because every day we delay is one more day where the Chinese cheat, where the Chinese have an advantage, where the Chinese, the People's Republic of China, the Communist Party, can again take advantage of American workers and American companies. The Treasury Department already has specific reporting obligations. They already have ample authority to consult and engage bilaterally, multilaterally, and plurilaterally under the Exchange Rates and Economic Policy Coordination Act of 1988, which amendment No. 680 would repeal. I appreciate what Senator Hatch wants to do, but the fact is, we have to make the Chinese understand, other than occasional pleading, occasional begging, the occasional polite requests--we have to make them understand, if they do not stop manipulating their currency, if they don't stop intervening to keep a weaker renminbi, the United States will defend itself. The United States cannot turn the other cheek on this one. The Presiding Officer said the other day the Chinese steal our lunch, and if we take any of it back, they get all upset at us, although the Presiding Officer said it better than I just said it. But the fact is, the Chinese have not played fairly. I used the example on the Senate floor of what currency manipulation means in very simple terms. If there is a gas station on Summit Street in Akron and there is a gas station across the street--there are two Marathon stations--one of the Marathon stations gets its oil from Findlay, OH, at a 30-percent discount and the other station doesn't, the Marathon station that gets a discount is going to put the other one out of business, pure and simple. As Senator Merkley said the other day, there is a tariff on goods we sell to China, and there is a subsidy on goods China sells to us. How do we compete with that? Amendment No. 680 will not help us compete with that, it will just delay and delay. That does not make sense. That is why this legislation, S. 1619, without the Hatch amendment, makes much more sense. It allows us to move finally and quickly. It allows us to move with certainty. It allows us to move straightforwardly. It strips away all the delay and the head fakes and the feinting and all the other things the Chinese Party Government is so good at doing. I ask for defeat of the amendment and passage of S. 1619, and I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam President, I appreciate the words of Senator Cardin. He sits on the Finance Committee and was a long-time member of the House Ways and Means Committee and understands these issues as well or better than almost any Member of the Senate. I appreciate his work on that, and his leadership. He said a couple of things I want to emphasize. He said, first of all, this is the biggest bipartisan jobs bill we have considered this year, 79 votes out of 98 when it advanced to being considered on the Senate floor. He has talked about this is a discount we give to our competitors. Imagine two gas stations in Schenectady, NY, or in Frederick, MD, or in Akron, OH. One gets its gasoline and pays 25 or 30 percent less for its gasoline than does the station across the street. The station that does not get the 25- or 30-or 35- percent subsidy goes out of business almost in a matter of days. That is the kind of unfair competition we face because we have given this discount to our competitors. The second is Senator Cardin mentioned what this does with our budget deficit. It is pretty clear this is not a jobs bill that costs a lot of money. That is why we got 79 votes. That is why so many Republicans joined all but three Democrats in moving this bill forward. We save money. If a thousand more people go to work in Cleveland, OH, or in Buffalo, NY, or in Baltimore, MD, that is a thousand people who are not receiving unemployment benefits, who do not have to apply for food stamps, a thousand people who are paying taxes instead of being consumers of public services. When you look at the lost jobs because of this trade policy, because China has gamed the currency system for so many years and administrations of both parties have failed to enforce laws or use the tools they have--in addition to this extra tool, this very compelling, very effective tool we are giving them--it clearly has meant that we have been behind the eight ball in that way and we have lost the opportunity when we have not enforced these trade laws. When you look at the number of jobs lost and the number of jobs estimated to be gained, it is in the millions over time. This is exactly what the Senate should be doing this week, moving this bill to the House. There are 250 cosponsors in the House, 60 Republicans, roughly, 190 Democrats, roughly. Republican leadership has some difficulty with this bill, apparently. In the Senate, that is not an issue. In the House, among rank-and-file Members there is huge support. As we pass this bill later this week, next week at the latest, we hope to move it to the House where it can be passed quickly. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. I appreciate that. I was listening to one of the previous speakers who opposed this bill and characterized the bill as a China tariff bill. The Senator said it exactly right. When we sell to China, it is as if they put a tariff on our products. When we buy from them, we give them a 25-percent bonus--excuse me--when we try to sell to them, they ban that import. When we buy from them, they have a 25- percent bonus. It is putting us at such a disadvantage, as the Senator said.