Sherrod Brown

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I appreciate the Presiding Officer recognizing me. I kind of switched places with him earlier. I was in the chair and listened to some comments from a number of Senators on the other side of the aisle. I did not come to the floor to talk about this, but I just cannot help myself sometimes. I heard these comparisons. When they talked about the economy, it all started January 20 of 2009, and they compared that day with today. What they left out of that picture is when Barack Obama became President, this economy was going like this. It was not like: He is President. Now things will get better. The 30 days after he was sworn in on January 20, 2009, we lost 700,000 jobs in this country. The next 30 days we lost somewhere in excess of, I believe, 600,000 jobs. The point is, what happened for the first several months, almost before President Obama could take a breath, before Congress, the House and Senate, controlled by Democrats then, could actually put a program in place and put policies in place that would respond to this terrible economy bequeathed to them and to us by this sort of Republican economic policy. The Republican economic policy was tax cuts for the rich, two wars not paid for, a giveaway to the drug and insurance industry, a bailout to the drug and insurance industry in the name of Medicare privatization, privatization/deregulation of Wall Street, and tax cuts that went overwhelmingly to the richest Americans. That is what got us into this. For them to say look at the number of jobs today, look at the number of jobs in January, 2009--they know that is a specious argument. They are disingenuous. They are not especially honest when they make that argument. The fact is, we have seen in the last 14 months--and I wish it were better. I went to Barberton, OH, this week and was at a plant expansion with 30 jobs. It is not enough, I wish it were 300. It is an Alcoa plant. They are hiring people. They are paying OK wages. I wish they were paying better wages. I wish they could hire more people. But we are seeing progress. In the last 14 months--they forgot to tell us this--we are seeing job growth every month, including manufacturing job growth, the lifeblood of the economy in my State. We are the third leading manufacturing State, only behind the States of Senator Cornyn and Senator Boxer and Senator Feinstein in the number of manufacturing jobs and their output. The point is, let's be honest when we have this discussion. We know our policies are not working as fast as we would like. But we know what their policies brought us--21 million private sector jobs created during the 8 years of Bill Clinton; then when they put in the Bush economic policies: tax cuts for the wealthy, twice; two wars, not paying for them; partial privatization of Medicare; deregulation of Wall Street--1 million private sector jobs created in 8 years; 21 million versus 1 million. Tell that story too. I am not saying we have every answer--we don't--but we are making progress in spite of their saying no to everything we are trying to do. We have to look at the future. The biggest problem we have in this country is the decline of the middle class and we have to address that. That is why I came to the floor, because even though we are in the midst of this budget debate as everyone is talking about, the focus has to stay on jobs creation. It has to be: How do we create jobs in this country? One way not to create jobs is what Senator Casey talked about an hour or so ago, and that would be three new trade agreements that too many people on both sides of the aisle want to foist on the American people. This morning, the Senate Finance Committee and House Ways and Means Committee were both having what are called mock markups of free-trade deals with three countries: South Korea in Asia, Colombia and Panama in our hemisphere. The Senate Finance committee is including trade adjustment assistance. The House does not even care to take care of workers who lose their jobs because of these trade agreements. They are expendable. They are a bunch of 50-year-olds who do not have much education and, if they lose their jobs, who cares? That is what they are saying in the House Ways and Means Committee. We will pass this legislation. When people lose their jobs, there is nothing we can do to help them. But there is, and we have had something called trade adjustment assistance for 50 years and it has been bipartisan, until this group of radicals who run the House of Representatives decided we don't want trade assistance adjustment anymore. In the last decade alone, 6 million manufacturing jobs, 55,000 manufacturing plants have been lost. Multinational companies are too easily setting up companies overseas and exporting products back into the U.S. market. Is there any time in world history where the most compelling business plan for a company is shut down what they do in their home country, move production far away to another country where they have lower wages, fewer regulations, a government that is not exactly free, make those products there, and sell them back to the home country? This business plan that so many American companies follow is move production overseas where they can get cheap labor and weak regulations in a totalitarian government and then sell the products back to the home country. That is a business plan that far too many American companies have, obviously, followed. Manufacturing now accounts for less than 10 percent of employment in our country. That is partly because of NAFTA, partly because of the CAFTA, partly because of the China permanent normal trade relations. They only accelerate our decline and the country pays for it today. The public has heard promises of job creation from trade deals before-- every single time: NAFTA would create this many jobs, CAFTA would create this many jobs, PNTR