John Garamendi

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Welch, your representation of the State of Vermont is unparalleled. You have been at this for some time, and you have so correctly pointed out all of the various policies that are in law today that hold back the middle class. You have talked about the tax policy that basically supports those at the very, very top--the one-percenters, the 10 percent--and forces, therefore, the tax burden onto the middle class and the poor. The President is suggesting a shift in that, and we are going to debate that here--and we should. But again, that is one more piece of this middle class economics to grow American jobs. These are all public policy issues, the Make It In America, the Buy America provisions, the education. You raised something that has been very, very much on my mind. I have kids that have school debt from going to medical school or nursing school or even just to the 4 years, and I often wonder, the great majority of the student debt is actually owned by the Federal Government. I think about 60 percent of the $1 trillion-plus in student debt is owned by the American public. We refinance everything. We refinance our credit cards, and we refinance our home, seeking a lower interest rate. I just wonder: Why don't we refinance the student debt?

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

Mr. GARAMENDI. I am opposed.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, this final amendment to the bill will not kill the bill. Frankly, it will substantially improve it. It won't send it back to committee. If adopted, the bill will come to the floor for a vote later this morning. We have heard a lot of discussion here about jobs in the Rules Committee, and I thank the chair, Mr. Whitfield, for his interest in this particular proposal and for the Rules Committee listening to the debate very carefully about how we can significantly advance America's national interest. Natural gas is a strategic asset. It has allowed us to substantially reduce our energy costs in the United States; replace, re-power many of our power plants; bring down the cost; and, frankly, lead to an increased manufacturing sector. Shipbuilding is also a strategic national asset. Our Navy depends upon it. However, 107,000 Americans work in the shipbuilding industry in our ports and ship yards. It is a strategic asset, as are the mariners. American mariners are also a strategic asset. What we are trying to do with this amendment is to bring together these three strategic assets of America and advance the American economy and our national security at the same time. This amendment would simply require that if we are going to export liquefied natural gas, a strategic asset, then we should do it in a way that advances our national security and our economy by requiring that those ships be manned and ``womanned'' by American mariners, the captains, the engineers, the sailors, that they be American. This is a safety issue. Natural gas is a very volatile issue, and, under current law, when it is imported, it has to have American mariners on board. Similarly, by requiring that the ships be American-built, we will be able to employ several hundred thousand new men and women in our shipyards. If it is about jobs--and we all claim this bill is about jobs--then let's take it another step. Let's take it another step, so that we really rebuild the American shipping industry, that we put American mariners to work, that we revitalize our shipyards, so that our U.S. Navy will be able to have a robust competition for their ships. There are 117 shipyards in the United States that build ships. None of them, yet, build these tankers. They could if we pass this amendment. Let's build it in America. Let's make it in America. This is a strategy that is employed by India, which has a tender out to buy gas from the United States. That tender requires that three of the ships used to transport that be built in India. I say let's build the other seven in the United States. They want American natural gas; build the ships in America. We know that this is a big industry. Cheniere needs 100 ships when they begin to ship natural gas, LNG, from their new terminal in Texas-- 100 ships. Are those American ships? No, not without this amendment. Those ships will be Chinese ships in Chinese shipyards built by Chinese. How about America? How about building it in America? That is what this amendment is about. We can all agree that we want American jobs. Is there one among the 435 of us who wants the jobs to be in China or Korea or Japan? I don't think so. Let's do it in America. This is an American-made amendment. This is an amendment for American workers, American shipyards. This is not going to kill the bill. This is going to make this bill into a real ``Make It In America,'' a real American jobs bill with hundreds of thousands of jobs spread throughout this Nation. Mr. Chairman, work with us. Make this into a real, robust American jobs bill. Adopt this amendment. Put aside the normal game we play with MTRs, which is just kind of a Kabuki dance here. Let's do it for the American workers, for the American shipyards all across this Nation. That is what this is about. This is an unexpected opportunity that has come about because of our great natural gas industry here. Take advantage of it. Think about the national security. Think about our shipyards, the U.S. Navy, the mariners. Make it in America. Adopt this amendment. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. I am sure I will be. The rest of the story that we have is that we need to take a look at our transportation infrastructure specifically in a very holistic, universal way. It does us no good to improve the interstate highway system when the link between the ports and the interstate highway system doesn't work. For example, I-10 in southern California that you and I know so very well is the way you get out of those two ports onto the interstate highway system. It is rather inadequate. That is an example of that linkage that you are talking about. We have many, many more things to talk about here. I welcome you to stay. We will probably circle back on it. I see my colleague from Ohio. I think there are some ports in Ohio that quite possibly are in Marcy Kaptur's district. Ms. Kaptur, if you would join us on this issue of infrastructure and jobs and making it in America.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Exactly so. Exactly so. It is absolutely critical to our national defense that we have a strong maritime industry. We used to have the biggest maritime industry in the world. We have just given it away for many, many different reasons. But it can be rebuilt. I want to give one more example, and then I am going to wrap. And if you would like to participate in the wrap, then we can do that. At this moment, Amtrak is out with a request for a proposal to build 30, 33 new trains, high-speed rail trains for the northeast corridor, from Washington, D.C., to Boston, high-speed trains that can go 160, 200 miles an hour, reducing the commute time. That request for a proposal to manufacturers around the world is coupled with a waiver of the Buy America requirements. We are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars of American taxpayer money and a waiver of the Buy America requirements because Amtrak said they don't build them in the United States. Well, that is true. We don't build high-speed rail in the United States, and we never will if we give waivers. But if we set in place a solid requirement that American taxpayer money is going to be spent on American-made equipment, we will build in the United States facilities to manufacture high-speed rail. The same thing applies in California with the California high-speed rail system. In our future, we will have high-speed rail. The question for us in our policy debates is: In our future, will those high-speed rail trains be built in America, or will they be built in China or Korea or Japan or Europe? I want them to succeed. But, by God, I want America to succeed, too. And I know that if we stick to this Make It In America agenda, we will rebuild the American middle class.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you so very, very much for bringing to our attention one of your constituents who faced this situation. There were 8 million other American workers who found themselves unemployed as these trade deals went into effect and American jobs moved to Mexico, to China, and other places around the world. So we must focus on Mr. Hahn and on those who share that. Earlier, I think before you actually came in, I talked about steel. Again, this article was from Duke University, and they have a chapter here, ``A Tale Two of Bridges.'' One is the San Francisco/Oakland Bay Bridge--they have the Chinese flag behind the bridge--built with Chinese steel, almost a $7 billion project, of which $3.9 billion was over budget. It was 12 years late. There were 3,000 Chinese workers hired. Very serious questions have been raised about the quality of the construction. The State of New York, the Tappan Zee Bridge, built with U.S. steel. The total project cost $3.9 billion. 7,728 workers were hired, and it is designed to last for 100 years without major maintenance. There is Mr. Hahn's job. It is that U.S. steel, made in America. I very quickly want to give two examples of where Make It In America really, really counts. This is one I have often used. This is near my district--in fact, about a mile or two from my district in Sacramento, California. In the stimulus bill, in 2009, there was a provision for some $600 million, $700 million for Amtrak to buy new locomotives for the east coast here. This is an electric locomotive. There was a sentence added to that $600 million, $700 million law for it to be 100 percent American made. Now, nobody was making locomotives in the United States at the time, nobody. But Siemens, a German company, looked at it and goes, 70, 80 locomotives; a $600 million, $700 million contract; made in America--we could do that. So the German company, Siemens, used a plant that they had in Sacramento that was making light railcars and said: Okay. We are going to make light railcars, and we are going to make locomotives. They are now producing the locomotives 100 percent American made. Hundreds of jobs in the Sacramento area. And then all across America, there are manufacturers that are making the wheels, probably making the doorknobs or the system that attaches to the electrical line overhead. Made in America. Why? Because Congress wrote a law--by the way, no Republicans voted for it; this was the stimulus bill--made a law that said it must be 100 percent American made. I don't have