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. We do. The Senator from Oregon and I have talked about this, that there is a gentleman who worked for a paper company who illustrated to me what China has done. It was a specific kind of paper, a glossy, coated paper for magazines. The Chinese bought their wood pulp in Brazil, they shipped it to China, milled it there, and sold it back to the United States, and they undercut Blue Heron and Ohio paper companies because they had that 25-percent subsidy. There is no way, when labor costs are only about--labor is only about 10 percent of the cost of paper production--there is no way they could possibly buy something as heavy and voluminous as wood pulp, ship it across the ocean, mill it, ship it back in the form of paper, and not-- the only way they can undercut prices is by huge subsidies. There may have been other subsidies to it. It may have been water and energy and capital and land, but it surely was that 25-percent subsidy these companies have when they undercut our manufacturers. I just know that in 15 years, I say to the Senator, or 10 years, we will look back on the history of our country and say: Why did we let one country undercut our manufacturing base so substantially and lose all those jobs and lose all that technology? When the products are invented in this country, the production is done offshore, and so much of the innovation that is done on the shop floor ends up in that country rather than here, it makes it harder for us, when we lose that innovative edge, to catch up.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. As a result of the work Senator Schumer did early on this bill, with the cosponsorship of the Senator from North Carolina who is presiding, this bill really is the first major bipartisan jobs-- major, biggest jobs bill we have brought in front of this Chamber, and this is a chance to finally begin to look toward ways of reindustrializing our country and building manufacturing that matters in places such as Buffalo and Charlotte and Portland and Toledo. This bill is a real opportunity. I think that is why we got 79 votes on the first go-round on Monday night. I think it is why we have so many Republican sponsors of this bill. It is a result of the work Senator Schumer and Senator Graham have been doing for years to begin to build that foundation, and that is why the passage of this bill is so important.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I very much thank Senator Harkin, the chairman of the HELP Committee, for his advocacy always for the middle class, advocacy always for those who aspire to the middle class, and especially the jobs bill. I particularly appreciate his comments about school construction. That is a major component of the jobs bill. My State has gone through a pretty good period under Governor Taft, who is not in the same political party as I am but he is a friend of mine who launched a program 10 years or so ago in Ohio to begin to replace--to give incentives to local governments, local school districts, to vote bond issues where there was a lot of State matching funds that built a lot of new schools but nothing close to what we need yet with all of the progress we made. We tell our children that education is the most important thing in their lives and our lives and our country, and then we send them to lousy, decaying, falling-apart school buildings. I do not think that quite clicks in kids' minds. So the school construction part of this bill, first of all, puts construction workers to work in their high- unemployment rates, as Senator Harkin said. Second, it puts steelworkers and cement workers and concrete workers and people who are making the products--the glass makers, the glass companies, and all manufacturers--to work for the materials. Third, it sets the foundation by building community colleges and rebuilding school buildings and all of that, putting people to work for long-term economic growth and prosperity. We know for a fact the United States, in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, created an infrastructure the likes of which the world had never seen. That is the foundation for our prosperity. Unfortunately, in the last 20 years we have let that infrastructure crumble. We let that infrastructure decay. When I look at these young pages here, 15, 16, 17, 18 years old, I do not want them to inherit a huge budget deficit, but I also do not want them to inherit a huge education deficit, an infrastructure deficit. We owe that to that generation to do much better than we have. I thank Senator Harkin and yield to him.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. We are joined in the Chamber by two of the sponsors of this bill: the Presiding Officer, Senator Whitehouse, and Senator Casey from Pennsylvania. The Senator said something earlier about the supercommittee and deficit reduction, and what he said is exactly right. Many in this institution and down the hall in the House of Representatives do not seem to understand that we cannot only cut our way to prosperity, we have to grow our way to a more balanced budget and prosperity. One of the things this China currency bill will do is, it is estimated by the Economic Policy Institute that over 10 years it will cut the deficit $600 billion to $800 billion. Why is that? Because of job growth, because this bill provides--according to the Economic Policy Institute study, it creates more than 2 million jobs. That is 2 million people, instead of receiving unemployment benefits, instead of being eligible for food stamps, instead of other kinds of things we do for people who are out of work, it will mean those 2 million people will actually be working, many of them in manufacturing. Those are $12-, $15-, $20-an-hour jobs. They will be paying taxes. They will be paying into Social Security, into Medicare, into local retirement systems--all of that--paying property taxes for the schools, doing all of the things that employed, hard-working taxpayers do. So it is a win in that situation too. So while we need to focus on the President's jobs bill, this is one that makes so much sense, and that is why we need to move forward.