would mean more prosperity and jobs for Americans. The Korean deal is more of the same. The International Trade Commission projects the Korean Free Trade Agreement would increase the U.S. trade deficit. The Economic Policy Institute estimates the loss of at least 150,000 jobs from this agreement. The Korea pact has unusually low rules of origin, allowing manufactured goods containing up to 65 percent of components from China or any other country to obtain the benefits of the agreement. What happens is a company in Seoul, South Korea--after this trade agreement would pass, if it does--would contract with the Chinese; 65 percent of the product would come from China, be sold into South Korea, South Korea puts its value added on it, sends it to the United States duty free, tariff free, even though 65 percent of it was made in China. Pundits and the editorial boards say agreements such as these are no- brainers. They say trade adjustment assistance is just a payoff to workers for passing more job-killing trade agreements. The Washington Post editorial board--always a creative thinker of the future and wrong in their predictions on war, wrong in their predictions on trade, wrong in their predictions on labor law, but nonetheless the Washington Post editorial board called TAA a consolation prize. Once again, they get it wrong. Not many editorial writers in the Washington Post, frankly, have lost their jobs in trade agreements. They don't seem all that interested in people in Steubenville and Lima and Zanesville who actually have lost their jobs because of these trade agreements which the Washington Post editorial board always supports. We need to focus on retraining workers who are displaced because of past free-trade deals. But even this historically bipartisan program, as I said earlier, is suddenly becoming controversial. It was operated through numerous administrations, supported by Republicans and Democrats alike, and ensures workers who lose their jobs and financial security as a result of globalization have an opportunity to transition to new jobs in emerging sectors of the economy. It helps retrain workers for new opportunities. In the 2010 fiscal year alone, more than 225,000 workers participated in the TAA program, receiving training for jobs employers are looking to fill. It is common sense. Senator Casey stood on this floor--he in that row, I in this row--and asked repeatedly for his colleagues to extend this vital job training program. Under the rules of the Senate, one of them stands and objects, time and time again. We did get a 6- week extension, but since mid-February, this part of trade adjustment assistance is simply not available to so many people in New Mexico and in Ohio and in Pennsylvania and across the country. Senator Casey and I introduced the TAA bill last week that would extend TAA for 5 years. We paid for it. We know it is no panacea for bad trade agreements. It is not the price workers in my State want to pay while Congress passes more trade deals. We must stand for workers before even considering new trade agreements. We must focus on real job creation. A big part of that is standing against China's unfair currency regime that they have inflicted on this world trade regimen for a number of years. With our trade deficit, also comes trading partners manipulating their currency to undermine our manufacturers. They have repeatedly found ways to circumvent trade laws to gain an unfair advantage. In 2010, our trade deficit was $634 billion. That means every single day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year--every single day we buy more than $1.5 billion more in goods than they sell internationally. With China, our trade deficit was $273 billion. That means several hundred million dollars every day we purchase from China more than we sell to China, every single day. President Bush once said that a $1 billion trade surplus or a $1 billion trade deficit translates into 13,000 jobs. Think about that. If we have a trade deficit of $1 billion, according to President Bush-- these are not my numbers--both President Bushes, by and large, supported both of these trade agreements--by and large, we lost 13,000 jobs, mostly manufacturing, in Indiana and Ohio and New Mexico and around the country. Do the math. If our trade deficit is $200 billion with China, we know what that means. Ten years ago, our trade deficit in goods with China was $68 billion. These geniuses who come up with these trade agreements, supported by the editorial boards, supported by Harvard economists, supported by Presidents, supported by pundits who are in Washington and probably do not get outside of Washington much--we had a $68 billion trade deficit with China when the most effective corporate lobbyists in the history of the world came to this institution, came to the House and Senate, and sold a majority of House and Senate Members that PNTR with China was a good idea. We had a $68 billion trade deficit with China then. Now it is $273 billion. They told us: We are going to sell more goods. We are going to do better with our deals with China when we have this. In the last couple minutes, I would point out Senator Snowe and I proposed bipartisan currency reform for the Fair Trade Act to ensure our trade deficit is not further increased when countries such as China manipulate their currency to make their exports less expensive so they can break into our market and keep us out of their market. The legislation passed overwhelmingly in the House last year. Our bill would strengthen countervailing duty laws to consider undervalued currency as an unfair trade subsidy in determining duty rates. When an Ohio industry such as coated paper in Hamilton, OH, or steel in Lorain or aluminum in Sidney, when they petition the International Trade Commission for relief against unfair subsidies, they can talk about--include in that petition--the charge of currency manipulation. The bill sends a signal to our trading partners we are not going to sit there while countries gain the unfair advantage over Americans workers and businesses. Before pursuing more free-trade agreements, lets focus on enforcement and focus on addressing currency manipulation. Let's level the playing field so we can fight back and stop this terrible hemorrhaging of American manufacturing jobs. I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

