Jim McGovern

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. McGOVERN. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, let me close by, again, first of all, saying that this rule should be an open rule and that, at a very minimum, the amendment that would require that the materials that would be used to construct any of these containers be made in the United States of America. It's important that we stand up for American jobs. It's important that we make it in America. And so this rule deserves to be defeated based on that alone. This process is also bad and flawed because there was no hearing on this particular piece of legislation, and the ranking member of the full Energy and Commerce Committee did not think, based on what he said, that this was a particularly bipartisan, open process. In fact, there are some Members who supported this bill in committee who will not support it on the floor because of promises that were supposedly made that were not kept. So, for a whole bunch of reasons on process, we should defeat this rule. Secondly, Mr. Speaker, on the underlying bill, I would remind my colleagues that part of our job here is to protect the safety and well- being of the people we represent. Coal ash contains arsenic, lead, and many other toxic materials that can escape into the air or water if the material isn't properly contained. We should be concerned about the safety implications here. We should be concerned about any consequences that may result in poor regulation and poor oversight. And to basically, again, take this time on the floor to again take another slap at the EPA because that's the favorite punching bag of my friends on the Republican side of the aisle, I think, is not a credit to this institution and is not doing what we were elected to do, and that is to make sure that we are upholding the safety and protecting the people of this country. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle say that the problem is all regulation, only EPA regulation. There was an interesting opinion piece that appeared in The New York Times by a fellow named Bruce Bartlett--he had held senior policy roles in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, served on the staff of Jack Kemp--who did a piece for The New York Times entitled, ``Misrepresentations, Regulations and Jobs.'' I'll read a couple of the lines from his piece. He says: ``Republicans have a problem''--and he's Republican himself. ``Republicans have a problem. People are increasingly concerned about unemployment, but Republicans have nothing to offer them.'' He further says: ``No hard evidence is offered for this claim'' that all the uncertainty within business is tied to regulation.'' He says that notwithstanding the lack of evidence, the Republicans repeated this assertion ``endlessly throughout the conservative echo chamber.'' He also says: ``While concerns about regulation have risen during the Obama administration, they are about the same now as they were during Ronald Reagan's administration, according to an analysis of the federation's data by the Economic Policy Institute.'' He ends by saying this: ``In my opinion, regulatory uncertainty is a canard invented by Republicans that allows them to use current economic problems to pursue an agenda supported by the business community year in and year out. In other words, it is a simple case of political opportunism, not a serious effort to deal with high unemployment.'' I bring that up not to say that regulation isn't a problem and that we should not deal in a constructive way with needless regulation--the President said that in his speech to the House when he introduced his jobs bill--but it is not the only problem out there. And to suggest that bringing bills like this to the floor are going to somehow create jobs is just patently false. If we want to create jobs in this country, we should bring the President's jobs bill to the floor. Again, the American people overwhelmingly support what the President outlined in his speech before the Congress; and all the things that he articulated, I say to my friend from South Carolina, were bipartisan ideas. Republicans and Democrats all cosponsored legislation on various pieces of his proposal. Why now they have become controversial is beyond me. I'll just close with this: At some point I hope my friends on the other side of the aisle will get serious about the issue of jobs; at some point I hope they will bring something meaningful to this House floor that, if passed, will actually put people back to work, because up to this point the Republican leadership has failed miserably. And I think people all across this country--and you see this reflected in the public opinion polls--have had it. They're tired of this constant agenda of hot-button issues and of trivial matters that we debate passionately and important ones not at all. Mr. Speaker, I would urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question. If we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to make in order an amendment by Mr. Garamendi of California which was submitted to the Rules Committee. They didn't make it in order even though it is germane and fully paid for and meets every requirement of the rules of the House. The amendment would make sure that construction materials used to build holding facilities for coal ash are made in America. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment in the Record along with extraneous material immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. McGOVERN. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, a new study from Tufts University shows that we can create tens of thousands of new jobs by requiring safe disposal of coal ash. Ensuring that coal ash disposal sites protect human health and the environment will take work. It will take construction workers, equipment operators, and engineers. And this isn't a ``make work'' effort. These jobs will provide tremendous benefit to the communities in which they take place. But these jobs will not happen if we pass this bill. This bill basically preserves the status quo. So if we want to create jobs, I think we need to vote this bill down. Again, Mr. Speaker, we're still trying to get an understanding on this side of the aisle as to why we don't have an open rule and why an amendment that would require that job stability infrastructure for all of this, that all the materials be made in America. If we want to protect American jobs and create American jobs, we have to stand up and fight for American jobs and fight for American workers. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. I reclaim my time. So the new definition of openness under the Republican majority is you don't have to have a legislative hearing on a bill that you bring to the floor, but you can say it doesn't matter or that you did, or whatever. This is not the way this place is supposed to work. This process is not what my friends on the other side of the aisle promised. Again, I have yet to hear a good reason why this is not an open rule. Given the fact that there was no hearing on this specific bill, given the fact that there were a number of germane amendments that were not made in order, given the fact that during the debate there may be Members on both sides of the aisle who may have ideas they may want to bring to the floor and amend this bill, and also given the fact that one of the amendments that was not made in order was an amendment that would have required that the materials that are used to make these coal ash containers be made in the United States of America, why is that such a heavy lift for my friends on the other side of the aisle? With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi).

Mr. McGOVERN. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Again, I appreciate the words of my colleague from Illinois, but H.R. 1391 is not H.R. 2273. There was no legislative hearing on H.R. 2273.

Mr. McGOVERN. Again, Mr. Speaker, let me repeat, the amendment we want to make in order would make sure that construction materials used to build holding facilities for coal ash are made in America. Why that should be controversial is beyond me. Why anybody on either side should oppose that is beyond me. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question. I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule, and I yield back the balance of my time. [From the New York Times, Oct. 4, 2011] Misrepresentations, Regulations and Jobs (By Bruce Bartlett) Bruce Bartlett held senior policy roles in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and served on the staffs of Representatives Jack Kemp and Ron Paul. Republicans have a problem. People are increasingly concerned about unemployment, but Republicans have nothing to offer them. The G.O.P. opposes additional government spending for jobs programs and, in fact, favors big cuts in spending that would be likely to lead to further layoffs at all levels of government. Today's Economist Perspectives from expert contributors Republicans favor tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, but these had no stimulative effect during the George W. Bush administration and there is no reason to believe that more of them will have any today. And the Republicans' oft-stated concern for the deficit makes tax cuts a hard sell. These constraints have led Republicans to embrace the idea that government regulation is the principal factor holding back employment. They assert that Barack Obama has unleashed a tidal wave of new regulations, which has created uncertainty among businesses and prevents them from investing and hiring. No hard evidence is offered for this claim; it is simply asserted as self-evident and repeated endlessly throughout the conservative echo chamber. On Aug. 29, the House majority leader, Eric Cantor of Virginia, sent a memorandum to members of the House Republican Conference, telling them to make the repeal of job-destroying regulations the key point in the Republican jobs agenda. ``By pursuing a steady repeal of job-destroying regulations, we can help lift the cloud of uncertainty hanging over small and large employers alike, empowering them to hire more workers,'' Mr. Cantor said. Evidence supporting Mr. Cantor's contention that deregulation would increase unemployment is very weak. For some years, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has had a program that tracks mass layoffs. In 2007, the program was expanded, and businesses were asked their reasons for laying off workers. Among the reasons offered was ``government regulations/intervention.'' There is only partial data for 2007, but we have data since then through the second quarter of this year. The table below