a picture. I wish I did. If I had thought about it earlier, I would have brought one. We are now in the process of deciding how much of our natural gas we are going to export. It is called liquefied natural gas, LNG, liquefied natural gas. There is an export plant, a $20 billion export plant built on the gulf coast in Texas, owned by a company called Cheniere. They are 3, 5 months away from the first export of that natural gas. There is a lot of discussion about how much we can export without driving up the price, and that would be very harmful to American consumers--home heating, manufacturing, and the like. But what they do export will take 100 ships to export from that single export terminal, 100 ships. And I am going: Let me see now. Natural gas is a strategic national asset that has allowed for a reduction in the cost of energy in the United States, extremely important. American mariners are absolutely essential to our national defense, as are the domestic ships. Thirdly, the shipyards are essential for the U.S. Navy. These are three strategic assets that the United States has. I proposed an amendment last night in the Rules Committee that almost was adopted that said, if we are going to export a strategic national asset, then let us also build two additional strategic assets. The mariners, the captains, the mates, the seamen, let them participate in this export of natural gas, and let's build the ships in America. There are five terminals that are presently authorized for construction. Cheniere has completed a second terminal of about the same size. It is going in near Corpus Christi, Texas. And there are three others. So we may be talking somewhere between 300 to 400 ships needed to export a strategic national asset. So my legislation would say, okay, then let us enhance our Nation's security by building those ships in America. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of American jobs in our shipyards, in our manufacturing facilities in Ohio, building the pumps and the pipes and the valves and the compressors that are necessary. This is a big, big deal. And while we guarantee those jobs for the American shipyards, we also strengthen the U.S. Navy's ability to build ships at a reasonable cost. We could do it. We could actually do this with one simple piece of legislation that isn't more than 20 lines long. Now, that is exciting. Trains, planes, ships. It is in America's future. It has been in our past. And it is the policies, the policies of the American Government, that set these in place and in motion. Isn't that exciting? We can do that, Ms. Kaptur. We can do that. And we can move production to Ohio manufacturing, the shipyards on the gulf coast, the east coast, and the west coast. It is all there for us.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you so very much, Ms. Kaptur. You notice our Make It In America agenda, they have trade up here at the top, and you very well pointed out the problems that occur with an unfair trade deal, NAFTA being but one. At this moment, the President has asked us, Members of Congress, to pass what is known as the Fast Track, which basically gives authority to the President to cut a deal and then bring it to Congress, and we don't get to amend it. It is either an up-or-down vote. They say that is the only way they can negotiate. Well, if that is so, then that is no way to negotiate because we are the representatives--actually the Constitution very clearly leaves to Congress the issue of international trade negotiations. It is our responsibility, and I am not about to find a situation in which we give to the administration unfettered authority to cut a deal on international trade when you consider what happened with NAFTA, when you consider some of the other trade deals that have hollowed out the American manufacturing sector. You put that chart up so very clear. Associated with that chart are real lives, real middle class families. We had just over 19 million middle class families in manufacturing in 1990. It went down to just over 10 million as a result of these trade deals that you talked about. We are now beginning to come back up, principally because of cheap energy in the United States, natural gas specifically. So we have got a ways to go here. We need to be really, really careful, as Members of Congress, representatives of the American people, that we don't give away even more American jobs.

Mr. GARAMENDI. It is exciting, Ms. Kaptur. It is very, very exciting that a policy statement, a law put forth by 435 of us here and 100 over in the Senate can really dramatically alter America's economy and do it in a way that doesn't really cost us more money but simply requires that our tax dollars be spent on American-made equipment so that American workers can prosper. Now, if somebody wants to go out and use their own tax dollars to buy goods from China, that is their business. Fine, go do it. But if it is your tax dollars and my tax dollars, then it ought to be made in America. Mr. Speaker, thank you for the time. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Speaking of bridges falling down, this is the Interstate 5 bridge in northern Washington State that fell down 2 years ago. Interstate 5 is the main intercontinental highway from Mexico to Canada through California, Oregon, and Washington. It created a bit of a traffic jam when it went down.