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, this morning, at 10:45, in our Nation's most prestigious military cemetery, Douglas Edward Dahill, a Vietnam war veteran from Lima, OH, was laid to rest. Forty years after being presumed dead, his family will gather at Arlington National Cemetery to honor his life in the hallowed place our Nation honors its heroes. Douglas Dahill's story--and that of his family--is simultaneously exceptional and familiar. Dahill voluntarily enlisted in the U.S. Army after graduating from Lima Senior High School, following in the footsteps of his grandfather, father, and uncle, who had all served in the U.S. military during times of war. Dahill was part of Detachment B52 Delta's Reconnaissance Team 6, which was dropped behind enemy lines on April 14, 1969 in South Vietnam's Quang Nam Province. Three days later, on April 17, 1969, Dahill and his team came under intense enemy fire in Thua Thien. They radioed a request for air strikes and support. But their call was never heard. Thunderstorms prevented air support from assisting Dahill and his team. The following day, a search team went looking for Team 6, but found no trace of their whereabouts. More than 8,000 miles away, in Lima, OH, an Ohio military family would begin their long, painful wait for news of their beloved son and brother. For nearly four decades, the status of Delta's Reconnaissance Team 6 went unresolved. Like so many American families during the Vietnam war, the Dahill's were forced to cope with Douglas' unknown fate. When the Vietnam war ended, and after American Prisoners of War, POWs, were returned home, approximately 2,646 Americans were still unaccounted for. Initially, the U.S. partnered with the Republic of Vietnam to conduct joint searches for Americans missing in South Vietnam. This joint effort resulted in the recovery and identification of 63 American servicemembers, but Dahill was not among them. When the Communist regime took over Vietnam in 1975, joint efforts to recover those missing in action were halted, and American families could only hope that Vietnam would unilaterally recover and return the remains of their missing loved ones. In 1991, Vietnam returned uniform parts and a small quantity of human remains that were allegedly associated with Delta's Reconnaissance Team 6. But the technology at the time was not able to conclusively identify the remains. It wasn't until approximately 1 year ago that a portion of these remains were positively attributed to Specialist Douglas Edward Dahill. Since U.S. Government efforts began, the remains of more than 900 Americans killed in Vietnam have been returned and identified. However, 1,682 servicemembers--77 of whom are from Ohio--remain unaccounted for. The Department of Defense, and Congress, must continue to support recovery and identification efforts so that more missing Americans can be laid to rest and more American families may know peace and closure. Douglas Edward Dahill is survived by his sister Carol Long and brother John Dahill. On behalf of a grateful State and Nation, I thank Specialist Dahill and his service and sacrifice for our Nation. May he rest in peace in Arlington National Cemetery and in our Nation's heart.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I hear this over and over and over in this body and in the House of Representatives; that whenever the President of the United States talks about increasing taxes on millionaires--just making their tax rate the same as middle-class taxpayers--the other side yells ``class warfare, class warfare, class warfare'' against the rich. Yet we know class warfare in this country is being aimed right at the middle class and has cost so many jobs and caused so many people in the middle class to see their incomes remain flat for the last 10 years. When I hear discussions about trade, I always hear characterizations of protectionism or trade war; we are in a trade war. Look at the number of jobs we have lost to China in the last 10 years. We don't have to look very far to know every time we go to the store and buy something, it seems darned near everything is made in China. It wasn't that way 10 years ago. It sure wasn't that way 20 years ago. Ten years ago this body made a mistake--many of us opposed it, and I was in the House of Representatives then--with something called permanent normal trade relations with China--letting China join the World Trade Organization. In those days, there was a relatively small trade deficit with China. A trade deficit means we buy more from them than we sell to them. Today that trade deficit with China is about $750 million every single day. Every day we buy $750 million more in products from China than we sell to China. If we are buying that much more than we sell day after day after day--7 days a week, 52 weeks a year--we end up losing jobs because these are the things we were making in this country. Never in our history do I remember--and I am not a professional historian, but I have never heard anybody say otherwise on this--that companies in one country would shut their production down--stop producing steel in Steubenville or stop producing chemicals in Cleveland or stop producing cars in Dayton or stop producing glass in Toledo--shut down a plant, move it to another country--often China--and then sell the product back into the home country, back to the United States of America. That is not a ticket for anyone in America to gain middle-class status, and it is not good economic policy. It doesn't put us in the place we need to be. So when I hear the opponents to this whole idea of leveling the playing field say: Oh, my gosh, the Senate, which is supposed to cool the saucer--whatever that George Washington/Thomas Jefferson saying was--cool the hot tea in the saucer, or however he said that, and then say this is a trade war, that our attempt to simply level the playing field is a trade war, that is just unilateral disarmament. The Chinese understand what a trade war is about. Let me cite one example real quickly. I was talking to a gentleman who works for paper companies in the United States, including paper manufacturers we still have in Ohio, in Chillicothe and West Carrollton, sort of the Dayton area, and down into Butler County near Cincinnati and other places around the State, and he said the Chinese didn't even have a coated paper industry 15 years ago. That is the kind of paper that is the glossy magazine-type paper. The Chinese started this industry 15 years ago. They buy their wood pulp in Brazil, then ship it to China, and then it is milled in China. Paper is expensive to transport. It is heavy, for the cost of it, and it is bulky, for the cost of it. But the Chinese take wood pulp from Brazil, and then it is shipped and milled in China and then sold back here. The labor cost of making paper is only 10 percent of the cost. Yet they can undercut prices here. Why is that? Well, we assume they subsidize water and capital and land and energy. We also know they get a 25-percent additional subsidy because of currency