presents the bureau's data. As one can see, the number of layoffs nationwide caused by government regulation is minuscule and shows no evidence of getting worse during the Obama administration. Lack of demand for business products and services is vastly more important. Bureau of Labor Statistics These results are supported by surveys. During June and July, Small Business Majority asked 1,257 small-business owners to name the two biggest problems they face. Only 13 percent listed government regulation as one of them. Almost half said their biggest problem was uncertainty about the future course of the economy--another way of saying a lack of customers and sales. The Wall Street Journal's July survey of business economists found, ``The main reason U.S. companies are reluctant to step up hiring is scant demand, rather than uncertainty over government policies, according to a majority of economists.'' In August, McClatchy Newspapers canvassed small businesses, asking them if regulation was a big problem. It could find no evidence that this was the case. ``None of the business owners complained about regulation in their particular industries, and most seemed to welcome it,'' McClatchy reported. ``Some pointed to the lack of regulation in mortgage lending as a principal cause of the financial crisis that brought about the Great Recession of 2007-9 and its grim aftermath.'' The latest monthly survey of its members by the National Federation of Independent Business shows that poor sales are far and away their biggest problem. While concerns about regulation have risen during the Obama administration, they are about the same now as they were during Ronald Reagan's administration, according to an analysis of the federation's data by the Economic Policy Institute. Academic research has also failed to find evidence that regulation is a significant factor in unemployment. In a blog post on Sept. 5, Jay Livingston, a sociologist at Montclair State University, hypothesized that if regulation were a major problem it would show up in the unemployment rates of industries where regulation has been increasing: the financial sector, medical care and mining/fuel extraction. He found that unemployment rates in these sectors were actually well below the national average. Unemployment is much higher in those industries that one would expect to suffer most from a lack of aggregate demand: construction, leisure and hospitality, business services, wholesale and retail trade, and durable goods. Gary Burtless, an economist at the Brookings Institution, asserts that if businesses were really concerned about rising regulations, they would be investing now to avoid them. But there is no indication that this is the case. ``The real reason for anemic investment and hiring is that businesses are not confident there will be enough potential customers to justify expansion or even routine capital replacement right now,'' he says. In my opinion, regulatory uncertainty is a canard invented by Republicans that allows them to use current economic problems to pursue an agenda supported by the business community year in and year out. In other words, it is a simple case of political opportunism, not a serious effort to deal with high unemployment.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. My colleague on the Rules Committee from South Carolina said we should all work in a bipartisan way, and I agree. And that's what the President attempted to do. His jobs bill represents a series of initiatives that were all bipartisan, that were all bipartisan until he announced he wanted to move on it, and then all of a sudden it became a partisan deal. Everything in the President's jobs package has been sponsored in a bipartisan way. So I don't understand why now. If you want to call it the Republican idea, I don't care what you want to call it, but bring it to the floor and allow us to be able to debate these bipartisan initiatives that will put people back to work. Again, I would say about the rule, where's the openness here? I mean, the majority of amendments that were offered were not made in order, including an amendment that would require that the building materials for these holding tanks be made in America. Why is that so controversial? Why is making things in America a radical idea to my Republican friends? Why is it somehow a bad thing to insist that the steel used to build these plants be made in the United States of America and not China? I mean, we all should be on the side of American workers here, and that means standing up and making sure those jobs are here in the United States. So let's open this rule up so we have an opportunity to protect American jobs. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would say to the gentlelady from West Virginia, I don't know how many cosponsors there are on the bill, but I want to vote for the bill. I'm willing to propose a unanimous consent request that we amend this rule and we bring up H.R. 12 today. If the gentleman on the other side of the aisle is willing, let's bring it up and have that debate right now. I am happy to yield to the gentleman if he wants to agree to that unanimous consent. Well, the silence, Mr. Speaker, is deafening. The fact of the of the of the matter is that we are going to finish up today at 2 o'clock or 3 o'clock or whatever and then go on another week recess when the American people are struggling, when there are millions of people who are out of work, when there are millions of families struggling to try to pay their mortgages, when there are millions of families who are trying to figure out how they're going to have the resources to send their kids to school. This is the best we can do? Come on, we can do a lot better than this, Mr. Speaker. I would again urge my colleagues to get serious and, if you don't like the President's jobs bill, then vote against it. It's that simple. But let us bring a bill to the floor that by every measure, by every public opinion poll that is out there, is popular. The American people want it. You always like to invoke polls. Well, the polls overwhelmingly show the American people support this. So let's bring that bill to the floor. With that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would remind my colleague on the Rules Committee, the gentlelady from North Carolina, that over half the Senate--over half the Senate-- voted to bring up the President's jobs bill. Over half the Senate supports the President's jobs bill. But under the arcane rules in the United States Senate, you need 60 votes to have lunch, never mind pass a bill. So it wasn't defeated. A majority actually support the President's jobs bill. It is the Republicans who are obstructing this legislation, who are using procedural tricks to keep this bill from coming up before the United States Senate for a clean up-or-down vote. It is Republicans in the House of Representatives who are saying that none of us will have an opportunity to vote on the President's bill. I mean, here's a good idea. You bring up what you want to bring up; you let us bring up what we want to bring up. The President's bill, as I said, is very popular. The legislation, I would remind my friend from South Carolina, is paid for, is paid for. The legislation's specifics as well as the idea of taxing the very, very, very wealthy to pay for it are popular with the American public, and that's according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. So, I mean, what are you afraid of? If you don't want to vote for legislation to help put people back to work, then you don't have to vote for it. You go home and explain to your constituents why you're against the bill. What we should be doing here in this U.S. House of Representatives is, every day, debating and legislating on ways to be able to put this country back to work. You want to reduce the deficit? Put people back to work. If you want to improve the economy, put people back to work. It's simple. And we're doing everything in this place but debating legislation to put people back to work. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. I want to thank my friend from South Carolina for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. McGOVERN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to this structured rule and the underlying legislation. I should point out to my colleagues that Democrats yesterday introduced an amendment in the Rules Committee to make this an open rule, but, unfortunately, every single Republican on the Rules Committee voted against making this an open process. So much for Speaker Boehner's pledge for an open House of Representatives. This rule makes in order six amendments; six out of 16 submitted, less than half that were offered to the Rules Committee. Included in those amendments was an amendment by Mr. Kissell which would have required, essentially, that all the components of the infrastructure that would create these holding facilities for steel ash would have to be made with American products, so that it wouldn't be made with Chinese steel, it would be made with American steel, American concrete, and American rebar. I have no idea why that was controversial. The American people are worried about jobs, and there was an opportunity to make an amendment in order that would have protected and ensured American jobs, and they wanted no part of it. Mr. Speaker, once again, the Republicans are jamming a rule through the House that shuts down the debate and cherry-picks a handful of amendments. I should also point out that this bill that we're debating here today didn't even have a hearing--no hearings. I thought we were going to adhere to regular order, and that means that the committees of jurisdiction hold a hearing on the legislation--not a general hearing on the topic, but on the legislation. No hearings were held on this. Discussion on this bill the other night in the Rules Committee was, I thought, kind of comical. The chairman of the Rules Committee, someone who's served in this institution a very long time, said he would have preferred an open rule but said that the schedule forced him to vote against my amendment to make this an open rule. The schedule? The same House schedule where we go into recess every 2 weeks? Mr. Speaker, the American people want us to address the challenges that are facing our economy. They want us to be focused on the issue of jobs. And we're not legislating under this schedule that the Republicans have put into place. Since there were no hearings on this bill and since there were a lot of amendments that were offered, we should have had an open process. And if it took us a couple of days to debate and vote on this bill, so be it. That's the way this place is supposed