John Garamendi

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you, Mr. Ellison. Thank you so very much for your consistent and strong voice on what we really need to do here in America to take care of people. At the beginning of the day and at the end of the day, our task is to fulfill that message of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This day really, in many ways, fulfills that. Think about it. Can you have life without health care? Well, probably not for very long. Most everybody I know has had a sickness at one point or another. If you don't get health care, you may very well lose your life. Happiness? We know that most of the bankruptcies--this is before the great crash--are a direct result of health care and not having sufficient insurance or not having insurance. With regard to happiness, wow. Of course, liberty. You just think about the number of Americans that are literally chained or tied to their job because they have health care there. If they want to leave, if they want to pursue a different course, they want to improve, they can't, because they are tied to their job because of health care. They can't get it. Today, the Supreme Court said that what this House did with the Affordable Health Care Act is constitutional. It is constitutional. It is possible for us. As we just heard from Mr. Kucinich, it is possible for us to reform the health care system. My thoughts are so happy for America, so happy for that man that I saw 5 years ago that was on his deathbed, and he said, If I can just live another 5 months, I'll be on Medicare and I can get the treatments that I need without bankrupting my family. Today he probably will be able to get that. It's a good day. I was the insurance commissioner for 8 years in California. And if only I had this law, if only this law were in place, I could have hammered those insurance companies that were discriminating against people who had preexisting conditions. But I didn't have this law. So they were able to get away with discriminating against women because they are women. Because they are of child-bearing age, they may have a child; and it might cost the insurance companies money. My chief of staff had a child who was born with an ailment. That kid, from the day of conception to the day after he was born, had insurance. As soon as the insurance company found out that that child had a serious problem, they stopped the insurance. The family almost went into bankruptcy; but for the friends and support around them, they would have done so. That is over. Every child born in America will continue to have health care coverage, whether they are healthy or not. It's a good day. It's a good day for the children. It's a good day for the people of America.

Mr. GARAMENDI. You must mean Make It in America. Spend our tax money on American-made equipment and jobs, not on Chinese or Japanese or anybody else, but on American jobs. We can do that.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. On the point of order, I thank the chairman for his thoughts on the issue. But for his consistency, I cannot thank him. I think I understand that we seem to operate on rules, unless we don't want to operate on those rules. I understand that the chairman is interested in this issue and has worked, as chairman of the subcommittee, to try to raise the level of American-made, and I thank him for that. We have an opportunity here to really take this issue up and put aside the rules and do what's good for America. This is about billions and billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs. We ought to put it aside, put aside the consistency and deal with American jobs. I don't know what my opportunity will be to overrule the point of order. But I'm going to do everything I possibly can to see that we have American-made jobs and that we spend our tax money on American- made equipment. I do understand the chairman's position and the bind that he's in. But sometimes consistency doesn't lead to the right result.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Chairman, we just heard a rather strong plea from one of my Republican colleagues about the transportation program and whether Democrats and Republicans should continue to fight about who did what when or didn't do it. This amendment is something that we all ought to agree to. This amendment is something that both Democrats and Republicans should be supporting. This amendment is about American jobs--not foreign jobs, not about shifting our jobs overseas, but rather about bringing those jobs back home. This amendment is about making it in America. This amendment is about no longer allowing our tax money to be spent on foreign-made equipment but, rather, to require that our tax money be spent on American-made equipment so that there will be American jobs. This is not a Republican or a Democratic issue. This is an all- American issue. This is about making it in America. It simply says that the current 60 percent requirement is insufficient and that we ought to have a higher requirement of 85 percent. And I will argue strongly--and I think correctly--that 85 percent is achievable. I'll give two examples: In a recent contract for the new BART trains, the Bay Area Rapid Transit trains, one bidder--a French company, Alstom--said that they could build those trains at 95 percent. A second bidder--foreign, Bombardier--said they would do it at 66 percent. Unfortunately, BART decided to go with the 66 percent because it was a couple of percentage points cheaper. $1 billion in American jobs were lost. Within a month after that, Los Angeles wanted to build some new transit cars. Siemens said they could build those transit cars at 85 percent American content. They lost that bid to a Korean company because there was a couple of percentage points difference. Again, millions of American jobs, millions of dollars spent overseas, and American jobs lost. It's time for us to bring the jobs home. It's time for us to onshore. It's time for us to make it in America. And it's time for us, as Democrats and Republicans, to do just that. And that's what this amendment does. I suspect it will be ruled out of order. What a shame. What a shame that we cannot stand here on the floor, amend a bill that's going to, over time, spend $60 billion, and not require that that money, our tax money, be spent in America. What's wrong with making it in America? Oh, I suppose it has to do with some point of order. Do you think the American public really wants to hear a point of order? Or do they want to hear about American-made equipment and American jobs? No. We'll do a point of order, which I will appeal and probably lose. And thousands upon thousands of American jobs will be lost because of a point of order rather than for this House to stand up and say, We're going to make it in America. We're going to spend our tax money on American jobs, on American-made equipment. So give me your point of order, and let's see what the American public has to say about your point of order. I yield back the balance of my time

Mr. GARAMENDI. I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. The bottom line of this: this is simply a play by the oil industry to gather more assets on their balance sheet, at the expense of the environment and, just as important, at the expense of a real, all of the above energy policy. It's a sad day that we're here debating an energy bill that really doesn't do anything at all to help us meet the energy needs of this Nation. There's nothing in this about renewables. It's unfortunate.