Mr. GARAMENDI. The Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, one of the problems--we spent a lot of time talking about this 2 years ago, and it has dropped off the discussion table, although it should come back--is the manipulation of the Chinese currency so that China is able to maintain a very, very significant trade advantage vis-a-vis the United States by the pricing of the Chinese currency. Grossly unfair, something that we need, as representatives of the American people and the middle class and the manufacturing sector, to forcefully address in legislation such as you have just described, where the administration is required to look at the problem, and then make suggestions, or correct the problem if it does not take an act of Congress. We just can't give it away. We are talking about American jobs. We are talking about the middle class. The President stood here less than 10 days ago in his State of the Union and talked about the middle class. He called it a middle class economic policy--absolutely correct. But, at the same time, this trade issue intervenes in that program and, quite likely, will further harm the middle class by hollowing out the American manufacturing sector. So let's be careful here about these trade deals. You talked about the transportation from Mexico. A few years back, I was the insurance commissioner in California, elected by the people of California, and we were discussing with Mexico the insurance on those trucks that, under NAFTA, were supposed to come into the United States. At that time, and hopefully this has been solved--I am not the insurance commissioner now, but I remember very well--we were unable to develop with Mexico an insurance policy in Mexico that would transfer into the United States and cover these trucks that were in the United States. They said it wasn't necessary. Well, my staff and I looked at the details of the insurance and we said, this isn't worthy insurance. This isn't going to protect somebody that is run over by a Mexican truck. So we demanded, and at that time, we actually stalled. But it appears now that the Department of Transportation is moving forward, and I surely hope that this insurance issue has been solved. Now, if I might go back to a little bit of infrastructure and the transportation issue, as we pointed out in our discussion thus far, we have to come to grips, within the next 3 months, with a new transportation, surface transportation program for the United States. And these are real jobs. For every billion dollars--again, this comes from Duke University, which produced this report, ``Infrastructure Investment Creates American Jobs''--the Duke Center on Globalization, Governance and Competitiveness, in their summary, they point out that for every billion dollars invested in transportation infrastructure, there are 21,671 jobs created. For every dollar invested in transportation infrastructure, $3.54 is returned to the economy. I have one of those little charts here. This is an older study. I used this 2 years ago. I am going to have to rewrite this because this one says, for every dollar invested in infrastructure investment, $1.57 is pumped into the American economy. That came from Mark Zandi. But this now is 3 years old. This new study by Duke University indicates that this number, $1.57, really ought to be $3.54. So, wait a minute, fellows. This is even better. So let's get this transportation bill done. Let's pump it into the economy. And if we just met the minimum needs, as we see them today, it is about $111 billion a year for the next 5 years that we should spend on this infrastructure for transportation. That is a lot of money. But even $100 billion, we would find that we would create 2,470,000 jobs. That is 58 percent more jobs than the current funding level would provide and over $400 billion in total economic impact. So if we want to build the economy, if we really want middle class jobs, we would pass a very robust surface transportation program so that the ports, as Ms. Hahn talked about, so that the highways and the trade programs that you talked about, so that all those things could come together, and we could really jump-start the economy and provide that middle class economic impact that all of us are now talking about, including the President. So this could be done, and we fully intend to do it. I want to pick up another piece. If you would like to join our--to come back into our discussion, Ms. Kaptur, please do.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you so very much, Ms. Hahn. The proposal that you put forward almost seems magical. If it was magic, you would have figured it out--and you did--but to use money that is already going into the general fund and divert it back to what it was really intended to--that is the enhancement of our ports--is entirely sensible. I suppose that I am a coauthor.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, this chart has been up, really, for the last 4 years, and I keep bringing it back because it is pretty important. This is about American jobs, about how we can rebuild the American economy, and about how we can, at the same time, provide employment opportunities--those middle class jobs that we all want to talk about--and do it in a way that actually improves our environment. Today, I want to focus on one part of this. I have asked some of my colleagues to join us, and Congresswoman Hahn will be joining us in a few moments to talk about a piece of this. In the Make It In America agenda, we have these items: international trade, which is critically important that we do right; tax policies of all kinds; our energy policy. Oh. By the way, in the last 5 years, the energy policy of the administration's has almost made the United States energy independent. We are actually producing 4 billion more barrels