Sherrod Brown

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10 a.m. on Tuesday, April 5; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate proceed to a period of morning business until 11 a.m., with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each, with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the Republicans controlling the first half and the majority the final half; that following morning business, the Senate proceed to consideration of H.R. 4, 1099 repeal, under the previous order; further, that the Senate stand in recess from 12:30 to 2:15 to allow for the weekly caucus meetings.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, today I pay tribute to the life and military service of Navy LT Miroslav ``Steve'' Zilberman, who died 1 year ago today, while serving his adopted country with distinction and representing his family with honor as a devoted son, husband, and father. Lieutenant Zilberman immigrated to the United States from the Ukraine with his parents when he was 11 years old. The family settled in the suburbs of Columbus, OH, where he would graduate from Bexley High School and soon thereafter enlist in the U.S. Navy. The grandson of a Russian World War II pilot, Lieutenant Zilberman lived and breathed naval aviation. While serving in the Navy, Lieutenant Zilberman received a world class education, travelled across continents, and flew with the most elite fleet in the world. After excelling as a naval electronics technician for 2 years, Lieutenant Zilberman was selected to become an officer through the Navy's Seaman to Admiral Program. His commanding officer and fellow sailors recognized the strength of Lieutenant Zilberman's character, his officer potential, and his unquestionable loyalty to the United States. As a naval pilot, Lieutenant Zilberman was chosen to fly the E-2C Hawkeye, a crucial component of all U.S. Navy Carrier Air Wings and one of two propeller airplanes that operate from aircraft carriers. Always embracing new challenges with determination, Lieutenant Zilberman understood the requisite hard work and skill needed to become a top- notch E-2C pilot. He studied his aircraft inside and out, and was particularly proud of the nighttime landings he successfully completed. He once landed his E- 2C Hawkeye at night with only one engine functioning--a significant feat of balancing skill over nerves, displaying an implicit trust in his hours of training and studying. Commander Dave Mundy of the Carrier Airborne Early Warning Squadron 121--the VAW-121, also known as the ``Bluetails''--attests that Lieutenant Zilberman was one of the best pilots he had ever flown with. On March 31, 2010, Lieutenant Zilberman had been forward deployed for nearly 3 months. While returning to the U.S.S. Eisenhower after a flight mission over Afghanistan, Lieutenant Zilberman's plane crashed into the North Arabian Sea, approximately 5 miles from the aircraft carrier. One of the plane's dual engines lost oil and eventually failed. When it became clear to Lieutenant Zilberman that there was no way to safely land the plane on the flight deck, he ordered his crew to bail out. Lieutenant Zilberman fought valiantly to keep his plane steady long enough for his crew members to escape. He went down with his plane into the North Arabian Sea. Lieutenant Zilberman's crew members were rescued shortly after the crash, and the search and rescue effort salvaged portions of the aircraft. However, after searching more than 5,300 square miles for Lieutenant Zilberman, the search was called off and he was pronounced dead. Each day our servicemembers, like Lieutenant Zilberman, sacrifice their lives defending our Nation. Their acts of heroism are derived from a sense of duty, an obligation taken from the belief in the greatness of our Nation. But beyond their courage and bravery, our servicemembers are also husbands and wives, sons and daughters, and friends and neighbors. In addition to being a highly capable and daring pilot, Lieutenant Zilberman was known by his family and friends as someone with an infectious personality, as Commander Mundy has said, someone who could walk into a room and reduce any tension or stress. While on board the Ike, Lieutenant Zilberman stayed in touch with his family via video chat, where he read and danced for his children. Lieutenant Zilberman was a dedicated husband to his wife Karen, who was also his high-school sweetheart. He was a loving father to his son Daniel and daughter Sarah. And he was the loving son--and only child-- of devoted parents Anna Sokolov and Boris Zilberman. Today marks the 1-year anniversary since Lieutenant Miroslav ``Steve'' Zilberman's life was taken while serving our Nation. On behalf of a grateful State, I thank him for his service--and his family and friends for keeping his memory alive through their thoughts and actions that remind us of his sacrifice.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam President, we were considering, earlier this morning, when I was presiding--and through much of the morning--the Small Business Innovative Research bill. Senator Landrieu and Senator Snowe are leading very well on that issue. I would like to speak for a moment about another important issue for small businesses and workers everywhere; that is, our Nation's trade and globalization agenda. As my colleagues are aware, the Generalized System of Preferences, the so-called GSP, the Andean Trade Preferences for Colombia and Ecuador, and the 2009 reforms to the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program all expired in mid-February. I do not think too many people are happy about that. I am certainly not. I have offered amendments with Senator Casey and requested unanimous consent to pass both the Andean Trade Preferences and the Trade Adjustment Assistance, but my Republican colleagues objected. Others, such as