Mr. GARAMENDI. I thank the gentleman for his courtesy. Facts are really kind of difficult if you have to deal with them. The gentleman just spoke about a sad case of an individual that wasn't able to go on a trip because of the high price of gasoline. He may want to tell that individual that the oil industry, on average, over the last several months, has exported over 24 million gallons of gasoline a day, 24 million gallons of gasoline a day, exported from the United States. Maybe that has something to do with the high prices. But a few other facts. As of March of 2011, onshore, the Department of the Interior offered, between 2009 and 2011, 6 million acres of land for leasing. The oil industry only took 4 million acres. As of that time, March 2011, 38 million acres of land were under lease. 25 million acres of land were inactive. A full 65 percent of the available leased land already in the hands of the oil industry was inactive, not explored, not being produced. 65 percent unused, inactive. Offshore, 37 million acres were under lease. 2.4 million acres were active. 70 percent not being used. So why are we here opening more land? There's a reason for it. There is a reason why the oil industry wants to do this. If they are able to acquire a lease, they put it on their books as an asset, thereby giving the appearance that they have a lot of assets available to them, when, in fact, they have no intention to, in the near term, probably the next decade or so, actually explore and produce. It is a financial game. It is not a game of producing oil. Now, if we really wanted to do something, we would immediately put in place a production tax credit for the wind turbine industry, which is languishing now because we are refusing, Republicans, in this case, refusing to put forth a renewal of the production tax so that the wind industry can actually continue to produce energy for our Nation. So what does it mean? There are some 70,000 jobs in the wind industry today. Some 17,000 more would immediately go into place if the production tax credit were in this bill and became law. What does it mean? If we were to enact my bill, H.R. 487, those wind turbines would be manufactured in the United States, and thousands more jobs.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Madam Speaker, the gentlelady was quite correct about worrying about the price of gasoline. And as you sit around talking about that, you ought to be concerned about the 24 million gallons of gasoline that's exported from the United States every day. You might also want to consider that the price of natural gas has plummeted by more than 60 percent during the Obama administration, providing us with an extraordinary opportunity for growth. But what I'd really like to talk about is, this bill is not a Strategic Energy Production Act. It does not deal with the renewable energy. In fact, the wind energy industry in the United States is about to come to a screeching halt. Seventy-five thousand jobs are presently in this industry. We are already beginning to see the downsizing-- 17,000 are now being laid off because the production tax credit is not being extended. If we were to extend the production tax credit, we could probably find another 37,000 people working next year. If we added to this my piece of legislation, H.R. 487, which requires that our tax dollars--in this case, the production tax credit--be spent on American-made equipment, we could see, perhaps, even more manufacturing in the United States. Bottom line: the Strategic Energy Production Act is an act for the oil and coal industry. It is not for America. We need to change that. We need to look at all of the above, not just oil and coal.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, thank you very much for this opportunity. We have been engaged for this last hour in a discussion about what to do with one of the most important parts of America's public agenda, which is the transportation systems of this Nation. We've heard a lot of back-and-forth. We actually heard that there was some agreement that we ought to get on with it. Indeed, we ought to get on with it. We ought to get a transportation bill before the American public, and we ought to get it to the President. Unfortunately, there is a gridlock and a deadlock. Behind all of the gentle rhetoric on the floor this evening, there are some profound differences in how we move forward with the transportation bill. We'll discuss some of those as we journey through this 1 hour or some portion of this 1 hour. I think I would like to start maybe more than 200 years ago. There is a lot of discussion that we often hear here on the floor and in the rhetoric across the Nation that the Founding Fathers would do it this way or that way, and if we only listened to the Founding Fathers most of our problems would be resolved. Usually, those discussions really speak to not doing something. It turns out that the Founding Fathers really did have a great deal of wisdom. I came across a book written by Mr. Thom Hartmann called ``Rebooting the American Dream.'' And in it, in his very first chapter, he goes back to the Founding Fathers, and he talks about what George Washington and George Washington's Secretary of Treasury actually did. On the day he was inaugurated, Mr. Washington said that he did not want to wear a suit made in England. He wanted to wear something made in America. Well, Make It in America is one of the principal things that my colleagues and I on the Democratic side have been talking about for some time. So when I came across this book, I said, Wow, this is interesting. George Washington instructed his Secretary of Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, to develop a manufacturing program for the United States; and Alexander Hamilton did that. He didn't do it in 2,000 or 3,000 pages, as we might do it today. He did it in just a short, maybe 20 or 30 pages. And he developed an 11-point plan for America's manufacturers. It turns out that many of those 11 points are what we have been proposing on the Democratic side here for our Make It in America agenda. But tonight I want to pick up one of those 11 points. And it happens to be the 11th of the 11 points that Alexander Hamilton presented to George Washington in 1790, and it was on American manufacturers. So point No. 11: ``Facilitating of the transportation of commodities.'' The language is rather ancient English, but it still speaks to the following: Improvements favoring this object intimately concern all the domestic interests of a community; but they may without impropriety be mentioned as having an important relation to manufacturers. There is perhaps scarcely anything, which has been better calculated to assist the manufacturers of Great Britain, than the meliorations of the public roads of that kingdom, and the great progress which has been of late made in opening canals. Of the former, the United States stands much in need. He goes on to talk about the necessity for transportation here and copying what had gone on in Great Britain, that is, the development of public roads. Then he says: The following remarks are sufficiently judicious and pertinent to deserve a literal quotation: Good roads, canals, and navigable rivers, by diminishing the expense of carriage, put the remote parts of a country more nearly upon a level with those in the neighborhood of a town. They are upon that account, the greatest of all improvements. So here we are in Mr. Hartmann's book, ``Rebooting the American Dream,'' talking about what the Founding Fathers wanted to do in 1790. I would also point out that by 1792 nearly all of those 11 points had become law and laid the foundation for the great American industrial revolution. So back to ``infrastructure,'' the word we use today. We use infrastructure when we talk about our highways, our canals, our roads, and our transportation systems. There were, in fact, some public transportation systems at that time. Now, speaking specifically of roads and jobs, we often talk about jobs here. We need to understand that today, if we were to pass the Senate version of the public transportation bill, we would put 2 million unemployed construction workers back to work this year. This year, 2 million would go back to work if we were to take up the Senate bill. Unfortunately, we have been in a gridlock, and there has been no effort to compromise. My colleagues on the Republican side are demanding fundamental changes in the transportation systems and the way in which we apportion that money. Those changes have not been acceptable to the Senate; and, indeed, those changes were not acceptable to even their own caucus. The Republican Caucus was unable to reach agreement--they have more than enough votes to pass a bill out of this House--but they could not reach agreement among themselves, let alone with the Senate. And yet they are demanding that the Senate take up what they could not agree to. On our side, we have simply said, let's go with the Senate bill. After all, 74 Senators--both