because the Chinese game the currency system. They devalue their currency. They underappreciate, if you will, their currency, meaning they, in a sense, get a bonus. When they sell anything to the United States, they get a 25-percent discount. So they can undercut American manufacturers that could be even more efficient than they are or, if the United States sells into China, our sellers, our producers, get a 25-percent penalty. But look at the job loss. This is the whole story. This really is the whole story. We have 10 cosponsors. We have five Democrats--Senator Schumer and I and Senators Hagan, Stabenow, and Casey--and five Republicans--Senators Snowe and Collins of Maine and Senators Sessions of Alabama, Burr of North Carolina, and Graham of South Carolina. This is a bipartisan effort that got 79 votes out of 98 yesterday. So when I hear the other side say we are starting a trade war, look at this chart. This is California, in the last 10 years, since PNTR-- since we set up this relationship with China and allowed China into the World Trade Organization. Look at the job loss. California lost almost a half million jobs. Most of these are manufacturers. Texas lost 232,000. My State lost 103,000 jobs. These are 103,000 people that saw their plants close. We have lost 50,000 manufacturing plants in this country in the last decade or so. These are 103,596 people, our people. If they lose their job, $16-an- hour manufacturing, they often lose their health insurance; they often lose their home. It is easy for us to talk numbers and easy for us, dressed like this and getting paid well to do these jobs, to forget what an individual suffering from this kind of job loss is all about. Imagine a family in Richmond or a family in Columbus, where they lost their job, then they lost their health care, and then they lost their home. They have to go to their 12-year-old daughter and say: Honey, we are going to have to move. We are losing our house. We can't live here anymore. These are terrible human problems. To dismiss our efforts to try to come to an even, level playing field so we can compete is what we need to do, not using names such as trade war and protectionism and class warfare and all that. I will conclude my remarks. There will be much more in the next 2 days' debate on these issues. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

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

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I appreciate the Presiding Officer's comments earlier in support of the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act of 2011. The Presiding Officer and I--both Democrats--joined by five Republicans and three other Democrats--are the prime sponsors of the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act of 2011. The cloture motion on the motion to proceed was agreed to--the rules in the Senate are sometimes a bit impenetrable, but the cloture motion on the motion to proceed to the bill was agreed to last night with 79 votes out of 98. So there is clear interest in this body to debate one of the most important jobs bills we have seen in front of us, I say to the Presiding Officer, in our almost 5 years in the Senate. I have not seen in my time here another jobs bill be voted on this overwhelmingly, this bipartisanly, that was this important for putting people back to work. Let me sort of expand on that. First of all, this Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act of 2011 has broad support from business and labor. It creates jobs without spending taxpayer dollars. In fact, this legislation raises revenue and reduces our deficit, clearly, because when people go back to work, people who are now on unemployment benefits--sometimes receiving food stamps, sometimes getting other subsidies, maybe trade adjustment assistance, which the Presiding Officer has been so involved in--instead, people going back to work will be paying taxes and not be the beneficiaries of those programs. So it is a plus both ways in terms of reducing our government's budget deficit. Most important, it is in response to an enormous problem, an enormous economic threat, brought on by the Chinese Communist Party Government. Senators Schumer, Casey, Snowe, Stabenow, Sessions, Burr, Hagan, Collins and I have been working closely to bring this bill to the floor. I thank the majority leader, who usually sits at this desk, for bringing this bill to the floor to respond, purely and simply, to China's protectionist trade policies. This is not the United States turning inward and pointing fingers at other countries. This is a response to Chinese protectionism, to Chinese economic policies and trade policies that have been unfair, that cheat--the Chinese have cheated--and that cost us American jobs. We know when a factory closes--we have had 50,000; Senator Sanders said earlier today, we have had 50,000 factories close in this country in the last decade or so, not all because of China. I do not blame them nearly for all that. But when a factory closes, we know what it does to a community, whether it is in Harrisburg, whether it is in Sharon, whether it is in Erie, whether it is in Cleveland or Akron or Canton. I am encouraged by my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who support this bill who see how China's protectionist trade policies have undermined businesses, have disadvantaged manufacturers, and ultimately, most importantly, have cost American jobs. We all know the problem. For years, China subsidized its exports by adopting artificial, manipulated exchange rates not based on market forces. As a result, China's exports to the United States remain cheap, our exports to China remain more expensive. In other words, because they cheat on their currency, a product made in Wuhan and sold in Lima or Dayton, OH, will be cheaper because they have subsidized their production by weakening their currency. At the same time, if a company in Lima or Dayton, OH, tries to sell into China, the cost of that item is 25 percent more because China has gamed the currency system. So by keeping the value of the renminbi, the RMB or the yuan, the words for the Chinese currency, by keeping the RMB artificially low, China incentivizes foreign corporations