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

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 10 minutes.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, we just went through the July 4 weekend celebrating our independence on July 4, 1776. On July 5, 76 years ago, something else happened that was very important in our country and very symbolic of what we stand for as a nation. I heard the Presiding Officer from Maryland talk a moment ago about the values we hold as a nation and how important it is to convey those values in everything we do in this body. What happened on July 5, 1935, was President Roosevelt signed something called the National Labor Relations Act, and we know what came out of the National Labor Relations Act and the other reforms of that era, in addition to Social Security and the CCC and some other things, was the concept and the implementation of collective bargaining. Collective bargaining is a right the American people have to join voluntarily in a collective bargaining unit--generally a labor union--and negotiate on behalf of hundreds or thousands of fellow workers for wages, health care, pensions, vacation days, and other things. I mentioned that because just late last week something remarkable happened in my State of Ohio. In Columbus, in response to the State legislature taking away those collective bargaining rights and a radical departure from 75 years of collective bargaining, national private sector success, and 30 years of Ohio collective bargaining for public employees' success, the legislature passed a radical act earlier this year to take away those collective bargaining rights for public employees. We know it is a direct assault on the middle class. We know it will mean a declining and shrinking middle class. We know the biggest threat to this country today, to our economy, to our country, and to our country's families is that the middle class is shrinking and the middle class is declining. I call them radicals because it is a direct hit, a direct violation of what we stand for as a nation: the right to organize and bargain collectively and voluntarily. We have seen these public employees--and who knows what is next--have those rights taken away. We know what will be next: prevailing wage, the right to work--all the kinds of things that procorporate conservative politicians have tried to do for some years. We basically had a consensus in this country. We had a consensus on Medicare, a consensus around minimum wage, a consensus about safe drinking water and clean air, a consensus about collective bargaining rights on which 80 percent, 90 percent of the country agreed. We had disagreements around the edges on the environment or safe drinking water, Medicare, but by and large there was a consensus on what we did here. What we saw earlier this year in Ohio was an assault directly on those values. They are going after collective bargaining rights. In another piece of legislation they are going after voter rights. In another piece of legislation they are going after women's rights. In Washington they are going after Medicare. Let me go back to collective bargaining. What happened last week is something remarkable. In Ohio, unlike many States, after a bill passes and becomes law and is signed by the Governor, there are 90 days to gather signatures. I believe in Ohio's case 250,000 signatures are needed to place on the ballot a referendum. In other words, if this goes on the ballot, the voters have a chance to repeal that bill. When the radicals in the legislature took away collective bargaining rights and the Republican Governor signed it, a group of Ohio citizens put on the ballot a repeal of taking away collective bargaining rights. They needed about 250,000 signatures. You know how many they had? They submitted last week 1.3 million signatures. Mr. President, 1.3 million people signed saying: We want this to go on the ballot to repeal this radical measure of the State legislature Republicans. No Democrats in either House voted for this to repeal what they were doing. That's 1.3 million signatures. In fact, they brought a truckload of boxes of signatures. In the Office of the Secretary of State they had to send in a structural engineer, literally, to make sure the floor--I think it is on the 14th floor--could support the weight of these 1.3 million signatures. I note Senator Cardin and Senator Whitehouse, when they come to the floor, oftentimes talk about the overreach, the radical nature of what conservative far-right politicians are doing in this country right now. The overreach, going after bargaining rights, going after Medicare, going after minimum wage, putting tax breaks--tax breaks are really earmarks for the rich in the Tax Code--all of these kinds of things they are trying to do are unravelling so much of what we fought for as a nation for so many years. The good news in Ohio this week: 1.3 million people said they have had enough. We are not going to stand for this. We are not going to tolerate this radical overreach that Governor Kasich and legislators are doing in Columbus and House Republicans and far too many Members of the Senate are doing in this body. That is good news. I think we move forward from there. I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 23, 2011, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Reauthorization of the National Flood Insurance Program, Part II.''