Democrats and Republicans--voted for it, leaving some 26 that chose not to support it. So 2 million Americans are waiting for action by the House of Representatives and the Senate; 2 million Americans want to go to work. And yet we have this deadlock. We just found some support amongst ourselves to tell the conferees, Get it done by the end of this week or take up the Senate bill. Listening carefully to what we heard on the floor not more than an hour ago, compromise is not going to be found. Keystone pipeline. No public transportation funding. Eliminate the environmental protections that have been in place for more than 40 years. Streamline, meaning ``eliminate'' programs. So compromise is not there. What has happened over the last several months? Well, while our Republican colleagues have been trying to get their own act together, here is what's happened to employment in the construction industry: way back in January, some 5,570,000 Americans were working in the highway construction and public transportation and construction sector. In May, that number had fallen to 5,510,000. Some 60,000 Americans lost their jobs while the Republicans were trying to figure out how they could come to an agreement with themselves on a transportation bill. They couldn't. So 60,000 Americans, 60,000 families lost their ability to earn a living as the majority in this House failed to even agree amongst themselves on what to do. The Senate moved forward with a bill. It's been there nearly 2 months, before this House, available. A conference committee was formed, and gridlock continues. So now there are 60,000 families without an income as a result of the gridlock and the inability of our colleagues to come to an agreement. It's time for us to move on. It's time for us to put a 2-year bill in place, as the Senate has proposed, one that would put 2 million Americans back to work immediately. States could move forward. States would know that over the next 2 years, there would be funding from the Federal Government. Right now, the word from my friends on the other side of the aisle is, Well, we're going to go with the 60-day extension. States cannot work with that. They don't know what would be available at the end of the 60 days. They don't know what's available today because we're up against a deadline. It's time for us to move with the Senate bill. It's time for us to end this continuing decline. This is May. If we were to take the June figures--which are now, unfortunately, coming forward--more and more construction workers have lost their jobs. They are in my district. Contractors in my district are saying, There is no further contract available to us. We won't be able to put our people to work. We don't have a contract. The States can't offer new contracts. So it won't be just 60,000. At the end of June, it will probably be 70,000 or 75,000, or perhaps more, that have lost their jobs as this gridlock continues here in the House of Representatives. We can do better. How important is this to the economy? It's very important to the economy and not just the construction workers, not just their families, the 2 million that could go to work if we accepted the Senate bill. And it's a good bill. It provides adequate funding for transportation, for repairing the bridges that we heard so much discussion of, for paving the roads that we heard so much discussion of just less than an hour ago, of providing the money for the public transportation sector so that the buses, the trains, the planes can continue to operate. It's a good bill, but not perfect, not as large as many would want. It doesn't have the Keystone pipeline in it. It doesn't eviscerate the environmental protections that are necessary as we build these projects. So what would happen if we were to accept the Senate bill? End the gridlock, put 2 million American workers back to work, end the decline. For every dollar we invest in infrastructure--that's the highway bill and the transportation bill--$1.57 is pumped into the American economy. That comes from Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody Analytics. Spend a dollar on transportation and you increase the GDP; you increase the economic activity of this Nation by $1.57. So there's more than just transportation at stake here. What is at stake here, as we see, is the continuing decline of the transportation and construction sector as a result of the gridlock that's been with us nearly this entire year. What is at stake is the growth of the American economy. It's the grocery store that will have a customer coming in and not spending an unemployment check but, rather, spending a check that's given to them by the contractor. And that money circulates in the economy so that the hair dresser, the barber, maybe even the gun shop owner will see their business increase 57 percent. For every dollar spent, $1.57 is generated in the economy, putting other people to work beyond the construction industry. Now, there's more to it than that. One of the provisions that we would like to see in the bill, which actually is in the Senate bill, is a tightening of the waivers that have been so injurious to the American economy, the waivers that have been overused in the last two decades, waivers that push aside the Buy America provisions that we presently have in the law, push those aside and say, We don't care whether that money is spent on American-made equipment. We don't care whether that money is spent on jobs in America. Just pushing aside the Buy America provisions. The Senate bill has a very important provision that will create even more jobs in America because it tightens up the waiver provisions and says to the Department of Transportation, no, you cannot just willy- nilly provide a waiver. You must adhere to the law that says Buy America: a 60 percent minimum American content in the steel in the bridge that's going to be repaired, in the asphalt and concrete that's going to be laid over the roads. Minimum of 60 percent content on the buses and the trains that are going to be paid for with your tax dollars. What that means is: Make It in America. That provision that is in the Senate bill will enhance American manufacturing by limiting the waivers that have been so numerous over the last two decades as to hollow out the American manufacturing sector. Manufacturing matters. This is the American middle class. The construction industry and the manufacturing industry is the heart and the soul and the foundation of America's middle class. And so in the Senate bill it tightens up the waiver provisions and says that Americans will have the jobs, not some foreign employee of a company that has gained the contract. I want to give you a specific example. In California, the largest public works project ever is the reconstruction and the rebuilding of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, a new bridge, billions of dollars. The steel in that bridge was made in China. Six thousand jobs in China, no jobs in America. It's said to be 10 percent cheaper. It turned out that at the outset, the Chinese steel manufacturers could not produce the steel. But they got the contract and what they did was to figure out how to produce the steel. They built a new steel mill. Six thousand jobs. In America, no. In China, yes. It turned out that the steel was not 10 percent cheaper. It was shoddy. The welds were not adequate. They had to go back. Delays occurred. It turned out to be even more expensive. Had that occurred in America, that new steel mill would have been built in America, and it would be there for the next contract, the next bridge to be built in America, or around the world. But, oh, no, we're going to save 10 percent. We lost American jobs. If the Senate bill were to come to this floor and become law, the waiver that was allowed and given to the State of California, a waiver that allowed the Chinese steel company to have the contract, would not have been allowed. Six thousand jobs would have been in America, and we would once again make it in America and Americans would make it. But, oh, no, it didn't happen. Manufacturing matters. I would like to see another provision in the bill, but I won't demand this and my Democratic colleagues who support this are not going to demand it because we want to get on with providing those 2 million jobs for American workers in the construction industry. But let me take a moment to explain what it is. This is a bill that I introduced at the beginning of last year. It's H.R. 613. And what it says is that our tax money, the money that is being spent by every American when they buy a gallon of gasoline or a gallon of diesel, that that money goes into the highway trust fund. And H.R. 613 says it must be spent on American-made equipment. Highways. This is the steel that's in the bridges. This is the rebar that's in the roads. This is the concrete, the asphalt--American made. If you want to build a high-speed rail, as we do in California, then that high-speed rail is going to be financed with your tax dollars, and it