of oil a day now than we were 6 or 7 years ago, so we do have an energy policy--green energy, moving away from the greenhouse gasses; a labor policy; education, the training of our workers; research, which is critically important. We may come to that later today, but I really want to focus on this one which is at the bottom because it is foundational. The foundation of the economy of the United States is the infrastructure. Way, way back, the Founding Fathers--everybody around here wants to talk about the Founding Fathers and what the Founding Fathers would do and how they would act. I will tell you what George Washington did in his first weeks in office. He turned to Alexander Hamilton, the Treasury Secretary, and said: Hey, Alex. Develop an economic development plan for me. How are we going to grow our economy? Treasury Secretary Hamilton came back--he formed a committee of one, and he came back with a plan of, maybe, 30, 40 pages, and in that plan was fundamental infrastructure development. He said the role of the Federal Government is to make sure that we have postal roads, to make sure that we have ports and canals--the infrastructure of the day. So, for those who like to harken back to the Founding Fathers--they ought to also consider the mothers. In any case, infrastructure was fundamental. Today, I want to talk about infrastructure, and I want to do it in a way that will really, hopefully, excite this body into passing a very robust, complete surface transportation infrastructure bill. Now, President Obama and Department of Transportation Secretary Foxx have made a proposal called ``Build America.'' It is a good proposal that covers all of the elements that we need--the highways, the ports, the railroads, freight. All of those things are in that bill. Unfortunately, it didn't have a hearing last year. Hopefully, it will be foundational this year as we consider in the next 3 months a surface transportation infrastructure bill for the United States because, in May, the world comes to an end as the programs of the Federal Government's for transportation expire. We need a new law going forward, so what we want to talk about today is that issue. I am going to take just a few seconds. Every now and then, somebody sends brochures and studies to us. This one came from Duke University, the Center on Globalization, Governance & Competitiveness: ``Infrastructure Investment Creates American Jobs,'' and they have got this little executive summary which is really helpful to us: Old and broken transportation infrastructure makes the United States less competitive than 15 of our major trading partners and makes American manufacturers less efficient in getting goods to market. Representative Hahn, that is where you want to come in and talk about ports. This is Duke University: The underinvestment of infrastructure costs the United States over 900,000 jobs, including 97,000 American manufacturing jobs. Maximizing American-made materials when rebuilding infrastructure has the potential to create even more jobs. Relying on American-made inputs can also mitigate safety concerns related to large-scale outsourcing. One of the things that really, really bothers me about my home State of California is the way in which the State of California decided to build the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. We are talking about a multibillion-dollar project, $3.9 billion over budget, 12 years late, and the steel in that bridge came from China. How brilliant was that? One of the principal reasons for the delay was the steel was delayed, the steel was faulty, and the welds were faulty. There were 3,000 jobs in China and zero jobs in the United States. By the way, the Chinese demanded that they be the inspectors on the job--not good at all. This kind of tells us about why making it in America is important. There is another example. I don't like to brag about New York, since that is a long, long way from my district, but the Tappan Zee Bridge in New York was built with American steel, had a $3.9 billion total project cost, 7,728 American workers were hired, and it was designed to last 100 years without any major structural maintenance. I know Ms. Hahn is going to come up here and probably carry on some bragging. We have got a lot to brag about in California, but we cannot brag about what happened with the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge because it was a financial disaster. It was a jobs disaster for the United States, for American workers. Even today, there are continuing reports coming out about the faulty bridge construction. Infrastructure investment creates American jobs, and if we require that those investments be made in America, we are going to be talking about Americans going back to work. All of us talk about the middle class. Well, let's build the infrastructure, let's use American-made materials, and let's really build American jobs for the middle class. Ms. Hahn, I believe you have something to say about ports. The fact is that you represent the two biggest ports in America, you will argue: Long Beach and the Port of Los Angeles.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you so very much. I have enormous respect for the two of you, and this issue has been before us many, many times. If we wait for a comprehensive tax reform, the tar sands may be totally eliminated and used up. We have an opportunity today to get it done.