to shift production there because it reduces the price of investing in China and makes Chinese exports cheaper. In this continued devaluation--I use the percentage 25 percent, some economists say it may be as high as 40 percent, but clearly it is that range--they are cheating, they are gaming the system 25 to 40 percent. Think about in Pennsylvania and Ohio, two States that have a lot in common. Think about a company, think of two gas stations on opposite corners. One buys its oil 25, 30 or 35 or 40 percent less expensively, pays a lower price than the competitor across the street. It is clear what is going to happen. The competitor that cannot get the break, get the subsidy, is going to go out of business pretty quickly. It is that phenomenon that has caused serious harm to the U.S. economy and has cost America jobs. In 1993, the Chinese currency, the RMB, was valued at approximately 5.5 to 1 U.S. dollar. Then, from 1995 to 2005, it was valued at about 8.28 without change during that period. That can mean one of two things: a huge coincidence or blatant currency manipulation. Our trade deficit with China in 1993 was about $30 billion, $40 billion--in that range. Today, we run a deficit 8, 9, 10 times that, of $275 billion--a bilateral deficit just in our relationship with the Chinese. According to a recent Economic Policies Institute report, since China joined the WTO, the World Trade Organization, in 2001, 2.8 million jobs have been lost or displaced in the United States as a result of the U.S. trade deficit--2.8 million jobs. That is hundreds of thousands in my State. It is tens of thousands in States as small as West Virginia. It is hundreds of thousands in States as large as Pennsylvania. Currency manipulation is not the only reason China enjoys an enormous trade surplus, but it is certainly a big part of the reason. From 2005 to the middle of 2008, we started to fight back and were headed in the right direction, however slowly. The Senate overwhelmingly supported a measure offered by New York Democratic Senator Schumer and South Carolina Republican Senator Graham that would put tariffs on Chinese imports if the government did not let its currency appreciate. All it did was it wiped clean the advantage China had created by manipulating its currency. That bill passed the Senate, but it did not pass the House. It was never signed by the President. But what it did do was get China's attention. Beginning in 2005, China began to do a slight currency appreciation, which allowed for a few years of modest progress toward letting its currency appreciate. But then in the summer of 2008, China abandoned its feigned interest in fairness. It once again fixed the value of the renminbi against the U.S. dollar. Then, in June 2010, China vowed to allow its currency to float more freely against the dollar and other foreign currencies. The Peterson Institute for International Economics found that, despite the intervention appreciation, the RMB is even more undervalued today against the dollar than it was 1 year ago. That is the recent history of China's currency manipulation. The Chinese, in other words, when they know people are watching, when they see the U.S. Government, with our very strong economy--even when we look weak internally and way too many people unemployed, we are the major economic force on Earth--when they see us doing something, they respond. They start to act a little better. It is a little bit similar to a naughty kid. When the parents are watching, they are going to act better. When the Chinese--we hope our kids do not break the law the way the Chinese do, international trade law, but when we watch them, they behave better. When we exert discipline on them, in other words, we are going to change this law the way they have gamed the system on currency, they begin to let the currency float and let it appreciate and do some better, more fairminded things. New research by economists at MIT shows how much damage China's trade and export policies have done to our labor market and to our communities. The report shows China imports actually have effects on jobs but also increased use of Federal programs such as the Social Security and disability insurance program. Of course it does. When people get laid off, all kinds of things happen in their lives. They apply for food stamps. They may lose their home, causing, if they are foreclosed on, the values of homes in the neighborhood to decline, and the public schools do not have quite the support. They may not be able to hire one teacher as a result of a handful of people losing their jobs. All those things happen. So when the Chinese game the currency system and jobs are lost in Pittsburgh or in Dayton, then bad things happen in Pittsburgh and Dayton to those families, to those communities, to those States. What has been our response when our trading partners use any means necessary--low labor costs, direct subsidies, currency manipulation--to compete? What has been our response? It has been inaction. We have not done very much. It has been adherence to the status quo, and we can no longer afford to do that. Some like the Presiding Officer from Pennsylvania and others of us around here have been beating the drum for a long time that these trade agreements are not fair, that they are not fair to the American worker and to Americans, particularly small manufacturers. Bigger manufacturers kind of take care of themselves. They kind of do it by moving production overseas. Small manufacturers usually cannot do that. We know what it does to our workers--bad tax law, bad trade law, bad currency policy. This bill is a modest measure. It is not as sweeping as I would like to do. But it is a modest measure that gives our government the tools to fight back. With different parts authored by several of my colleagues, this bill came from two other bills we put together. The bill updates the processes and tools the government would have at its disposal when it comes to countries that are currency manipulators, that are in some ways repeat currency manipulators. Senator Snowe from Maine, a Republican, and I, a Democrat, have worked on a part that would immediately designate unfair subsidies as an unfair trade practice. That means jobs for a number