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 23, 2011, at 10 a.m., in room SD-215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Health Care Entitlements: The Road Forward.''

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 23, 2011, at 10 a.m.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 23, 2011, at 10 a.m., to hold a hearing entitled, ``Evaluating Goals and Progress in Afghanistan and Pakistan.''

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 23, 2011, at 10 a.m., in room SD-430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Stories From the Kitchen Table: How Middle Class Families are Struggling to Make Ends Meet.''

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 23, 2011, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``Federal Regulation: A Review of Legislative Proposals.''

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 23, 2011, at 2:15 p.m., in room 5D-628 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing entitled ``The Indian Reorganization Act--75 Years Later: Renewing our Commitment to Restore Tribal Homelands and Promote Self-Determination.''

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on June 23, 2011, at 10 a.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct an executive business meeting.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 23, 2011, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 23, 2011, at 10 a.m., in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Water and Power be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 23, 2011, at 2:30 p.m., in room 366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Peace Corps, and Global Narcotics Affairs and the Subcommittee on International Development and Foreign Assistance, Economic Affairs, and International environmental Protection be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 23, 2011, at 2:15 p.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Rebuilding Haiti in the Martelly Era.''

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on June 23, 2011, at 9:30 a.m. in room G50 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

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

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business for no more than 10 minutes.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, last week Minority Leader Pelosi and some of her colleagues signaled their intention to introduce a discharge resolution for a vote on H.R. 639, the Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act. I applaud those in this body and in the House of Representatives who want to push on currency reform and encourage the Speaker and House leadership to support this position. Similar legislation to this passed overwhelmingly with strong bipartisanship in the last Congress. Senator Snowe from Maine and I introduced that legislation in the Senate. It would strengthen countervailing duty laws to consider undervalued currency as an unfair subsidy in determining duty rates. What does that mean? What that means is that in essence we have lost jobs in this country because too often the playing field in our trade relationship with the People's Republic of China is simply not level. We know that China in far too many cases subsidizes energy. We know they subsidize land. We know they subsidize capital. We know they subsidize production in various ways. We also know in terms of currency that China does not play fairly. When an industry such as the coated-paper industry in Hamilton, OH, in southwest Ohio, north of Cincinnati, or the aluminum industry in western Ohio, in Sidney, or the steel industry in Lorain, OH--when an industry petitions the International Trade Commission for relief against unfair subsidies, currency manipulation would be part of that investigation. That bill would make sure that happens. It is simple, it is straightforward, and it is achievable. It sends a signal to our trading partners that we will not accept unfair advantage over American workers and American businesses. I can't count the number of times--I know that in North Carolina the Presiding Officer has seen the same situation in textiles and other industries--where, simply put, American workers have trouble competing and American businesses have trouble selling their products because of unfair trade advantages that countries and companies in those countries have inflicted on the United States. Don't forget the stakes. We are all concerned about the budget deficit, to be sure, and we heard Senator Conrad earlier talking about that in a convincing and persuasive way. Cut the budget. Set it up long term, medium term. Don't do it right now, as Chairman Bernanke, a Republican appointee, says. That will cost us jobs. But build in deficit reductions. Think about the budget deficit, but don't forget the trade deficit. Over the last 10 years, particularly since most favored nation with China and NAFTA and the Bush administration's trade agenda on CAFTA and the other trade agreements and lack of enforcement on those trade agreements, we have seen job losses because of those trade agreements. President Bush once said that $1 billion in trade surplus or trade deficit translates into 13,000 jobs. Why is that? If you have a budget surplus of $1 billion, you have 13,000 more jobs in your country. If you have a trade deficit of $1 billion, you have 13,000 fewer. The reason is clear: If you have a $1 billion trade deficit, it means you are buying $1 billion worth of goods more from country X--China, let's say--than you are selling to China. That means $1 billion worth of more production is taking place in China than in the United States. That is OK, but when the numbers are hundreds of billions of dollars--our trade deficit is fluctuating between $400 and $750 billion, between $1 billion a day and $2 billion