will be an American-made high-speed rail train. You want a train? You want to improve your transit system? It will be American made. Is it possible? Does this work? Let me give you have an example. In the American Recovery Act, sometimes known as the stimulus bill, there is a provision for Amtrak trains. Upgrade the Amtrak system. I think it was a little over $12 billion. Some wise staffer wrote next to that $12 billion a sentence that said: This money must be spent on American-made equipment. One hundred percent American-made equipment. Oh, you can't do that. Well, it turns out that you can do that. A German company, one of the largest industrial companies in the world, looked at it and said, $12 billion? We can build it in America. And they did. They built a manufacturing plant in Sacramento, California; and they are producing 100 percent American-made locomotives because the law said that it must be done. H.R. 613 says precisely that. If you want the tax money, then it must be American-made equipment. Use our tax dollars to create American-made jobs, not steel made in China, not trains made in Germany, not locomotives from Japan. It's our tax money. It will be spent on American-made equipment. That's what this does. And we have the proof that it can be done. It's being done today in Sacramento, California, by Siemens, a German company that built a manufacturing plant to take advantage of money that was available if the product was made in America. Another sad example, the Bay Area Rapid Transit system, BART, needs to replace its 40-year-old trains, $3.2 billion. The minimum in the law today is 60 percent. The bids went out. Two bidders were in the finals. One, a French company, Alsthom; another, a Canadian company, Bombardier. Bombardier's bid was 2 3 percent lower than Alsthom's. However, there was a significant difference. Bombardier said we will build 66 percent American content. Alsthom, the French company, said we can do better. A little bit higher price, but we can do better. We will build 95 percent American content. The difference: $1 billion in American jobs. Sixty-six percent/95 percent; a 2 percent, 3 percent difference in price. The BART board of directors refused to go back to a second bidding process that would have taken 60 or 90 days. Alsthom said we'll cut our price. We want these jobs in America. It turns out most would be in New York, not California. We want these jobs in America. Go back to another round of bidding, and we'll get out a sharp pencil and we'll come down. The BART board of directors let that opportunity for a billion dollars in jobs go by. Many of us believe that Alsthom would have matched or even outperformed the Bombardier bid. Or maybe Bombardier would come back and say, okay, we'll go to 95 percent. We don't know. We'll never know. But what we do know is that a billion dollars of American jobs were lost. So now, as we continue to debate and dally and let time go by, as American jobs, as American workers in the construction industry see the continued decline month by month in the number of men and women that are employed, as layoffs continue--between January and May, more than 60,000 construction workers in the United States have lost their jobs while we continue to fight over issues here. But the fundamental issue is the issue of jobs. You can talk about the Keystone pipeline, and there are jobs there. And maybe some day that pipeline will be built. You can talk about the environmental processes that have protected the environment of this Nation for the last 40 years, and maybe there ought to be some adjustments there. You can talk about giving States the power which basically means there is no money set aside for public transportation. We can talk about those things. But as we wrestle back and forth on what one or another of us think is so critically important, every day another construction worker has lost their job. Another family has lost their opportunity to make the payment on their home. Another community has seen the economy in their area diminish. We have a reasonably good bill available to us and we could vote on it tomorrow. That's the Senate bill. It protects American jobs. It protects the public transportation system. It is fully funded, not with some hypothetical money that may come in some day, but rather real dollars. It says that our tax dollars must be spent on American-made equipment, on American jobs. It's a good bill. We had a motion to instruct here on the floor just a few moments ago. And as you listened to the debate, you'd think there was agreement. And there is agreement--we've got to get this job done. We have to put Americans back to work. Two million Americans await our decision. Are we going to continue to fight for some perceived issue that is important to a small group of people? Or are we going to look at the larger picture here, the picture of American workers, of American jobs. I suppose tomorrow we'll take up that motion to instruct and we'll see if by the end of this week we're willing to compromise. Are we willing to put Americans back to work, 2 million Americans? Or are we going to hold fast to perhaps a funding scheme that has been proposed and can't even be agreed to by the members of the Republican caucus, or an elimination of certain categories of funding like public transportation which couldn't even be agreed to by the Republican caucus, let alone the Democrats. It's time to look at the bigger picture. It's time to look at that construction worker in our community, the ones we represent and say I want you to go back to work. We'll fight this out another day. But the most fundamental, the most important issue confronting this American economy and each and every individual in America is, where are the jobs? Where is my job? How can I support my family? It's time to put the bickering aside. It's time to accept the fact that Americans want to go to work, and 2 million Americans are out there looking for their opportunity. And their opportunity rests with us. It rests with the House of Representatives. The Senate has done its work. It's put a 2 year, fully funded transportation bill that meets the needs of this Nation for the next 2 years. They passed it out. This House has not passed a transportation bill. We put a stopgap thing out so we can go to conference, but it wasn't a transportation bill. It didn't do the job. Maybe Wednesday, Thursday, or maybe some time Friday there can be an agreement between the two houses. But if there is not an agreement, then as I heard not more than an hour ago from my Republican colleagues, in agreeing to the motion to instruct, that if there is no agreement, then take up the Senate bill. That was in fact the motion. Take up the Senate bill if there is no agreement. Put 2 million Americans back to work. Repair our highways. Repair our bridges. Buy American. Enhance the buy American provisions. We've got work to do. Americans have work to do. Americans want to work, and it's time for this House to work. And with that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. I want to thank the gentleman from Minnesota for yielding time for me to discuss this. During this approximately 1 hour of debate, it pays to listen to what has actually been said. What has been said by my Republican colleagues is: It's our way or no highway. We're going to have our way or no highway. What is their way? What is it that the Republicans are demanding? Get past the nice rhetoric, and look at the detail underlying the words: eliminate duplication. What does that mean? Well, it basically means eliminating the environmental laws. Oh, we don't need them. The States can take care of it. I think not. They want to focus on highways. Well, we all do; but what does that mean? It means that they want to eliminate the public transportation portion of this legislation. Okay. So no buses, no trains, no light rail funding. Get into the details about what is actually being demanded by our Republican colleagues, and you begin to say, Well, wait a minute. I think we can understand why there has not been progress here. We need to really move forward. Some 60,000 construction workers have lost their jobs in the last 5 months. As our Republican colleagues have laid out their demands, which they have essentially said are nonnegotiable--their way or no highway--they're holding this country hostage. They're holding the construction industry hostage so that they can have their way. Understand what their way means: no public transportation programs. Oh, we'll repair bridges and we'll do highways--and that's good--but there's more to it than this: no bike paths, no safety for men and women who are walking along our highways. That's their way. That's not what America's way needs to be. We need to pass a bill. Two million people want to go to work. Yes, they agree with Mr. Walz' proposal, which is to get this thing done. What they're really saying is: Get it done our way or there will be no highway. The Senate has passed a bill, and 74 Democrats and Republicans agreed to it. Let's get it done. If you can get it your way in the next 3 days, fine. Otherwise, give us the Senate bill, and let's put men and women to work here in this country. We cannot afford any more layoffs in the construction industry. We can no longer afford to wait. A 2-year bill is essential.