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to offer an amendment to this bill. Passage of this amendment will not prevent the passage of the underlying bill. If it is adopted, my amendment will simply be incorporated into the bill, and the bill will immediately be voted upon. Mr. Speaker, I don't know if a question is appropriate, but is this February 2? Is this Groundhog Day? I am curious. This is the 10th time this bill has been before the House, and those who are in support would argue, ``Enough is enough. Let's pass it and get on with it.'' Those of us in opposition would say, ``Well, why haven't you written a bill that is sufficient to the problems raised by the pipeline?'' Specifically, 10 times on this floor--and even additional times in committee--the issue of the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund has been raised. We have raised that issue 10 times. It has been debated here on the floor. I have heard five, six people speak to that issue. The chairmen of the committee are well aware that this bill has a huge loophole in it allowing one company that owns a pipeline to avoid paying into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund. Why in the world would we move a bill that allows this company, unique among all others, to not participate in a very, very important part of the protection of communities and the environment? The Kalamazoo issue has been raised here--the spill. Over $60 million was paid for by the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund and then reimbursed by the pipeline company. Let's do something right. This is great fun: back and forth, back and forth. We kick this thing around. We may get some political points on one side or the other. But why in the world don't we write a decent piece of legislation? Why don't we do it right? Why would we exempt one company among all of the others of hundreds of pipeline companies and allow this one Canadian company--and I love Canada, my son-in-law is a Canadian. This is about doing what is right. This amendment would simply include this company being required to participate in the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund. It is a lot of dollars. It is about $24 million a year. That is a pretty good tax break. Who among us would not like to have that tax break? I guess we are all going to stand up because we want to have it. The rest of the story is this: we have spent an enormous amount of time on this issue when, in fact, as has been said here many times by proponents and opponents, we ought to get on to real infrastructure. Consider the time spent on this issue when you consider the time that has been spent on transportation bills on this floor. Consider the time that we must spend figuring out how to pay for repairing our bridges, building our highways, our ports, our airports. Consider that time. Ten times, this bill has been here. Ten times, this House has ignored a tax break that is not warranted. It will allow to move forward to the Senate a bill that, in its very substance, provides an unwarranted, unnecessary, and grossly unequal tax break to one company among all the other pipeline companies. This amendment simply comes to the point of making sure that this pipeline company, like every other petroleum pipeline company in America, pays its fair share of the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, which is essential. I see some of my friends from Michigan here. You know how important this is. The Kalamazoo River was a big deal--$60 million thus far and more to come. The Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund was there to provide the early money for the cleanup. It is important, folks. My colleagues, this is important. Let's do it right. This is our 10th time. Let's do it right. Adopt this amendment. We clear up one problem in the bill. We remove one point of opposition, and we do what is right. I ask for your ``aye'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GARAMENDI. I am.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. ``The seats of the Senators of the first class shall be vacated at the expiration of the second year, of the second class at the expiration of the fourth year, and of the third class at the expiration of the sixth year, so that one-third may be chosen every second year.''

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, on December 10th, I was proud to bear witness to the passage, under Unanimous Consent, of the House and Senate compromise language for the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Reauthorization Act of 2014. S. 2444, the culmination of months of hard work and diligent analysis by Coast Guard Subcommittee Chairman Duncan Hunter, House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bill Shuster, Ranking Member Nick Rahall, Senator Rockefeller, Senator Thune, myself, and our staff, is a beacon of the thoughtful compromise and responsible lawmaking we hope to see more of in the coming years. Notably, S. 2444 contains a provision to ensure that our commitment to U.S. maritime is maintained as America considers the possible exportation of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Existing law, written before the natural gas boom when America was forecasted to be an LNG importer, authorizes the Secretary of Transportation to develop and implement a program to promote the transportation of imported LNG on U.S.-flag vessels. Under the Deepwater Ports Act, the Secretary is also required to give top priority to the processing of licenses for LNG import facilities that will utilize U.S.-flag vessels. S. 2444 includes language from H.R. 5270, the Growing American Shipping Act, to modernize these laws. LNG exports will now be included in the program to promote the use of U.S.-flag vessels in the carriage of LNG, and the Secretary will be required to give priority processing to export applications for deepwater port terminals that would utilize U.S.