a day--that is real jobs. Multiply those job numbers--13,000 for $1 billion--and you see the kind of job losses we have in the United States of America, especially in manufacturing, hitting those communities such as Lorain or Mansfield or Springfield or Dayton or Youngstown or Cleveland or cities in western New York, in Syracuse or Rochester or cities in North Carolina. You can see what it has done in small towns and urban areas alike to our job growth. In April 2011, our total trade deficit in that month alone was $54 billion. Our trade deficit with China in that month alone was $21 billion. Paul Krugman, a columnist with the New York Times, said: If you want a trade policy that helps employment, it has to be a policy that induces other countries to run bigger deficits or smaller surpluses. A countervailing duty on Chinese exports would be job creating; a deal with South Korea, not. I am not here today to argue or debate or even be critical of the free-trade agreement with South Korea. I think it is a bad idea. I hear the promises of administration after administration. This administration at least has not overpromised, as the Bush and Clinton administrations did, on the creation of jobs and trade, but we know that every time there is a trade agreement, the trade deficit goes up and job loss accelerates, especially in manufacturing. The point is that one major thing we can do about this is what the House of Representatives is trying to do; that is, pass the Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act. It will simply mean that China and the United States are on a more even, more level playing field, a more even relationship. It will save and help to increase manufacturing jobs. We know manufacturing jobs are a ticket to the middle class. In Germany, 20 percent of its workforce is in manufacturing. Only 10 percent of our workforce is in manufacturing. Germany has higher unionization rates, higher wages, and a trade surplus. The United States has, as I pointed out, almost a $1 billion-a-day trade deficit with China--somewhat less than that; not much--and up to a $2 billion-a-day trade deficit with the world as a whole. Clearly our trade policy is not working. Currency reform is one major step in fixing that. It is something that I hope this Senate takes up sooner rather than later and that the House of Representatives does the same. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, Senate Republicans, in their typically unanimous way, just blocked this Chamber from even voting on the Economic Development Revitalization Act of 2011. We heard Senator Boxer point out how many Republicans have supported the Economic Development Administration many times in what they did for economic development in their States. We know in Vermont, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, how EDA works with small Federal investments, leveraging that money in the private sector through incubators, in many cases, or accelerators or whatever the communities call them, and they do, in fact, create jobs. Unfortunately, every Republican in this Chamber decided that wasn't such a good thing--perhaps to deny a political victory to President Obama. What it did was take away another tool to get this economy back on course. So many people in this body seem to think it is all about reducing the debt. It is about reducing the debt, but it needs to be largely about creating jobs. There doesn't seem to be that much interest in that on the other side of the aisle. Just last week, I spoke with economic development directors and county commissioners from the city of Moraine, a suburb of Dayton where a GM plant closed, and Ashtabula County, my wife's home county in the northeast corner of the State. They explained the importance of EDA funding and how it supports economic growth in their communities. EDA has traditionally been a noncontroversial and bipartisan job- creation bill. It helps broker deals between the public and private sectors, which is critical to economic growth and recovery. It is particularly important to economically distressed communities and in these types of economic times. Every $1 of EDA grant funding leverages $7 worth of private investment. For every $10,000--and this is one study, proven by evidence and fact--of EDA investment in business incubators, which helps entrepreneurs start companies, between 50 and 70 jobs are created. When we put money into the Youngstown incubator or a bit of Federal money into LaunchHouse in Shaker Heights--an incubator just launched, if you will--it creates jobs. It helps entrepreneurs and startup companies create jobs in our communities. Some of these businesses will fail. A few of them will wildly succeed. Many will hang on for several years, hiring 5, 10, 20 or maybe hundreds of people. In Ohio, since 2006, more than 40 EDA grants worth $36 million have leveraged a total of more than $87 million once private resources were matched. Colleges and universities from Bowling Green in the northwest to Ohio University in the southeast, to Miami in the southwest, have received EDA funds. So too have port authorities in Toledo and Ashtabula--the Presiding Officer's border with Erie--in that part of Ohio and entrepreneurs in Cleveland and Appalachia. If we are going to strengthen our competitiveness, communities will need to equip businesses with the tools they need to survive, and communities will need to create higher skill, living wage jobs and attract private investment. That is what EDA is designed to do; it is the ``front door'' for communities facing sudden and severe economic distress. When economic disaster hits, communities turn to the government, and in so many cases it is EDA that does the job. EDA has helped redevelop the former GM plant in Moraine--several thousand GM jobs, Frigidaire jobs. Because of EDA, local partnerships, and