of industries: coated paper in southwest Ohio, tires in Finley, OH, aluminum extrusion, tubular steel in northeast Ohio. It means more American manufacturers, from autos to clean energy, can petition the government against unfair subsidies from importing countries. That measure is combined with comprehensive measures to reform the structural deficiencies in our government's approach to combating currency manipulation. That part of the bill was spearheaded by Senators Schumer and Graham. It would improve oversight of currency exchange rates--and I would add Senator Stabenow was involved in that. It would improve oversight of currency exchange rates. It would ensure that the Treasury Department properly identifies countries that undervalue their currency. Under the Omnibus Trade Act of 1988, the Treasury Department is required to formally identify countries that manipulate their currency for the purpose of gaining an unfair competitive trade advantage. In recent years, Treasury has found that certain country's currencies were undervalued. It was pretty clear and pretty obvious. Reputable economists from the Reagan administration, from the Carter administration, for years respectable economists were saying these currencies were undervalued 25 percent, 35 percent, some have said as high as 50 percent. It was pretty hard for the Treasury Department to say anything other than these countries' currencies were undervalued. However, based on the interpretation of the law's legal standard for a finding of manipulation, the finding of the word ``manipulation,'' Treasury has refused and continues to cite such countries as currency manipulators. Our legislation is bipartisan. As I said, five Republicans, five Democrats are the primary sponsors. It got 79 votes. Three Democrats voted against moving the bill forward yesterday; 16 Republicans voted against it. So it has broad bipartisan support. But what is amazing is the President of the United States, in either party--President Bush was negligent in finding of manipulation. President Obama has been negligent in finding manipulation. I will give some credit to President Obama in his move, in some cases, of actually doing real enforcement of trade rules and trade laws. It has turned immediately into job growth in the Mahoning Valley, a new steel mill, in Finley with tires, in southwest Ohio with paper. But the President and the Treasury Department have just neglected to do their duty; that is, interpreting and saying China has manipulated currency. The biannual release of this statutorily required report to Congress is almost a Washington charade. Last year, Secretary Geithner even announced he would delay the report's release. I care less about the exact timing of this report than I do the administration's willingness to be open with Congress and the American people about what it is doing and why it is doing it. But here is why it is important. Some argue the Commerce Department already has the authority to treat currency manipulation as an export subsidy and apply countervailing duties. But the Commerce Department has tended to also kick these decisions down the road, duck the issue of currency manipulation when it investigates other subsidies. The bill puts an end to that bureaucratic end-around. I told a story earlier today on the Senate floor. I would like to repeat it, briefly. A trade lawyer representing a southwest Ohio paper company told me China did not even have a coated paper industry, the glossy paper magazines are typically printed on--did not even have that technology until a decade or so ago. When they started those companies in China, they bought their wood pulp in Brazil, they shipped it to China, they milled it in China, and they sold it back here--at the high cost of transporting something as heavy as paper, as bulky as paper, for the price of paper; it is a pretty expensive move to ship it from Brazil to China to the United States. The cost of labor is only about 10 percent of the production of paper. Yet China has found a way to underprice Ohio paper and underprice paper made in other parts of the country. It is pretty clear that is, in part, because they get a 25-, 30-, 35- , 40-percent basically add-on benefit for their price because of currency manipulation. That is why, in part, they are being able to do that. They are probably subsidizing their water, their energy and their land and their capital also, so that they can underprice us. That is why this is so serious. Ohio workers have lost jobs because China has gamed the currency system. That is all we should need to know. American companies have folded, have gone out of business, because China has cheated on its trade policies, not following the rule of law in the World Trade Organization. That should be enough to get 100 votes in this body. It got us 79 yesterday. Our bill makes it clear that countervailing duties can be applied when imported goods benefit from currency manipulation as an export subsidy. The bill would establish new criteria to identify countries misaligning currency--and trigger tougher consequences for those who engage in such unfair trade practices. We can no longer accept China and other countries doing whatever it takes to make their exports cheaper. We can no longer accept that China continues to mount a massive trade surplus in the United States. It is time to enforce the trade laws, and it is time the WTO enforces its rules. Critics claim this bill would ignite a trade war with China. Frankly, they declared a trade war at least one decade ago. If it is not a trade war, critics assert this bill is not compliant with our World Trade Organization obligations. I have listened to many multinational companies argue our bill will provoke retaliation by China. My question to these detractors is, How can China impose retaliation against something that is, in fact, WTO legal? But since receiving PNTR status and the benefits of WTO membership, China has taken money from American consumers and investors without fully opening its markets to American businesses and workers. The results are record trade deficits and millions of lost jobs in Ohio and across the United States. These arguments come from the same proponents of giving China PNTR status and