Senator McCain, requested a unanimous consent on only the Andean Trade Preferences, and I have objected. I have objected because we cannot turn our back on American workers who lose their jobs through no fault of their own, only to, then, help workers in other countries. Since Congress made reforms to the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program in 2009--trade adjustment assistance has been with us since the Kennedy administration. It clearly works. When workers lose their job through no fault of their own, they get some assistance from the government to go back to school to get retrained so they can be productive workers again. Again, they lost their jobs through no doing of their own. But since Congress made the reforms in 2009, 170,000 additional trade-impacted workers became eligible for training under the TAA for Workers Program. So if somebody loses their job because of a trade agreement we pass in this institution--trade agreements that I think were wrongheaded: NAFTA, CAFTA, PNTR with China, other kinds of trade agreements with Australia and Jordan and Panama and Peru--when workers lose their job because of these agreements, we at least owe it to them to help them with trade adjustment assistance. But since this program expired last month, we have shut out service workers, we have shut out manufacturing workers who lost their jobs to countries we do not have a free-trade agreement with. So we do not actually have a free-trade agreement with China or India. We did something called PNTR with China. So if a worker in Dayton or Toledo or Findlay or Zanesville loses their job because of a trade agreement to China or India, they are out of luck. They do not get TAA. How awful is that? They worked at a plant, where that plant moved because of trade being moved to China, but they do not get any kind of assistance. It was not their fault. It should not work that way. In addition, improvements to the Health Coverage Tax Credit Program also expired. HCTC helps trade-affected workers purchase private health coverage to replace the employer-sponsored coverage they lost. Again, they lost their job because of a trade agreement. They cannot afford health insurance because they do not have much money and they get some tax credit from the government to help them be able to afford this health care. It has helped thousands of workers manage hospital costs, medication, and necessary doctor visits. Without it, not only do Americans lose their jobs, but they are at risk of losing their health insurance. They generally cannot afford their health insurance, which also may lead them more likely to lose their home and suffer from foreclosure. TAA--trade adjustment assistance--and HCTC--health coverage tax credit--have both expired. They must be renewed regardless of whether this Congress considers or passes any new trade agreement. Ambassador Kirk, the U.S. Trade Representative, will soon be submitting the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement to Congress. I have expressed my concerns about this agreement. I am concerned it will be a step backward for American manufacturing, especially in the auto industry. I am concerned that low-wage Asian nations will use Korea as a platform to export auto parts and steel--duty free--to the United States. They will come in from some country to Korea--maybe China, maybe India, maybe somewhere else--through Korea and then get access to U.S. markets duty free. These are serious concerns. This is not theory. This is based on what has happened since passing other free-trade agreements. Every time we pass a free-trade agreement, the supporters of it say there are going to be more American jobs and we are going to close the trade deficit. It never does. It is always false manufacturing jobs. In northern West Virginia and in much of my State, we have seen that inflicted on families day after day after day, and it means a larger trade deficit. At least we will have the time to debate and consider the Korean trade agreement. Unfortunately, several of my colleagues across the aisle don't even want to consider the Korean trade agreement unless it is packaged with the Colombia and Panama trade agreements. So on top of not extending trade adjustments, on top of not extending the health care tax credit, our Republican colleagues want to move on all three leftover Bush trade agreements: Korea and Colombia and Panama. These trade deals will not be winners for American workers. We know our exports increase with free-trade agreements. We also know our imports increase to a larger degree. The first President Bush said that when we have a trade surplus or deficit of $1 billion, it translates into 13,000 jobs. So a $1 billion trade deficit is 13,000 lost jobs. A $1 billion trade surplus is 13,000 increased jobs. That is President Bush's numbers. We can just do the math. We have trade deficits of hundreds of billions of dollars in this country, and when production jobs move offshore, innovation is not far behind. All of us, including the Presiding Officer, have gone through manufacturing plants, and what we see there are workers and engineers trying to figure out how to innovate and how to increase productivity, how to make production more efficient and less expensive. If we innovate in this country and invent in this country and then we send those jobs overseas for production, we begin to lose the innovative edge because over there, whether it is Mexico or China or India or Japan or anywhere else, when the production is done, then the innovation is also done on the shop floor. So while we brag about being the most inventive, innovative people on Earth--which we are--the future doesn't necessarily work that way as we outsource so many of these jobs. We have seen how these free-trade agreements give incentives to move production overseas, and instead of taking