outside private investments, we expect to see hundreds and hundreds, maybe a few thousand jobs in manufacturing in that Moraine plant. We have seen EDA help redevelop the DHL plant in Wilmington. Ashtabula's Plant C received EDA investments to make vital repairs. The bill Republicans just blocked us from even voting on would have strengthened a proven job-creating program. How many times do we hear about businesses worried about uncertainty created in a still recovering economy? This bill would have provided certainty in funding for an established job-creating problem. It would have reduced regulatory burdens to increase flexibility for grantees. It would have encouraged public-private partnerships that we have already seen make a difference across Ohio. I offered two amendments that would have further strengthened EDA. One would have assisted former auto communities when a plant closure or downsizing causes economic distress, such as Wilmington or Moraine. The other would have made more Ohio communities eligible to receive funds for business incubators. Ohio is the home of the National Business Incubator Association--the trade association for all incubators in southeast Ohio and Athens. We have a model for business incubators in Toledo, Youngstown, and now Shaker Heights. This amendment would have allowed more Ohio communities to support homegrown entrepreneurship. Republican Senators chose to bog down the EDA bill with other unrelated amendments. All of them were unrelated to the task at hand; that is, how do we create jobs? Just yesterday, I was at Cleveland State University, where its Veteran Student Success Program goes above and beyond in serving our Nation's veterans. Unemployment among young Americans is especially acute and disproportionately affects young veterans, and that is an outrage. Today, the unemployment rate for returning servicemembers between 20 and 24 is 27 percent--almost 3 times the national unemployment average. That means more than one in four veterans can't find a job to support his or her family, easing the transition to civilian life. When our economy needs their skills, when veterans can get the job done, too often veterans are turned away. Cleveland State University has a Project SERV Program to ensure servicemembers who return home and into the classroom receive the educational benefits they earned and deserve. Imagine the difficulty for someone 25 years old, who has done two combat tours in Iraq, who comes back to Cleveland or to Philadelphia or anywhere else in this country and tries to integrate into a classroom of 18- and 19-year-olds who have seen nothing like the 25-year-old who has been in combat in Iraq or Afghanistan. This Project SERV at Cleveland State has been groundbreaking and is one of the few in the country--and now at Youngstown State University. What they are doing is establishing veteran support programs at colleges and universities. It started as an idea at a community roundtable I convened at Cleveland State a few years ago. It became law in the last Congress, and we have ensured its funding. Yesterday, I met with Clarence Rowe, a staff sergeant in the Marine Corps, who is using the veterans resources at CSU to translate his military skills to the needs of the civilian job market. But as much as CSU and other universities do to assist our veterans, high unemployment continues to hurt all Americans. Too often, people such as Staff Sergeant Rowe, who has put years into serving his country, come back and, even with developing their job skills in school, they simply can't find jobs. Education, workforce investment, and EDA have long been sound Federal investments that have helped to create jobs and strengthen our economy. It is a shame Republicans have yet again placed a roadblock on the pathway toward a strong and more prosperous middle class. We can do better than that. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, while it is important to address the Federal budget deficit, too many Washington politicians have turned a blind eye to the U.S. trade deficit. Working families in Ohio and our Nation's manufacturers haven't forgotten about the devastating effects of our ballooning trade deficit. How much bigger does our trade deficit need to get before Washington wakes up and realizes we need a very different direction in trade? Let's put American workers and American businesses first for a change. Let's focus on enforcing existing trade laws and helping workers retrain for new jobs. Let's not pursue more of the same style of trade agreements that have wreaked havoc on our economy. That is really what the debate over the Korea trade agreement and the Panama and the Colombia Free Trade Agreements is all about. Two weeks ago, Senator Casey and I wrote a letter to the President, which 43 other Senators signed--in fact, it was signed by the Presiding Officer, the Senator from Rhode Island--affirming his decision to pass trade adjustment assistance for workers before proceeding to the trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. Our position on TAA has been consistent since we asked unanimous consent to pass TAA in late 2010. We need a long-term reauthorization regardless of what we do on these free-trade agreements. Senator Casey and I stood on this floor time after time, starting in December and into January and February, asking all of our colleagues to reauthorize, to extend trade adjustment assistance to those workers who lose their jobs through no fault of their own; they lose their jobs because of trade agreements this Congress passes and because of a trade policy this administration and Congress has followed. We are likely facing a situation in which TAA, unfortunately, is being linked with the free-trade agreements. If and when a deal is reached, we will examine both its contents and the process in