WTO membership, so China would adhere to a rules-based trading system--and they predicted and promised in 2000, when it passed, that China would adhere to a rules-based trading system. They have not been. People care about our exports to China, as do I. Remember, currency undervaluation makes exports harder to sell also. Yes, our exports have grown in China. But while U.S. exports to China have increased to China, they have not come close to balancing imports from China. Imports from China have grown faster--in fact, about three times as many as we export to China. Look at our trade deficit with China versus the rest of the world. In 2000, China represented 26 percent of our total trade deficit. Last year, it was just over 70 percent. In the space of 10 years, look how this changed. That is the whole story. Currency is a big factor that cannot be denied. While many multinational companies don't say it, I think it is clear that even the most ardent proponents of China PNTR are feeling a bit of buyer's remorse because of China's aggressive protectionism. Others, in criticizing this bill, will say there is nothing we can do to bring back the jobs we have lost--that Americans don't want to work at those jobs anymore anyway. That is a pretty naive view of American manufacturing. My State is No. 3 in manufacturing. California, which has three times the population, and Texas make more than we do. If we don't act, we are not just talking about jobs in textiles or steel or tires, which are important; we are talking about jobs in clean energy, semiconductors, and auto supplies. A trade war? WTO compliance? Retaliation? We welcome this debate. I want colleagues to come to the floor--some of the 19 who opposed moving this bill forward, when they say China will start a trade war and talk about WTO compliance and retaliation. The fact is China has been playing that trade war for 10 years. The American people have been patient as the administration continues a strategy of talk without action. But our patience is up, as more U.S. businesses are undercut and more U.S. jobs are eliminated. This bill is about economic competitiveness, where everyone is competing in the market by the same set of rules. I have been to maybe 150 manufacturing plants in my State in the last 3, 4 years. I know American businesses can compete and American workers can compete. Let's make the playing field level, and S. 1619 will help us do that. I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I thank Senator Levin. There is no better team in any State in the country than Senator Levin and Senator Stabenow. With all the troubles they have had in that State with manufacturing, as has my State, they are always on the right side of these issues and advocating for local companies, especially small companies that feed into the auto supply chain, and for the workers of those companies. So I am appreciative of his leadership for so many years. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I, first of all, thank Senator Snowe for her leadership on this currency legislation. Its time has come, as she has said. She has been a real leader on this for months-- years, for that matter. I so appreciate her work on this problem. Pure and simple, this is the most important bipartisan jobs bill the Senate will pass in my 4\1/2\ years since I have been a Member of the Senate. Senator Snowe has been here a good bit longer and has been a member of the Finance Committee that understands these issues of how China has gamed the system. Senator Snowe and I were joined in our legislation, combining it with Senator Schumer and Senator Graham in their legislation, also Senator Stabenow, a Democrat from Michigan; Senator Sessions, a Republican from Alabama; both Senators from North Carolina, Senator Burr, a Republican and Senator Hagan, a Democrat; joined by Senator Casey and the other Maine Senator, Senator Casey from Pennsylvania, a Democrat, and the other Maine Senator, a Republican, Senator Collins. And that just shows the bipartisan support. We had this vote today. On S. 1619, the cloture vote was 79-19, which is a strong message to the House and to our colleagues that this legislation as we debate this week is so important. It is deserving of basically a week of the Senate's time to discuss and debate what China trade is all about. We know what China trade is all about. We know, as Senator Snowe said, the trade deficit with China has ballooned in the 10 years since China has been part of the World Trade Organization. Think of it this way. Every day we buy $750 million more from China than we sell to China--every single day--Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday--every day of every week every year. So for the past year, $750 million we buy from China more than we sell to China. You just can't keep doing that. You can't keep doing that and hold the industrial base that the people of Oregon, the people of Maine, the people from Ohio care about. Look at it this way. I don't want to inundate my colleagues with figures and numbers and dollars and job numbers and all that, but President Bush I said $1 billion in trade surplus or trade deficit translates into 13,000 jobs. He said that 15 years ago. No President has quantified that since. But think about that. Thousands of jobs for every $1 billion in trade deficit or surplus. Well, with China alone, we have three-quarters of $1 billion every single day. Our trade deficit with the whole world is $600 billion, more than that. So we buy $600 billion more than we sell to the world every year. How can a country, no matter how wealthy--and this is a rich country still, even though millions of people have been unemployed, have lost manufacturing jobs in my State and other States across the country. How can we continue as a prosperous nation if manufacturing is outsourced and these jobs go somewhere else? I don't believe ever that I can think of in world history--and I have said this before and nobody has challenged it--have we seen a business plan of American companies moving to China, manufacturing there, and then selling back to the United States. A company such as Proctor & Gamble, on the other hand, they moved production to China, but they sell from their Chinese operations