away those incentives, instead of giving incentives to American companies to manufacture over here, we do the opposite by passing the Korean Free Trade Agreement or Peru or NAFTA or CAFTA or any of those. Peru's President Garcia spoke to the U.S. Chamber of Congress before signing the Peru Free Trade Agreement. He said: ``Come and open your factories in my country so we can sell your own products back to the United States.'' Come sell your own products back to the United States. How is that good for American workers? How is that good for innovation? How is that good for American manufacturing? How is that good for American middle-class communities? It has become a business plan for far too many companies in this country. Think about, in the broad sweep of history, how often this has happened, where the business plan for a U.S. company is, they invent something here, then produce it in China, thousands and thousands of miles away, and then it is shipped back to the United States, back to the home country. That is the business model for far too many companies. If they were to set up in China and sell into China and east Asia, that would be one thing. But company after company after American company has gone abroad, done the production there, sold it back into the United States, so it is not providing the work for American workers that it should. Again, my colleagues are holding people who need retraining and adjustment hostage to another trade agreement. So they are saying: If you don't pass Colombia and Panama and Korea, then we are not going to extend trade adjustment assistance, we are not going to extend the health coverage tax credit. Free trade's biggest supporters put so much stock into these free- trade agreements and they do so ignoring the elephant in the room, and I am talking about our relationship with China. Congress approved China PNTR more than 10 years ago. We know what has happened. We have had literally $\1/2\ billion a day in trade deficits with China. That means we buy $500 million a day more in products from China than we sell to China. That is what a trade deficit of $\1/2\ billion a day means--that we actually are buying $500 million every single day more from China than we are selling to China. That is not a long-term sign of prosperity. That is not a long-term indicator of the strengthening of the middle class. Until we figure out where we are going on trade and put a halt to these trade agreements and look at what we need to do instead, we are going to continue to see the shrinking of the middle class. Last week, an appeals court of the World Trade Organization made a horrendous decision in favor of China against our trade remedy laws. The WTO has again overreached beyond WTO laws and rules against our antidumping and countervailing duty laws. These laws have been the only way to protect ourselves and protect our economy and protect our communities and protect our workers and protect our small businesses. One of the last tools we have to defend against unfair trade law are these trade remedy laws, and the WTO, with a bunch of bureaucratic trade lawyers, is taking them away. The WTO risks its own legitimacy with a ruling like this one. I urge the Obama administration to respond aggressively to this decision. I urge my colleagues to step back from this stalled trade agenda--step back from Korea, Panama, and Colombia. I urge my colleagues to examine instead what is in the best interests of American workers and businesses. We can find a balanced trade agenda that makes sense for our businesses, makes sense for our workers, and makes sense for our communities.

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 wish to speak for a moment on the continuing resolution and then speak on something else. It should not matter which political party we belong to. It is not right for any elected official to use the budget process to squander our economic potential and undermine our economic competitiveness. I see far too many people doing that in this debate. I also see we are looking in a small window of the budget--something like one-sixth of the budget is where all the cuts are--confining the discussion to that, without looking at a millionaire's tax, without looking at closing loopholes. We know, the Presiding Officer knows, if a company in Wheeling, WV, right across the river, or in St. Clairsville, OH, shuts down and moves to Mexico or China, they can actually deduct the cost of that move and that shutdown. That makes no sense. We need to close those tax loopholes. We need to look at the entire budget as we make these cuts. Yesterday, I was on the phone with the majority leader talking to Ohio and Nevada media and also with John Paul Hill, an Ohio veteran who, after being discharged from the Army, was left homeless and turned to drug abuse. With the help of a Housing-Urban Development-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing--called HUD-VASH--Grant Program, he has an apartment. His life is on track. He is enrolled in college at Cuyahoga Community College in northern Ohio and he is on track to graduate and will be very employable. Those are the kinds of cuts Republicans have made to maternal health care programs, to Head Start, to programs such as this for homeless vets. It is unconscionable that is the approach they have taken instead of much more serious long-term deficit reduction. We also know from what John McCain's chief economic adviser said that the Republican budget that came out of the House would result in 700,000 lost jobs this year because of their approach, and that is clearly not good, as this economic recovery has begun--not fast enough in West Virginia or Ohio or anywhere else in this country, but it has begun. So we do not want to undercut that. (The further remarks of Mr. Brown of Ohio are printed in today's Record under ``Morning Business.'')