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, last Thursday, the 2,000th U.S. military servicemember was killed in Operation Enduring Freedom. I send my deepest sympathies to the families and loved ones of each individual who has been killed since this war began more than a decade ago. Those losses are a cause for sadness beyond what I can adequately convey in my words. Having just celebrated Father's Day with my daughters and son, I reflect on the fact that each fallen soldier was the child of some parent. Many were husbands and wives, and many were parents themselves. We are a Nation at war. Yet the burden of this war has been primarily borne by a very few, by our military servicemembers and their families. Less than 1 percent of the United States population is in the armed services. Many Americans were not aware of last week's tragic milestone, or perhaps they may have glanced at the fatality count in their local paper and then they went about their daily events. This is a war that, for many, goes on in the background while most Americans carry on their daily lives. It's imperative that we stop and think deeply about the human cost of this war. We must read the names of those who have been killed, look at their pictures, and imagine the grief of those who have been left behind. We must also think about those who have been wounded. Every day outside this Chamber, we see yet one more military man or woman who has lost a limb, who has been harmed. They are in our military hospitals now, their futures uncertain. We must think about those servicemembers whose lives have been so shattered by the experience of war that they cannot continue living. More servicemembers took their lives in this year than were killed in combat in Afghanistan. Only when we feel those losses can we fully comprehend the cost of this war. Recently, this House passed its version of the National Defense Authorization Act that I opposed but the majority pushed forward, a bill that has no meaningful timeline for ending combat operations and bringing our troops home, no concrete plans for transitioning full responsibility for Afghanistan security to Afghan forces. Most Republican supporters of the National Defense Authorization Act would slow down the withdrawal of our troops. They would have American troops continue to fight against a domestic insurgency in Afghanistan, and they would have American troops fighting for the corrupt Karzai government. As Members of Congress, we're responsible for authorizing the funds that sustain this war. If we believe this war should continue, we should say that this war is absolutely essential to our Nation's security. This war is not. Can we look into the eyes of the mother or father of a serviceman who has been killed and say your child died for a mission that's absolutely essential to our Nation's security? I can't do that, and I believe most of us cannot. I believe it is time for the war in Afghanistan to come to an end. Our troops and their families have given enough. We should welcome them home as heroes, and we should ensure that they receive the support and care that is due when they return. We sent our brave servicemen and -women to Afghanistan to eliminate international terrorist organizations that threaten the United States. As President Obama said last month, our goal is to destroy al Qaeda. Our troops have successfully executed this mission with phenomenal dedication and capacity. We have virtually eliminated al Qaeda from Afghanistan. No expert says that there's more than 100 there, and they have no meaningful operation. They have demonstrated that we can take terrorists out wherever they are in this world. We have captured and killed most all of al Qaeda's top commanders. One year ago, we celebrated the historic moment when Osama bin Laden, the 9/11 mastermind, was killed. He met his just end. The cost of this war in blood and treasure has been staggering. Even those who have not given their lives have given of their lives. It's time for this war to end. The loyalty and dedication of our servicemembers, our most sacred resource, must be conserved. We must not squander it. End this war now. Mr. Speaker, last Thursday, the 2,000th U.S. military service member was killed in Operation Enduring Freedom. I send my deepest sympathies to the families and loved ones of each of the individuals who have been killed since we began this war in Afghanistan more than a decade ago. These losses are a cause for sadness beyond what I can adequately convey in words. Having just celebrating Father's day with my daughters and son, I reflect on the fact that each fallen soldier was the child of some parent. Many were husbands and wives, and many were parents themselves. We are a nation at war. Yet the burden of this war has been primarily borne by the few--by our military servicemembers and their families. Less than 1% of the U.S. population serves in the armed forces. Many Americans were not aware of last week's tragic milestone, or perhaps glanced at the fatality count in their local paper and continued with their day. This is a war that, for many, goes on in the background while they carry on with their daily lives. It is imperative that we stop and think deeply about the human costs of this war. We must read the names of those who have been killed, look at their pictures, and imagine the grief of those they left behind. We must think also about those who have been wounded, who are right now in our military hospitals with uncertain futures. Every day outside this Chamber, we see yet one more soldier who has lost a limb. And we must think about those servicemembers whose lives were so shattered by the experiences of war that they could not continue living. More servicemembers took their own lives this year than were killed in combat in Afghanistan. Only when we feel these losses can we fully comprehend the costs of this war. Recently, this House passed its version of the National Defense Authorization Act, which contains a provision inserted by the majority that would continue this war indefinitely. I opposed this bill. This majority bill has no meaningful timeline for ending combat operations and bringing our troops home. It has not concrete plans for quickly transitioning full responsibility for Afghanistan's security to Afghan forces. The majority has pushed to slow down the withdrawal of U.S. forces. They would have American troops continue fighting against a domestic insurgency in Afghanistan and striving to defeat those armed factions that threaten the corrupt Karzai government. As Members of Congress, we are responsible for authorizing the funds that would sustain this war. If we believe this war should continue, we affirm that this war is essential to our national security. It is not. We should be able to look into the eyes of a mother or father of a service member has been killed and say, ``Your child died in a war that is absolutely necessary to keep our country safe.'' I cannot do that, and I believe most of us cannot. It is time for the war in Afghanistan to come to an end. Our troops and their families have given enough. We should welcome them back as heroes and ensure that they receive the support and care that is their due when they return. We sent our brave service men and women to Afghanistan to eliminate those international terrorist organizations that threatened the United States. As President Obama stated very clearly last month, ``Our goal is to destroy Al Qaeda.'' Our troops have successfully executed this mission with phenomenal dedication and capacity. They have virtually eliminated Al Qaeda from Afghanistan, as our intelligence experts report that fewer than 100 Al Qaeda operatives remain in the country. They have demolished terrorist training camps, and captured or killed most of Al Qaeda's top commanders. One year ago we all celebrated the historic moment when Osama Bin Laden, the 9/11 mastermind who bears responsibility for the death of thousands of innocent American civilians, met his just end. The costs of this war, in blood and treasure, have been staggering. Even those who have not given their lives have given of their lives, missing time with loved ones at home while they serve our country abroad. The loyalty and dedication of our military servicemembers is America's most sacred resource, and we must not squander it. They have achieved the core national security objectives for which they were sent to Afghanistan. It is now time for our troops to come home to their families.