moving it forward. But when it comes to American workers, we want at least a 5-year reauthorization of TAA, one that includes the 2009 reforms and provides for an 80 percent health coverage tax credit. Time and time again a Republican Member stood up and objected to our moving forward in helping American workers. I just don't understand, how people here want to pass these trade agreements knowing that workers will be dislocated, that plants will close down, people will lose jobs, and communities will be devastated because of the actions of this body in passing trade agreements. Yet they say, no, they don't want to do anything to help those workers. That is why we believe TAA should be separate from the free-trade agreements. I ask my colleagues--especially those who call the free- trade agreements with Korea and Panama and Colombia, the same people who called NAFTA and CAFTA and PNTR with China job creators--if that is the case, what sort of message does it send about these trade agreements if they must be linked to assistance for displaced workers? They are saying the only way they want to do TAA is to connect it to Korea or connect it to Colombia or connect it to Panama. They are acknowledging, then, that when we pass these trade agreements, it is costing us jobs. Why would we do that? Because of that, Senator Casey and I want a clean vote on TAA and a trade enforcement package, and we want to work with our colleagues to shape this package. For the Korea Free Trade Agreement, I have two concerns. The first is jobs--always jobs in these trade agreements. Ever since I have been in either the House or the Senate, every time there is a trade agreement-- whether it is the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993, PNTR with China--although not a trade agreement but allowing China into the World Trade Organization--or 2004 or 2005, if I remember right, when the Central American Free Trade Agreement passed the Congress, and now with Korea--the people behind these trade agreements have talked about all the jobs they will create. They tell us: Well, we are going to close our trade deficit because of these trade agreements. Never does that happen. When we passed NAFTA, we had a trade surplus with Mexico. Today, as Senator Casey pointed out, we have a $90 billion trade deficit with Mexico. When PNTR passed, my recollection from 12 years ago was that we had about a $10 billion or $12 billion trade deficit with China. Now our annual trade deficit with China is $273 billion--last year. This year, in 1 month it was $21 billion. So, it is pretty clear the promises made with regard to these trade agreements and the reality that exists are different things. They do not create jobs, they do not close our trade deficit, yet the promises continue. So my first problem with the Korea Free Trade Agreement is jobs. The ITC--the International Trade Commission--projects the Korea FTA will increase the trade deficit, especially in auto parts, transportation equipment, metal and iron, and textiles and apparel. The economy is still facing extreme challenges. Since President Obama took office--when we were losing 700,000 jobs a month in January and February of 2009--we have seen some job growth. In the last 14 months, we have seen manufacturing job growth for the first time since 1998. So things are starting to turn around. But the last thing we do when the economy is facing extreme challenges--the last thing we should do--is pass a trade agreement of this magnitude with its short-term and long- term effects on jobs. Finally, we have an administration that is being a little more truthful when it comes to promises about these trade agreements. As I said, during the NAFTA timeframe, we had President George H.W. Bush, and then President Clinton, who said it would provide all these jobs-- 200,000 jobs, I think one of them said. But this time, at least, the administration is not saying they expect this is going to create jobs. They say: This agreement is expected to support--whatever that means-- 70,000 jobs. But let's do the math. The Congressional Budget Office said the cost of this trade agreement--yes, this trade agreement costs money because we lose a lot of money in tariffs--is $7 billion over 10 years. That means if we are going to support--not create but support--70,000 jobs, and spend $7 billion to do it, the agreement costs about $100,000 for every job supported--again, not created but every job supported. This trade pact has unusually low rules of origin, allowing goods from Korea that are made with up to 65 percent of their parts from China or other countries. When the European Union negotiated their Korea Free Trade Agreement, they had domestic content rules of 55 percent, meaning that 55 percent of the components in a product had to come from South Korea. The Obama administration improved this over the Bush agreement, but only marginally, by saying only 35 percent has to come from Korea. That means 65 percent or two-thirds of the added value of the components of these products shipped from Korea, with basically no tariffs coming to the United States, can come from China or can come from a low-wage country with low or weak environmental laws and low worker standards and all of that. So it allows a back door for countries such as China to gain even more access to the American market. We all recognize that we live in a world with global supply chains. But this low domestic content threshold of 35 percent will clearly hurt American manufacturers over the long term. So let's be clear. This is not just a Korea Free Trade Agreement, it is effectively a global free- trade agreement. Second, the Korea FTA causes me concern because it includes what is called the ``investor-state'' enforcement in which a corporation is empowered to directly challenge laws as violations of a trade pact. Before