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, I join the Republican leader in congratulating Senator Portman on his first speech on the Senate floor. I remember those days some 4 years ago when I had the honor of doing that. I know how close Rob and Jane are and their children. I have seen them often over the last year, and I know the sacrifice and difficulty of leaving home, as he points out. I know he feels that way about his family. I look forward to this relationship. I look forward to what we have been working to do, especially on manufacturing, on jobs. Senator Portman has visited some 80 manufacturing plants in the last 3 years. He sees what I see on the shop floors. If we keep these jobs in the United States--much of the innovation is done on the shop floor--we will continue to lead the world in innovation and continue to lead the world in job creation. That is the importance of working with small- and medium-size and large manufacturing companies. I also would add that Senator Portman already understands Ohio is the home of two major Federal installations, NASA Glenn in Cleveland and, in the part of the State I live in, Wright Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton. In the part of the State Senator Portman lives in, there is the Battelle Memorial Institute, in Columbus, which, while not a Federal agency per se, serves much of the Federal Government by running the country's energy labs. There is synergism among those three, coupled with Ohio State and Case Western. I met today with President Williams of the University of Cincinnati, Senator Portman's hometown. The kind of synergism that comes out of this and innovation and high- end manufacturing and all the kinds of things that he and Senator Portman and I will do together in job creation, whether it is USEC in southern Ohio or the solar industry in Toledo or the auto industry in the north or the aerospace industry in the southwest and throughout the State, this kind of work will absolutely matter to put people back to work and create the kinds of good-paying industrial jobs and good- paying other jobs Ohioans aspire to, to create a strong, vibrant middle class. I congratulate Senator Portman. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following Senators be recognized at the times listed below, as in morning business, for the purpose of giving their maiden speech to the Senate: Senator Portman from my State, following the maiden speech of Senator Coats on Tuesday, March 15, for up to 15 minutes, and Senator Blumenthal of Connecticut at 12 noon, Wednesday, March 16, for up to 20 minutes.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Merkley.) Without objection, it is so ordered.

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

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Earlier today in Columbus, OH, the State capital of my great State, I was at the Ohio State University's Fisher College of Business. We talked by phone with Under Secretary of Commerce Francisco Sanchez, who is one of the leaders at the Department of Commerce, on how to grow exports in this country. The President has charged the Congress, our businesses, encouraged all of us to find ways to double exports as a major path to economic growth, especially to grow manufacturing in our country. We know that for the last several months, we have seen manufacturing growth, albeit too small, but manufacturing growth in this country. That is especially important in Ohio. My State is the third leading manufacturing State in the country, behind only California and Texas, States which are two and three times our size in population. Yet Ohio has kept pace with doing relatively well in manufacturing. But we know what has happened to manufacturing in our country in the last 30 years. Only 30 years ago, manufacturing was more than one-quarter of our GDP, financial services was about 10 or 11 percent of GDP. In these 30 years that position has almost flipped. Financial services is over one- quarter of our GDP, manufacturing is only 10, 11, or 12 percent. That is why the President and his push on exporting is so important, not that we only export manufacturing goods, of course, we export services, as we should. But clearly manufacturing is a major component of that. I sit on the President's Export Advisory Council with leaders of the administration and the CEOs of some of America's largest companies and many successful mid-sized and small companies in this country. We had a meeting last Friday with Secretary Locke, Under Secretary Sanchez, Secretary of State Clinton, Jim McNerney of Boeing, Ursula Burns of Xerox, Alan Mullaly of Ford, as part of the President's export council. In Ohio, as a result, I have put together an export advisory council. We met today in Columbus. That is what our meeting was about, to talk about ideas. We heard from Albert Green of Kent Displays, William Dawson of NexTech Materials, Philip Irwin of Ametek Solidstate Controls, Randall Willaman of Command Ilkon, Inc., Mark Friedman of National Biological Corporation, Arlinda Vaughan from Volk Optical, and Ken Hagen from Fosbel. All of them raised concerns directly to the Under Secretary of Commerce and directly to me, concerns about corruption in Russia, concerns about tariffs in Brazil, concerns we all face and all of our companies face in breaking into the Chinese market, and many other concerns about everything from medical devices to export of services and all of that. So the meeting was important. I will mention one other. Susan Helper, the head of the Economics Department at Case Western, had particularly good thoughts about how we grow manufacturing in this country. We know those jobs are created by medium and small businesses. We also know that fewer than 1 percent of American companies actually export. Even as close as we are to Canada or to Mexico, only 1 percent of our businesses export. So we know we have to do much more. In Germany, for instance, 20 percent of their workforce is in manufacturing. They have a trade surplus with the rest of the world, while we have a huge almost insidious trade