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Madam Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Americans would make it if we made it in America. We'd have those middle class jobs. That's where it is. Mr. Ellison, thank you very much. I know you've got a plane; you've got to get back to Minneapolis. Thank you so much for joining us. This is part of the Democratic agenda. This is something we've been working on now for well over 2 years, and we call it ``Make It in America.'' This is rebuilding the American middle class. This is about the American middle class coming back. Over the last 20 years, we've seen a decline in American manufacturing. In the early nineties, we were a little more than 19 million, almost 20 million, Americans in the manufacturing sector. Those were middle class jobs, where you can go to work, earn a living, live a middle class life, buy your bass boat, take the kids on a vacation. Today, we're just over 11 million middle class manufacturing jobs in America. So looking at this dismal situation, a couple of years ago, shortly after I arrived here, we began looking at what do you do about this. Why did this happen? Why is it that the American manufacturing sector declined? We did our studies. We did the economic analysis. But mostly, we looked at public policy. We looked at the laws of this land. We looked at what was going on in the public policy sector; and what we found was the policies of this Nation discouraged manufacturing and, in fact, rewarded American corporations that would offshore jobs, literally, actually, giving American corporations a reduction in their taxes for every job they offshored. Total about $16 billion a year. I know; you don't believe that. How could there be such a policy? That was my question. What? You mean to tell me that the tax policy of the United States gives a tax break to American corporations when they ship a job offshore? Can't be. In fact, it was. And so in the last year, the last months of the Democrats' control of this House in 2010, we undertook to change that. We put a bill on this floor that would eliminate $12 billion of that $16 billion tax break that American corporations had for offshoring jobs. It passed without one Republican vote. Not one Member of the Republican Party voted to end a tax break for American companies that offshored jobs. The Senate took it up; it passed. President Obama signed that legislation. Public policy matters. Public policy matters a great deal. We've talked here today about the Buy American provisions, been in law for 30, 40 years, that basically say, if it's our taxpayer dollars, it ought to be used to buy American equipment. Over the years, probably beginning in the eighties and carrying on, those provisions began to gain loopholes, one after another, so that at the end of 2010, the loophole was a 12-lane freeway that you could drive any project through and buy whatever you wanted to buy from wherever it came from. So much so that in San Francisco, when the Oakland Bay Bridge between Oakland and San Francisco had to be rebuilt because of earthquake safety issues--some of it fell down in the Loma Prieta earthquake--the largest construction project, public works project ever in California. The main central steel column for a uniquely designed bridge, $1 billion or more, Chinese steel, Chinese welders, 6,000 jobs in China to save 10 percent. It turns out the steel was faulty, the welds were faulty, the jobs were still in China and the inspectors were Chinese. If we'd have had a Buy American provision that meant anything at all, we would have had 6,000 jobs in America; the inspectors would have been American; and there would be American jobs. So my legislation, H.R. 613, says this: If it is your tax money, it's going to be spent on American-made equipment, American-made steel, and the jobs will be in America. Where is that bill? It hasn't even been taken up for a hearing in the Transportation Committee. We're nibbling around the edges here. Of every bill that comes through this floor that's relevant to this issue, we try to shoehorn into it a Buy American provision. We try to increase the Buy American laws. We try to make certain that your tax money is going to be spent on American-made equipment. That's our agenda. Have we been successful? No. No, we've not. When the half-baked, worthless transportation bill was brought to the floor by our Republican colleagues, who could not even get agreement in their own caucus, we tried to put a provision on, an amendment on, and it was rejected. It was rejected. Americans want to go to work. Public policy matters. Will your tax dollars be spent buying Chinese steel? I'll give you another example. In Los Angeles, they went out to buy new light rail cars. Two bids were the final bids. One was by Siemens--yes, a German company that has a manufacturing plant for light rail cars in Sacramento, California. Siemens said that their light rail cars would have a minimum of 80 percent American-made content. A Japanese company came in and said, We'll do it for 60 percent. There was a slight difference. I think there was about a 2 percent difference in the bids. So what did the MTA, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, do? It chose the Japanese company. American jobs were lost immediately in Sacramento as a result of that decision. Now, whose money is going to be spent buying those cars, those light rail cars? Whose money is it? Your money. It's your tax money. Good for Japan. They're going to get some jobs. Bad for Sacramento. Layoffs have already occurred, and there are more to come. Do you want another example? I'll just use California. That's where I'm from. The Bay Area Rapid Transit System, BART: $3.2 billion for new trains over 10 years. $3.2 billion. Two bids. One, Bombardier, a fine Canadian company, said they would build them with 66 percent American-made content. Okay, that's good. It's not good enough because Alstom, a French company, said they would build them with 90 percent American- made content. Yes, it's a little more expensive, but we're talking $1 billion of American jobs here. The Bay Area Rapid Transit System said, Well, the Federal Government says it's 60 percent, and we're going to have to go with 66. I said and thousands of Californians said and New Yorkers, which is where most of these jobs would be, that Alstom has a plant in New York to manufacture light rail and heavy rail cars. They said, Wait, let's take 2 months--2 months--and let's rebid this, and let's see what we can do. Alstom was prepared to lower their bid if they would have had an opportunity, and $1 billion of American jobs are not here. They're somewhere else around the world. Public policy matters. Public policy matters. I think it's about time to wrap up here, so I'm going to go back to where we started. What if the House of Representatives under the control of our Republican colleagues--totally under their control and the Senate also under the control of the Republicans because it takes 60 votes there-- what if the President's American Jobs Act had been taken up and passed? We'll modify it, and don't forget it was fully paid for, 100 percent paid for with no increase in the deficit. The economists said clearly that 1.3 million would immediately result from the President's American Jobs Act. What if? What does it mean to you in your community? Would that road have been built? Would you have had the job paving that road? repairing and painting that bridge? down at the local school, painting the school? cleaning up the playgrounds? putting new toilets into the restrooms or, specifically, a new laboratory in the high school--not a lavatory but a laboratory? What if? What if we had put aside partisan politics? Keep this in mind that the Republican leader of the Senate, on the day or shortly after President Obama was inaugurated, said that his number one goal was to make sure that this was a one-term President. So how do you do that? Well, when the President proposes an American Jobs Act that would employ 1.3 million Americans immediately, you make certain that it doesn't become law. You slow it down. Everything has to be 60 votes in the Senate; and here in this House, you do not even take it up. You don't allow a vote on it. You don't do a transportation bill. You don't take the $50 billion injected immediately into infrastructure--totally paid for. You don't do it even though that would employ tens of thousands of Americans. You make certain that the 288,000 teachers who have been laid off across America are not rehired so that my daughter's classroom is not 22 students but 35 students. How do you destroy a President? You make certain that this economy doesn't move. You take his American Jobs Act, and you sit on it. That's what has happened. The great ``what if.'' What if we put Americans back to work? Yes, maybe Obama would get reelected--maybe I'd get reelected--but I'll tell you this: Americans would be working. Americans would be working. What if? Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Made in America. That's why the currency reform is so important.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Wouldn't you love to go into K-Mart or Target and see on the shelves ``Made in America''?

Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, Mr. Ellison, in your community and my community, people want to go to work. They want a job. They want to be able to be part of the American machine that creates the wealth of this economy. They want to have the opportunity to provide the money for their family, take care of their needs. They take pride in their work. They're hardworking people, but they can't make it. We have a long, long tradition in America that dates back really to the very first day of the American modern government. The day George Washington was sworn into office he undertook an industrial policy. I know our Republican colleagues like to talk about the Founding Fathers. Well, they really ought to listen to the Founding Fathers. And if they had listened to the Founding Fathers, they would have paid attention to the President's proposal on the American Jobs Act, because here's what George Washington did: he turned to his Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton, and said, Mr. Hamilton, we need to grow this economy. We need to put people to work. We need to be a strong Nation, a strong economy, and I want you, Mr. Hamilton, to develop a policy to do that. Hamilton came back a few months later with an industrial policy, 13 different items on about five pages--now it would probably take 5,000 pages, but nonetheless, he did it. Do you know what was in it? What was in that industrial policy that Hamilton presented to Washington and to Congress--and mostly implemented over the next decade or so--were policies that--let me put this back up. Let's see here. How many of these were in it? And here's the great ``what if?'' There was a transportation part to those policies--in fact, two different ones. One, Hamilton said if we're going to grow this economy, we need to have good roads, we need to have good canals, and we need to improve our ports. He proposed legislation that did become law--some of it by the States, some of it by the national government--that created the canal systems, put the roads in place, and improved the ports of America. Very beginnings of this Nation. Pay attention, my colleagues who like to talk about the Founding Fathers: the Founding Fathers said we need America to have a transportation program. Currency reform was on the agenda. Yes, it was. Hamilton, Treasury Secretary, said we need to pay attention to the currency issue. There was a huge fight going on at the time about the Federal bank, about the currency issues, but he said we needed a common currency, and we needed to be aware of the international exchange rates that were going on so that we were not put at a disadvantage. There was a Buy American program. Hamilton told George Washington and the Founding Fathers that we needed to put in place a Buy America provision. You just heard our colleague from Oregon talking about a robust Buy American provision--and sometime before I end I'll talk about my legislation that says if it's our tax dollars, it's going to be spent on American- made equipment and American jobs. We're not going to use our tax dollars to buy foreign equipment. That's precisely what Alexander Hamilton told George Washington in the very first Congress of this Nation, and they began to implement it. Energy efficiency wasn't there. He did, however, talk about this one, this was one of the 13. He said we needed to have a robust research and development program--they called them patents at that time. We need to be ahead of everybody else. He wanted to put in policies, and they did become law. And here we have it today, just on these issues alone, these six issues. The Founding Fathers said transportation. They said watch the currency. They said Buy American. And they said we need to be ahead with research and patents and be on the cutting edge of technology. What if President Barack Obama's American Jobs Act had been taken up by the Republican leadership that control this House? What if they had listened to the Founding Fathers and actually implemented what the President wanted to put in place? 1.3 million, 1.3 million jobs, perhaps as much as 1.9 million jobs Americans would be working today. The great ``what if'' question of our time. What if they had listened to the Founding Fathers? Mr. Ellison, I know you have more to say.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. DeFazio, for years you have been fighting for infrastructure. I didn't watch last night's debate as you fought fiercely to prevent one of the most foolish pieces of legislation-- well, there have been many foolish pieces of legislation proposed by our colleagues, but you couldn't be more correct. Let me just put this up. I came across this yesterday. Basically what this is is it's a diagram of the employment in the construction industry. We had about, what is that, 5,570,000 men and women working in the construction industry in January, and here we are in May and we're just over 5,500,000--some 20,000, almost 30,000 have lost their jobs. And the proposals that our Republican colleagues are making would guarantee that once these projects are finished, it would be over, nothing more. But the President laid out not only a transportation bill, but he laid out a very robust jump-start to it--$50 billion of additional money invested. Now, let's understand, this is not government money; this is an investment by the American people. It is their gasoline tax, their diesel tax. It is their investment in the highways and bridges and transportation systems of this Nation. Well, I guess if you're anti-tax and you're anti-roads and you're pro-gridlock, you're guaranteeing that the economy will slow down and eventually, who knows, even collapse. Fortunately, there's a gentleman here from the great Mid-Northwest, Mr. Keith Ellison. You've been on this issue for a long time. I know in your area you've been very, very concerned about the issues that are in the American Jobs Act. Please join us.

Mr. GARAMENDI. We all like to think about ``what if''--what if I had actually gotten an A rather than an F in that high school class? What if I had hit that home run instead of struck out? The what-if game is part of our life. But I want to take that up today in a very, very serious way. This is about what if this Congress, led by our Republican colleagues, had taken up and passed President Barack Obama's American Jobs Act. Last September, the President made a very bold proposal to put Americans back to work, a comprehensive piece of legislation that covered many, many different parts of the American economy. It's called the American Jobs Act. Fully paid for, not increasing the deficit at all, but paid for with the elimination of unnecessary tax breaks for Big Oil, unnecessary tax cuts for the extraordinarily wealthy 1 percent of Americans, a fully paid-for American Jobs Act proposed by the President last September. What if? What if this House under our Republican leadership had taken up the elements of the American Jobs Act, modified them, as is our nature and our responsibility, but nonetheless passed those very significant proposals that would, according to economists, create somewhere between 1.3 and 1.9 million jobs immediately? Not some day in the future, but now. What if we had done that last September? What if our Republican leadership had allowed those measures to come before the committees and on this floor to be signed by the President? Then 1.3 million Americans or maybe even 1.9 million Americans would have a job today. We're going to talk today about the most tragic what-if this Nation is pondering at this moment. What if the American Jobs Act had been implemented? Let's talk about what it is. What are the elements of the American Jobs Act? Bear with me, if you will, as we go through these. I'll go through them rather quickly, and then we'll come back and touch on them as we go on. If you've been watching here in the gallery or if you are watching C SPAN, you would have heard my Democratic colleagues talk about the transportation bill. The President said last fall, We need to have a transportation bill, and we need it now. We need to put men and women back to work in the construction industry repairing our bridges, building our highways, paving our airports, building the infrastructure that this Nation needs. The student aid bill. We know that if America is going to compete, we have to have the best educated workforce in the world. And so the President proposed a student aid bill, legislation that would provide additional sources of funding so students can go to school in community colleges, in 4-year schools, and in the master and doctorate programs. The President took up one of the great conundrums and problems that this Nation faces from our competitors. Yes, China. China manipulates its currency, and the President said that has to stop. He asked for the House of Representatives and the Senate to pass a piece of legislation dealing with the manipulation of the Chinese currency, which gives them somewhere between a 20 and 25 percent price advantage on all the things that they manufacture and import into the United States. He said, Do something about that. Give