to China, East Asia, probably Taiwan and maybe Japan and Malaysia. They have their production in the areas they sell to. That makes perfect sense. That is good for those countries, good for those workers, good for the United States, and good for Cincinnati where Proctor & Gamble is located. But these companies that have it as their business plan to shut down production here, move to China, and then sell those products that they make in Shanghai and Wuhan and Beijing instead of in Akron, Canton, and Toledo--sell those products back to consumers in Oregon, Ohio, and Maine--that is why this legislation is so important. A new study said we have lost 2.8 million jobs in the last decade to China because of currency manipulation; 1.9 million of those jobs are in manufacturing. You know what has happened in places such as Portland, and the Senator from Maine knows what has happened in her Portland, and what that has meant to lost jobs in this country. And understanding the reason that happens is because China games the system, because China doesn't play fair--pure and simple, say it straight, because China cheats. They have been given, for all intents and purposes, a 25 or 30 percent subsidy to their products. So because they cheat on currency--putting aside how they subsidize their paper industry, for instance, with water and capital and energy and land. Just on currency alone, when they sell something into the United States, they have a 25 to 30 percent cost advantage. I know companies in places around my State, in Mansfield, Springfield, Zanesville, Chilicothe, will say that the cost of raw materials is higher than the cost of the product when it comes from China. Why? Because China cheats. And one of the ways they cheat is they undervalue their currency so they have a 25-percent discount on their products sold into the United States. We can't compete with that, no matter that our workers are efficient, no matter that our companies are efficient, no matter that we cut costs in so many ways with the more advanced technologies and advanced manufacturing that we do. So that is why this was such an important step, passing overwhelmingly and sending to the floor for debate today--79-19--this bipartisan jobs bill called the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight and Reform Act of 2011. Earlier today I was in Cleveland and I had a meeting with two owners of a company in Brunswick, OH, more or less a Cleveland suburb, Automation Tool & Dye. It is a family company that has been in operation since 1974. The owners, the two sons, Randy and Bill Bennett, spoke today about their company. They have, I believe they said, 55 employees who are a major part of American manufacturing. They are the kind of company that when it is such a disadvantage on currency, it puts them in a less than competitive position sometimes. They are still doing OK, but they know how hard the business climate is when they are at that disadvantage. So when they are making products, because China has gamed the system and an American company might move to China to do production, they can't up and move their family company of 55 employees--they can't move to China to service the company that has moved to China because of the competitive disadvantage. So we know how that has worked. We know why this legislation that Senator Snowe has worked on, the two bills we put together, Senator Snowe and my bill with Senators Schumer and Graham. As I said, we have had good strong bipartisan sponsorship on this bipartisan jobs bill and we have also had a very good vote today that was 79-19 to move this forward. The Economic Policy Institute issued a new report showing that addressing Chinese currency manipulation could support the creation of 2.25 million American jobs, mostly in manufacturing, mostly the kind of jobs that will create other jobs because of the wealth that Senator Snowe talked about, the wealth that manufacturing creates. And as Senator Snowe pointed out, when the opponents to this--and too often we have seen administrations of both parties oppose bills such as this. When opponents say this is protectionism, I don't know what is wrong with protecting our families and protecting our neighbors and protecting our country. But ceding that, they say this is protectionism. This, in fact, is a reaction to Chinese protectionism. And the People's Republic of China has not really believed in the rule of law when it comes to trade. There is an emphatic strong insistence by the U.S. Senate that we do believe in the rule of law for international trade; that we do think all actors should behave. We do think that everybody in the trading system should work on a level playing field. Today was the biggest step I have seen the U.S. Senate take since I came here in 2007. We are going to have a long debate this week. Everybody is going to get their chance. Some Members of the Senate who wanted us to debate this are still not quite sure exactly where we go with this. I think it is pretty clear, though, that the U.S. Senate today reflects what the people of this great country believe: That we make things. My State is the third largest manufacturing State in America. Only Texas and California, States that are twice and three times our size in population, make more than we do. We know how to produce. We need to continue to produce. We know that manufacturing creates wealth. This is a huge victory--only a first step but a huge first step and a victory for American manufacturing to help us reindustrialize our country. I thank my colleagues for this 79-19 vote. I thank Senator Snowe especially for her terrific work on both sides of the aisle in getting this bill moving forward. It is going to matter for workers in Toledo, Dayton, Cleveland, and Columbus. And for that, I am grateful. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

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

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nomination: No. 359; that the nomination be confirmed the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order to the nomination; that any related statements be printed in the Record; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action and the Senate resume legislative session.