deficit. Germany has done some pretty interesting things in encouraging manufacturing. As many people point out, we have not had in our country a manufacturing policy. I spoke with Pat Russo tonight, who is the former CEO of Lucent Technologies and a couple of--she sits on the General Motors board and a couple of other people from the GM board I spoke to, and talked about the fact that we do not have a manufacturing policy in this country. That is why we are seeing other countries begin to do much better in manufacturing, while we have, by and large, drifted in our policies and our strategies on manufacturing. There are several things that came out of this meeting that we need to do. We need to pay particular attention on economic development assistance and creating economic development partnerships and business incubators. We need to pay special attention to help those companies get access to capital. That has been a vital roadblock--as the Presiding Officer from Oregon has been involved--a roadblock to our full economic recovery. We need to look at our R&D tax credits. Part of a national manufacturing policy should be increases in R&D tax credits, including making 48(C) a part of the Code that encourages conservation, encourages more efficiencies in energy production and in energy use, making 48(C) permanent. It means workforce training--our Sectors Act, which matches up what local businesses and labor unions and community colleges and workforce investment boards do to retrain workers so they find jobs after that training. That is why we are doing at end of the month our fourth annual Ohio College Presidents Conference, where I invite in some 55, 60 college presidents. We have done it for the last 3 years, since my second year in the Senate, to talk about these issues: How do we encourage people to become engineers? How do we help with access to college, particularly in light of the fact that Republicans are trying to cut Pell grants several hundred dollars per student, sometimes a couple of thousand, $3,000 a family, whatever. How do we fight back and make sure that students have access to education and to our higher education system, those who choose to go to college? We have a lot of work to do. All of this includes, as I said at the White House the other day in the meeting of the President's Export Council, while we work on exports, we need to fix our trade agreements, we need to fix our tax policy, we need to make sure those workers who lose their jobs because of trade--and this is so often forgotten about by my Republican colleagues--workers who lose their jobs because of trade have to be compensated. They need to be retrained. They need to keep their health care. That is why the Presiding Officer and I and many others have to fight for the extension--Senator Casey especially from Pennsylvania--of trade adjustment assistance and the health coverage tax credit, two long-time Federal programs. The TAA, Trade Adjustment Assistance, was started bipartisanly under President Kennedy in 1962. Those are so important for workers who have lost jobs through no doing of their own but because of trade agreements passed wrongfully, wrongheadedly in this body and in the House. Because of trade agreements they have lost their jobs. We need those workers to have the opportunity to be retrained and to continue to keep their health insurance after they have been laid off through no fault of their own. Our efforts to double exports is extraordinarily important for economic growth. At the same time it is important that we are sensitive to those workers who have lost their jobs because of trade policy. We can do this right. We can enforce our trade laws more aggressively as President Obama has begun to do. We can work on trade agreements. We can fix trade policy so it actually helps American workers and American consumers. Instead of practicing trade policy adopted out of a textbook that is 20 years out of print, we ought to be adopting a trade policy that is in our Nation's national interest. As we move with President Obama and this Congress toward a manufacturing strategy and, even better, a manufacturing policy such as most of the rest of the industrialized world has, we will all be in a better position to build a middle class in Oregon and Ohio and across the country. I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. Res. 100 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements related to the resolution be printed in the Record.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 101 which was introduced earlier today.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements related to the resolution be printed in the Record.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10 a.m. on Tuesday, March 15; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and following any leader remarks, there be a period of morning business until 11 a.m., with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each, with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the majority controlling the first half and the Republicans controlling the final half; further, that at 11 a.m. the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. 493, the small business reauthorization bill; and finally, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate recess from 12:30 p.m. until 2:15 p.m. to allow for the weekly caucus meetings.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, tomorrow, at 2:15 p.m., Senator Coats will be recognized to speak for up to 30 minutes to deliver his maiden speech to the Senate, and following his statement, Senator Portman will be recognized to speak for up to 15 minutes to deliver his maiden speech. Rollcall votes in relation to amendments to the small business jobs bill are possible throughout the day tomorrow.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

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