me, the administration, the power to deal, to put a tariff on those Chinese goods if the Chinese Government continues to manipulate its currency. He said we ought to buy American-made products. We ought to use our money, our taxpayer money, to buy American-made goods. I have a piece of legislation that would do just that, and I'll talk about that before this hour is done. Buy America. Enhance the Buy American provisions. Do away with the waivers that have created a 12-lane freeway for foreign products to find their way into America despite the laws. The President said that there are millions of homes in America that are inefficient, that leak energy and cost the homeowner or the renter vast amounts of money. He said we could put people to work putting in new windows, caulking, putting insulation in the attics. We could put people to work and, in the process, reduce our consumption of energy and create jobs. He said there ought to be a permanent research and development tax credit so that our industries would stay ahead of the competition around the world, so that they would know year after year after year that the research and development tax credit would be there and the more that they invested in research, the more that they took that research and developed products, the more jobs would be created, and they didn't have to worry that, well, maybe, it won't be there next year, so this 5-year research program, we won't do it. No, he wants certainty. His American Jobs Act would have given certainty. But the leadership in this House refused to take up all of those provisions. The President went on and said we need a payroll tax cut for businesses and for the worker. We did a little of this. Businesses didn't get a tax break on their payroll; however, the men and women that do work and do get a salary did get half of what the President proposed. He said we ought to put veterans to work. And fortunately, on Veterans Day last year, we did pass a bill to do that, and we should consider even more. 285,000 teachers have lost their jobs this year across America. The President said that we cannot survive as a stable, growing country with a just society if we don't educate our kids, and so he said let's put those teachers back to work, 280,000 of them, and police and firemen along with them, so that we would have the public protection. He said that in addition to a transportation enhancement, an additional $50 billion over and above the transportation bill, we ought to put people to work and give a jump start. Just like you would with a dead battery on your car, he wanted to put those jumper cables on the American construction industry, $50 billion, get it up and going. And he said we need a permanent infrastructure bank. I'll finish this up quickly, because it gets to be a rather long what-if. But, oh, what if. What if we had done these things? How about rebuilding our schools and houses, again putting people to work. And how about allowing Americans to refinance their homes to stop the inevitable decline of the housing industry as more and more people were forced into bankruptcy and losing their homes. It's the American Jobs Act, proposed by the President of the United States last September, and to this day, two of those policies have been adopted. What if? What if? The economists say 1.3 million Americans would be working today if this legislation had been allowed to be brought to the floor of this House, had been allowed to be brought to the Senate and the President to sign it. And don't forget this: It was fully paid for. It was fully paid for. The deficit would not have been increased. However, the oil companies would not have $12 billion of your money in addition to what they've taken at the gasoline pump--the wealthiest industry in the world. We'd get our tax dollars back, and we'd put people to work. And for those with a million dollars of annual income after all of the deductions, after all of the credits, for those with a million dollars of annual income, their taxes would have gone up to pay for putting 1.3 million Americans back to work. What if? I'd like now to call upon my colleague from the State of Oregon who for years has fought for transportation, one of the senior members on the Transportation Committee. Mr. DeFazio, you were here late last night fighting one of the most foolish proposals I have heard of, to cut the transportation budget by $37 billion. Thank you for fighting that fight and informing us. Fortunately, this House rejected that foolish proposal. I yield to the gentleman from Oregon.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Madam Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. GARAMENDI. I ask for your ``aye'' vote. I ask for American jobs. Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. GARAMENDI. Madam Speaker, this is a very simple amendment. This is about a four-letter word, ``jobs,'' American jobs. This is about jobs for American men and women. We know there is plenty of unemployment. We've heard repeatedly, as the amendments have been put forth on this floor, that the National Defense Authorization Act is about jobs. Well, we think there ought to be a few more jobs, and we think those jobs ought to be in American ports, at American shipyards, for the men and women that work in the shipyards of America. Whether those shipyards are in Guam or those shipyards are here on the continent, American workers want to go to work, and they can. With this amendment, my colleagues, with this amendment, American workers in our ports, at American shipyards will have more jobs. There are few enough already. I cannot understand why anybody in this House would vote against a jobs bill, particularly one that doesn't cost us any more money than is already going to be spent. The question here is, Where will the jobs be? Are the jobs going to be in a foreign port, such as Hong Kong? Are the jobs going to be in Singapore? Are they going to be in Dubai? Or are they going to be in America? Ladies and gentlemen, my colleagues, we want jobs in America. We want it made in America. We want it repaired in America. And we want Americans to have jobs. That's what this amendment is about. Is there anyone here that would disagree with that? Is there anyone on this floor that would disagree with the men and women that work in our shipyards having an opportunity to repair American military vessels? Where are you? Which one among you is going to vote against a man or a woman here in the United States repairing an American vessel? And it's not just the Navy. This is about the merchant marines. This is about those American flagged ships that provide service to our military. Where will they be repaired? In some foreign port? Or are they going to be repaired by Americans in American ports? This is about American jobs--not millions of jobs, but tens of thousands of jobs. Those of you that represent those ports where there are ship repair facilities, pay attention to this one. Pay attention to this because these are jobs for your constituents. These are jobs repairing American naval vessels. This is about your job in your district. This is about your job in your district and your work and my work to make sure that we have American jobs repairing American naval vessels. Now if there's an emergency, that's another matter. That's waived, and that's not included in here. This is about your job protecting your people in your district, those men and women in your district that are at the ports, that are at the ship repair facilities, that are hungering for the jobs. They want to bring the bread back home. They want to bring food to their table. They want to pay their mortgage. And this bill provides them with an opportunity to continue to work to repair American naval vessels here in American ports, American men and women working to keep our ships on the line, on the seas operating. And for those ships that are American flagships across this world, delivering the supplies to our men and women wherever they happen to be, those ships too will be repaired in American ports. This is a jobs bill. This is a simple vote for your people in your home districts, whether they will have the opportunity or whether the job will be in a foreign port, with foreign workers repairing American naval vessels. There's also a small national security issue here. Many of these ships are ships of the line that provide very important services. For example, the USS Samuel Roberts, a guided missile frigate, repaired in Italy. I don't have a problem with the Italians. But I want those Italians to be in America working on the USS Samuel Roberts. The USS Blue Ridge, a command and control ship, $16 million of work, repaired in Japan, when it could have just as easily been done in Guam or Hawaii or another American port.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Is it not the case that if my amendment is adopted, we would immediately vote on the final passage of the bill, as amended?

Mr. GARAMENDI. Madam Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. GARAMENDI. I am opposed to the bill in its current form.

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