the North American Free Trade Agreement, there was no such thing as investor-state relations. That meant that a company could not sue another foreign government. For instance, if the Canadians were unhappy with some U.S. law, the Canadian Government could sue the U.S. Government, but a Canadian company couldn't sue the U.S. Government. So what these investor-state provisions do is to undermine sovereignty. It undermines what we have done in this body. We fight in this body for strong clean air laws and strong environmental rules and strong pure food laws and strong consumer protections. Under the investor-state relations, a company in Korea could sue the U.S. Government for those kinds of strong environmental workforce safety or food safety laws. We don't want to give a company in another country the standing to undermine our sovereignty on laws that were democratically attained in this country. This mechanism is not necessary for a pact between two countries with well-established rules of law. We didn't do that in the U.S.-Australia Free Trade Agreement. It did not include these investor-state provisions. Why would we do it now with Korea, which is also a country that operates under a rule of law? One more reason this Korea Free Trade Agreement undermines our sovereignty, weakens our environmental laws, weakens our food safety laws, and dilutes what we stand for in the American values we hold so dear is about jobs, and it is about these investor-state provisions which undermine our sovereignty. Before pursuing more of the same style of trade agreements that caused our trade deficit to balloon to more than $600 billion, why not focus on enforcing existing trade laws? We know some things we ought to be doing before we look at passing new trade agreements. We need to better enforce trade laws. We have done that. President Obama, to his credit--and again, I don't agree with him on these trade agreements. I think he is wrong. But to his credit, more than any President I think in at least 25 years, President Obama has begun to enforce some trade rules. He enforced on oil country tubular steel. His decision created hundreds of jobs in Youngstown and Lorain, OH. His decision on Chinese tires created hundreds of jobs in Findlay, OH, and other places around the State in tire-building. His and the Commerce Department's decision on the Chinese gaming the system on coated paper, an industry that still exists in this country--not what it used to be, but it meant jobs in southwest Ohio and all over my State and all over States where paper is still manufactured in this country. Another thing we should do before a new trade agreement is we should consider reintroducing Super 301 so that we have the tools to fight back when countries such as China game the system. I am working with the Republican Senator from Ohio, the Republican Senator from Missouri, the Democratic Senator from Missouri, and the Democratic Senator from Oregon, Chairman Wyden of the Finance Committee's subcommittee, to begin to enforce customs duties and make sure companies in countries that evade these customs duties can no longer evade them. That will make a huge difference in job creation. Those are the kinds of things we should be doing. Paul Krugman, who has been a free-trader most of his life, a columnist for the New York Times, back in December said: If you want a trade policy that helps employment, it has to be a policy that induces other countries to run bigger deficits or smaller surpluses. A countervailing duty of Chinese exporting would be job creating here; a deal with South Korea, not. This comes from a Nobel Prize-winning economist, somebody who has in the past been supportive of these free-trade agreements, believing that they have created jobs. He realizes Korea won't create jobs. Beginning to enforce our trade laws is the way to go. I will close with this. Some years ago, President Bush said that for every billion-dollar trade surplus or every billion-dollar trade deficit a country has, it translates into 13,000 jobs. In other words, if we have a trade deficit with China of $1 billion, that would mean we are selling to them $1 billion less than we are buying from them, and the manufacture of those products we buy versus the ones we manufacture and sell is a net loss to the United States of 13,000 jobs. So for every $1 billion trade surplus or trade deficit, it translates into 13,000 jobs for that country. The trade deficit with China last year was $273 billion. The trade deficit we have with the entire world, the so-called multilateral trade deficit, was $634 billion. Mr. President, travel my State. Travel this country. See the kinds of manufacturing job loss we have had. We have lost manufacturing jobs from 1998, the last 2 years of the Clinton administration, all 8 years of the Bush administration, and the first year and a half of the Obama administration. We were losing manufacturing jobs through that whole process. Now we are starting to gain manufacturing jobs, but we can't continue to gain manufacturing jobs when we pass free-trade agreements that clearly cause more companies to shut down in our country and more of those companies to move abroad. The Korea Free Trade Agreement is a bad idea. It is imperative that we do what the President has said we should do and what so many of my colleagues have asked us to do; that is, pass trade adjustment assistance with a health coverage tax credit for those workers who have already lost jobs from trade agreements and from trade policy. It is the right thing to do. It is good for our country, it is good for our economy, and it is especially good for workers.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the period for morning business be extended until 6:30 p.m., 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 order for the quorum call be rescinded.