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, March is National Eye Donor Month-- a month--to honor those who have restored sight to blind or vision- impaired Americans across the country. For the last 28 years, since National Eye Donor Month was first established in 1983, the eye donor community has raised public awareness about the need for eye donation. Every March for each of the past 28 years, our Nation has honored dedicated individuals who work tirelessly at hospitals, medical centers, doctors' offices, and eye banks across the country to educate the public on the need for cornea donations and work with the transplant teams. We continue to give thanks to eye donors--and their families--who offered one last remarkable gift because they had the foresight to become organ donors. Eye donation provides a precious second chance at clear vision for those with ocular diseases. Approximately 11.4 million Americans experience severe visual problems that are not correctable by glasses. A parent or grandparent cannot see their children or grandchildren play a little league game or walk across the stage at graduation. And many children experience momentous life events--and everyday happenings-- without the eyesight that many of us take for granted. Thankfully and miraculously, through eye donation and corneal transplants, vision that has been lost to disease or injury or infection can be restored. Since 1961, more than 700,000 corneal transplants have been performed to restore sight to children as young as 1 day old and adults as old as 103. And corneal transplants are highly successful; 90 percent of all corneal transplant operations effectively restore sight to the patient. Each year, eye banks across the country provide 52,000 corneal grafts for transplantation. Ohio's Central Ohio Lions Eye Bank, COLEB, in Columbus performed corneal transplants for 340 patients in 2010. COLEB gave these 340 patients an opportunity to regain their sight and, with that, the ability to see their loved ones again--or for the first time. In southern Ohio, the Cincinnati Eye Bank for Sight Restoration, Inc., partnered with physicians at the University of Cincinnati to establish programs for public and professional education as well as conduct ocular medical research. The Cincinnati Eye Bank is able to serve 30 hospitals in southwestern Ohio, northern Kentucky, and eastern Indiana. In northern Ohio, the Cleveland Eye Bank, which serves nearly 5 million people and more than 60 hospitals in northern Ohio, created the Lasting Legacy program to honor the families of eye donors by publicly recognizing the donors' amazing gift of sight. Simply put, corneal transplants--made possible through eye donors-- change people's lives. But more must be done. Some 1,600 Ohioans each year could have their sight restored through corneal transplants but are unable to because there are not enough organ donors. I encourage all Americans to consider becoming eye donors. Even those without 20/20 vision or who have cataracts can donate. In Ohio, you can become an eye organ donor when you renew your driver's license. It is that easy. I also urge my colleagues to work with local eye banks and the Eye Bank Association of America to promote the precious gift of eye donation. While 700,000 people have had their sight restored since 1961, tens of thousands more are waiting. During this year's Eye Donor Month, I thank all those who continue to promote and advocate for eye donation and the gift of sight it gives.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, it is likely that neither the House nor Senate version of the fiscal year 2011 continuing resolution will pass this body. I would like to highlight one feature of both of the bills we are considering that I believe is truly misguided. Neither bill provides funding to continue the alternate engine program for the F-35 airplane. In the past, Congress has supported this engine in a bipartisan, bicameral way as a lower cost, higher performance alternate that will save billions in tax dollars and give the F35 engine program competition it badly needs. There has been significant misinformation circulated about the alternate engine program, which, based on previous experience with engine competition programs, should actually reduce the Federal deficit by more than $20 billion. During the 1980s, the Air Force and Navy jointly qualified second sources for the Sidewinder, Sparrow, Amraam, Maverick, Standard, Tomahawk, and Ham missile programs. In every case, buying from both sources brought costs down dramatically. That same strategy brought costs down and under budget for the FFG-7 frigates, DDG-51 destroyers, Aegis Cruisers, and attack submarines. Absent the F35 alternative engine program, a company that is currently $3.5 billion over budget will be the monopoly provider of the engine for the F35 airplane. This is not the way taxpayers want Washington to do business. The alternate engine program supports 2,500 jobs in the United States, 800 of those in Ohio. My State's unemployment rates is already 9.3 percent, and it would be a tragedy if we eliminate jobs that are actually serving to reduce federal spending and protect against faulty or delayed access to engines needed by our military. I am disappointed no funds are contained in either bill. I don't believe you walk quietly away from a $100 billion program that has billions of tax dollars invested in it without a vigorous debate. In deleting the alternate engine, both bills eliminated a line item today at the expense of significant savings downstream. We are not going to end the budget deficit by haphazardly taking dollars out of investments justified not only by their public policy purpose--in this case, equipping our military in the most responsible, efficient means possible--but by their potential to produce major downstream savings. It is unclear how the negotiations on getting a budget deal will proceed and it is equally clear that they will be hard. But the future of this engine must be on the agenda. Our safety and security as a nation and the seriousness of the budget choices that face us are simply too important to let expediency get the better of common sense. Exploring what is best for our military and our budget goals must be part of the continuing resolution negotiations.