-flag vessels. The U.S. shipbuilding industry and U.S. natural gas market are strategic national assets essential to U.S. national security interests. Shipbuilding is critical to the growth and flow of our economy, and to our ability to control the safety and security of the global supply chain. It is also essential to the United States Navy, which relies on a select few remaining shipyards for the construction of new ships and the repair and refitting of existing ships. Despite this importance, our foreign trade fleet has declined from 1,200 ships in the 1950s to less than 100 today, and despite having pioneered gas tanker technology, America no longer manufactures LNG tanker ships. To transport LNG by sea, the world must rely on China, Japan, and South Korea to build the requisite tankers. Further decline of the U.S. shipbuilding industrial base will continue to erode competitive bidding among shipyards, both for commercial builds and for Navy shipbuilding needs, thus compromising efforts to reduce the deficit and balance the national budget. It will also result in the further loss of marine engineering expertise, preventing the adoption and utilization of the same cutting edge ship construction technologies used by our foreign competitors. Furthermore, tens of thousands of American jobs, both inside shipyards and throughout the U.S. supply chain, depend on the strength of the maritime industry. The decline of the shipbuilding industry threatens another strategic national asset in reducing key personnel. The U.S. Merchant Marine is a highly trained, militarily-useful labor force, and American merchant sailors are the foundation of our marine transportation system. Further attrition of the Merchant Marine threatens American security because our nation relies on this secure source of labor for the movement of supplies and military cargo and personnel. The explosive nature of LNG strengthens the need to ensure that the transport of LNG, especially through U.S. ports, is done by U.S. seafarers, and not foreign crews that come with an increased potential for sabotage. The export of LNG is projected to slowly ramp up over the next two or three years and will then quickly accelerate over the next decade or more. This will allow both time and a stable, long-term market demand, which--if given the correct incentives--could spur the U.S. shipbuilding industry to re-tool its infrastructure and processes to ramp up the production of domestic tankers, paving the way for production of vessels for export of this strategic national asset. It is in the U.S. national interest to utilize the emerging LNG coastwise and export trades to provide reliable, long-term markets for U.S. commercial shipbuilding and for U.S.-flag operators, to expand and increase the U.S. shipbuilding industrial base, and to use LNG export trade to strengthen U.S. strategic interests and alliances with LNG trading partners. Therefore, it is the purpose of this law to enhance the national security and port safety of the United States by encouraging to the maximum extent practicable the transport of LNG on U.S.-built and -flag vessels. This law aims to maintain the technological ability of the United States shipbuilding industry to build and repair vessels for the Navy and the Coast Guard by maintaining the critical industrial infrastructure and skilled human workforce necessary to build such vessels. Further, this law promotes American job creation by encouraging domestic shipbuilding and the use of U.S. mariners in the transport of American LNG. This provision of the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Act of 2014 is supported by the Maritime Trades Department (AFL-CIO); the Seafarers International Union (AFL-CIO); the Transportation Institute; the Shipbuilders Council; the Navy League of the United States; the American Maritime Officers; the Marine Engineers' Beneficial Association (MEBA); the International Association of Masters, Mates and Pilots (MM&P); the Maritime Institute for Research and Industrial Development (MIRAID); the Marine Firemen's Union, Metal Trades Department (AFL-CIO); the Sailors' Union of the Pacific; the American Maritime Officers Service; and the American Maritime Congress. I thank these organizations for their commitment to national security, a strong maritime industry, and the creation of good American jobs so vital to the economic prosperity and future of this nation.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise in support of this legislation. As summarized by my colleague from California, it alleviates the Office of Inspector General of the United States Department of Homeland Security from having to perform three annual audits. Repealing these audits will help to slightly reduce the burden of congressionally mandated reports. All this information is available to us in other forms and it is good to get rid of these reports, which are sometimes not really sent anyway. By the way, Mr. Hunter, congratulations on the recently passed Coast Guard legislation. Furthermore, eliminating the mandate will allow the IG to reallocate resources to something really useful, like finding out what went wrong, wherever it might be. This way, the legislation may improve the oversight of programs and the activities of the Department of Homeland Security, which would be extremely useful to Congress. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. As a new insurance commissioner in California in 1991, I had lots of problems with pensions, a lot of problems with insurance companies going broke. I was summoned to Washington to appear before the Commerce Committee to explain. I had great fear in my mind. The very famous John Dingell was chairing that committee. But I very quickly realized his goal and mine were the same, that is, to find ways to protect people. A deep friendship then ensued for many years. My mentor is leaving this session. I will miss him. I know that everybody in this House will miss him in many ways. He is a good man. His heart is as big as this Nation which he has worked so hard for. John Dingell, a great, great Member of Congress.