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, we have all watched the news stories--from Madison, WI; Columbus, OH; Trenton, NJ, and other places around the country--where public employees, when you really analyze it, are paid more or less, including benefits and depending on the place, comparable to the private sector worker. Whether they are high school graduates or college graduates or whatever, the overall pay and benefits are pretty similar. We have seen around the country that these public employees are in most cases willing to share in the sacrifice of balancing budgets and share in the sacrifice of fighting back against this bad economy. In fact, we know that workers--teachers, police officers, nurses, people working at the unemployment bureaus, people working at the Department of the Interior, wherever--have taken pretty big hits already in terms of lost jobs, in terms of no raises, in terms of paying more for their health benefits. So we know that even though these are not the people who caused the recession any more than the workers at Lordstown, OH, assembling cars or Defiance, OH, building engines or Northwood, OH, making bumpers for the Chevy Cruze are responsible for the failure of the automobile industry, there just seems to be, as we have seen from these ideological conservative Governors, an assault all over the country blaming workers, whether they are public or private workers, for the problems in this economy. They continue to want to give tax cuts to the richest people on Wall Street, as they take their bonuses and make big dollars and see their incomes go like this, but as workers have pretty much had no real increase in the last 10 years--wages have been mostly stagnant--how can you blame the workers for this? That is what we have seen around the country. It has been so interesting. Two days ago in Columbus, OH, 8,500 people demonstrated not against budget cuts, because they know those are coming, but against this direct assault by the government--by the Governor and legislative leaders--on the right to organize and bargain collectively. That is a right that has been part of Americana, a part of our values for 75 years. Why do they think we have a middle class? We have a middle class because workers have been able to band together and say to a company that is very profitable: We should get some of that profit you are making because we are your workers and we have made your company more prosperous. Management is important and crucial, but workers are important and crucial. As worker wages go up, management wages typically go up. But we have seen worker wages remain stagnant, in part because of a lack of unionization or a decline in unionization. Now we are also seeing in Madison, Columbus, Trenton, Harrisburg, Indianapolis, Lansing, in these capital cities, especially in my part of the country, a real play on fear. They are trying to turn private sector workers against public sector workers. They blame the UAW--the auto workers--for the problems in the auto industry. Now they are blaming public workers for problems with State budgets and trying to work the private sector and union workers against each other, fighting with each other. That is the most base Karl Rove-type politics, to turn working-class people against one another. It is wrong. It is morally wrong, it is politically wrong, and it is very wrong for our country. What has also been interesting about these protests is that they are not all steelworkers and electricians and American Federation of Government Employees and AFSCME and SCMU. There are people of faith also involved. I did a roundtable at an Episcopal church right off statehouse square, and the leaders of the church and some of the volunteers of the church were there. Now, I don't preach or wear my Christianity on my sleeve, but these people of faith understand that the Bible talks a lot about poverty and a lot about fairness and equality and egalitarianism, if you will, but for them to go against workers on behalf of the richest people in our country--and that is really what they are doing in the Governors' offices in Columbus and Madison and Trenton and other places--runs counter at least to my faith. I will not judge their faith. They worship what God they worship and read what scripture they read. But when I look at what my faith means--and as I said, I am a Lutheran, I am not a Catholic--but when I look at Leo the XIII and what he said about what Catholicism means for workers and fairness, it is point, set, match. That clearly spoke definitively about this. Mr. President, I have said this on the floor before today, but I wear this pin on my lapel. It is the depiction of a canary in a birdcage. One hundred years ago, miners took a canary down in the mines. If the canary died from lack of oxygen or from toxic gas, the miner got out of the mine. He only had himself to depend on. He didn't have a government that cared much in those days to write safety laws, particularly child safety laws, on the mines. He didn't have a union strong enough in those days to fight back. Too many people who are ultraconservative--and there are many in both the Senate and the House--want to go back to those days. They want to eliminate worker safety laws, and they want to eliminate minimum wage. They are clearly going after collective bargaining and so many of the things we hold dear. Again, it wasn't the UAW workers, it wasn't the Service Employees Union workers at the State capital who caused this financial crisis. They have been the victims of it, just as a whole bunch of nonunion workers have. This financial crisis was caused by greed, by people overreaching, by the richest in our society grabbing and grabbing and grabbing for more wealth. Yet they are going to turn this--let's change the subject--against those workers. That has happened far too many times in our country. I am a new member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and I am lucky enough to serve on Senator Leahy's Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs. We brought the Secretary of State in--Secretary Clinton--to talk to us about the State Department's budget. One of the things she said--and I mentioned Madison and Columbus after she said it--but one of the things she said is, it has been unions in Egypt, it has been workers in Egypt and Tunisia and around the world, it has been workers who so often, sometimes through their unions--if they are allowed to have unions, sometimes through a more informal collection of people in what might look like a union but is not formalized--fought for freedom, fought for equality. A lot of the problems in Tunisia and Egypt were because people were hungry--not just because they want freedom, but they also want fairness and a chance to make a living. But one of the things Secretary Clinton talked about is, yes, this administration is actually enforcing labor laws in Guatemala, this administration will enforce labor laws in the labor component of our trade agreements across the world because we as a country stand for a more egalitarian workforce. We stand for workers rights. We believe workers should organize and bargain collectively, if they choose. We believe in a minimum wage. We believe in workers' compensation. We believe in workers' safety. We believe in human rights. All of that is about the labor movement. You can support labor rights in Guatemala, but you better be damned sure you are supporting labor rights in Wilmington and Columbus and Cleveland and Detroit and Dover, DE, and everywhere else. Those were some of the words Secretary Clinton said. I am obviously expanding on them. I looked back in history and some of the worst governments we ever had, do you know the first thing they did? They went after the trade unions. Hitler didn't want unions. Stalin didn't want unions. Mubarak didn't want unions. These autocrats in history did not want independent unions. So when I see Egypt or I see old Soviet Russia and history tells me about Germany--I am not comparing what is happening to the workers in Madison or in Columbus to Hitler and Stalin. But I am saying, history teaches us that unions are a very positive force in society that creates a middle class and that protects our freedom. So don't tell me you support unions internationally but you don't support unions here. Don't tell me you support collective bargaining in Poland but you oppose collective bargaining in Zanesville or Dayton, OH, because, frankly, that is inconsistent and ultimately it is not taking the side of people whom we are supposed to represent. I am proud of my State. About two or three blocks from the capitol, in 1876, the capitol in Columbus, the American Federation of Labor was formed. What we know now as the AFL/CIO began in Columbus, OH, in 1876, when some workers got together thinking there was some strength and some safety in numbers and they were going to have a better standard of living and better country and more freedom for all if they began to coalesce in a group of people--not to bust a hole in the State budget, not to hurt companies but to make sure the workers were represented and get a fair shake in the society. It is all pretty simple. We have a strong middle class in this country because we have the right to organize and bargain collectively. We have a strong middle class in this country because we are a democracy, because workers can share in some of the wealth they create for their employers. So I hope 10 years from now--I know in Delaware this is something we fought for with manufacturing and middle class and all--we will see, as productivity goes up and profits go up, that workers' wages will go up too. It is the American way. It is what we stand for. Nothing in our society, frankly, is more important than a prosperous middle class and what it brings to us in terms of freedom and equality. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam President, reserving the right to object, I know the Presiding Officer, the junior Senator from North Carolina, wants to be part of the TAA extension. I appreciate that, as do Senator Casey and Senator McCain and Senator Baucus. My problem is this: I want to work with Senator McCain on this. I want to make this work. I want to extend the Andean trade preferences. He and I worked this agreement out with Senator Kyl and Senator Casey and others at the end of last year, in the last 2 hours of the session. I think that was the time line. Right at the end, we were able to extend all of this, but only for 6 weeks. He wanted longer, I wanted longer, but we couldn't get an agreement. Senator McCain asked, is it not reasonable to extend the old TAA. The old TAA started 50 years ago. It was a great program. It was bipartisan. It has always been that. But it is not reasonable to do only the old TAA. There have been 150,000 workers who are eligible since the Recovery Act passed for the expanded TAA because they happen to have lost their jobs to countries we didn't have a free trade agreement with. They were not eligible under the old one, but they are eligible under the new one. Or they happen to be service workers. They are eligible under the new one but not under the old one. It is a situation where because of things we do in this body--we pass a trade agreement, people lose their jobs. We have an obligation--I know people are focused on government spending, as we should be, and on the deficit, as we should be, but this is an action of the House and Senate. We pass tax policy here. We give tax breaks to companies that move overseas. Why don't we pay for this TAA with something like that? We could always do that. The point is there are so many workers in this country who have lost their jobs because of trade agreements, because of tax law and trade law. They should be eligible for getting some assistance so they can get retrained and go back to work. We all know people in our States-- Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Texas, West Virginia, and Ohio--where that has happened. The other thing we need to extend is the health care tax credit. We know that literally thousands of workers--I can give you some examples quickly: 400 Americans in Arizona, 1,400 Americans in Georgia--mostly Delta workers--6,800 Americans in Michigan, 9,200 Americans in Ohio, 68,000 Americans scattered around every other State in this country-- because of the Recovery Act and the expansion of the health care tax credit, they would be able to continue to get their health care. So with reluctance--I don't want to do this, because I want to see the Andean trade preferences extended--I am going to object.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent for 2 minutes to make a motion.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. I have great respect for the senior Senator from Arizona. I wish to find a way--and I will give some specific names of people who have benefited from the expansion of TAA. I brought in a stack of literally 500 letters from Georgia, Michigan, and Ohio--the States hit the hardest--some 300 people in Arizona, and others who have benefited from the expansion of the health care tax revenue and TAA. I offered to Senator McCain--other than the fact that it costs more money, and I don't dispute that--that if we can work on specific problems they have with individual parts of the expansion and if there is a way of working out any kind of language they don't like, I am happy to do that. I am going to offer a unanimous consent request on TAA and tax credits and on Andean. The reason I objected is I cannot walk off this floor having helped the workers in Ecuador and Colombia but not the workers in Toledo and Cleveland and Phoenix and Charleston, WV. That is why I will make this request--which will help in every case--on the Andean trade preference, TAA, and health care tax credit. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 11, H.R. 359, that a Brown of Ohio substitute amendment, also on behalf of Senators Hagan and Casey, which provides an 18-month extension for trade adjustment assistance, and the Andean Trade Preferences Act be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be read the third time and passed, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.