to work. Yesterday on the floor, we wasted time debating an abortion bill that is going absolutely nowhere, a bill that is designed to inflame and divide our country. I would suggest to my friends on the other side of the aisle, instead of bringing up hot-button social issues designed to fire up the right-wing base, maybe they should think about bringing a jobs bill to the floor of the House of Representatives. In reality, Mr. Speaker, we should be debating the President's jobs bill, and yet the Republican leadership has refused to allow us even to have a vote on the bill. If my friends on the Republican side don't want to vote for a jobs bill, then they can vote against it, but we ought to be able to have a vote on the President's jobs bill. The fact is that it's been 281 days that we've been in session--281 days without a jobs bill, 281 days that the Republicans have stood on the sidelines while Americans struggle to make ends meet, struggle to put food on the table, struggle to make house payments, struggle to find a job to pay their bills. We need a real jobs plan, not another bumper sticker bill demonizing the EPA, which is what today's bill is all about. The American people don't want us wasting time on these trivial bills, bills that are going to go nowhere. What they want us to do is to pass a jobs bill. They want, Mr. Speaker, us to pass the President's jobs bill. Don't take my word for it. The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll that was released this week shows that nearly two-thirds of Americans want the President's jobs bill. The poll finds that 63 percent of Americans support the President's bill and that only 32 percent oppose it. It's not even close. The American people want action on jobs. They want to go back to work. They want us to do something meaningful, and they want us to do it now. Mr. Speaker, if there's one thing that the new House majority has been consistent on this year, it's their almost religious crusade against the EPA. H.R. 2273 fits right in with their political agenda to undermine the agency at any cost and, in the process, threaten the health and safety of the American people, all under the guise of job creation. I'm appalled that that is their idea of a jobs bill. Mr. Speaker, coal combustion waste is enormously toxic. It contains an array of the most harmful chemicals out there--mercury, lead, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, and arsenic--that are especially devastating to the development of children. Over the years, billions of tons of coal ash have been dumped in poorly designed waste pits and containment sites in communities across the country. I want to remind my colleagues on the other side of the aisle of the catastrophic coal ash spill in Kingston, Tennessee, in 2008 where 1.1 billion gallons of liquid coal waste seeped out of a contaminated pool and contaminated local drinking water. I would also remind my Republican colleagues that it cost the taxpayers more than $1 billion to clean up that disaster, and that residents in the Kingston area are still dealing with its continuing effects. H.R. 2273 is a bad piece of legislation, and it flies in the face of commonsense safety precautions when disposing of hazardous materials. By leaving the establishment of coal ash safety standards solely to the discretion of States, this bill simply encourages a ``race to the bottom'' where the State willing to have the least protections will become the dumping ground for the entire country. And H.R. 2273 leaves taxpayers on the hook for paying for another cataclysmic disaster like the one in Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I don't think any of my colleagues would want their families, their wives or husbands or children, living anywhere near the vicinity of a coal ash dumping site. H.R. 2273 is another Republican bill that undermines commonsense health and safety protections from toxic chemicals and ultimately lowers the quality of living for millions of American families. I urge my colleagues to reject this rule and instead send it back to the Rules Committee. Let's have an open rule. Given the fact, again, the bill didn't have a hearing, we should have an open rule here. I would urge my Republican colleagues to finally get to work on putting the American people back to work. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. I yield myself such time as I may consume. To the gentleman who just spoke, I would remind him that we're debating the rule here. We could have this debate about whether or not there are health concerns here or not. I happen to believe there are, and I think most scientists believe that there are health concerns that we should take into consideration here. But what's wrong with an open rule? What was so wrong with bringing an amendment to the floor that would have required that the components to build these containers, if you will, be made of materials made in the United States? What's wrong with U.S. steel or U.S. concrete? Why is that a controversy? So I would say to my colleagues on the other side who like to say that they're open, let this be an open rule, especially since there were no hearings on this particular bill. My colleague from South Carolina got up and he said he was confused. I'm sorry he's confused. Let me try to un-confuse him about one thing, which is, if you want to create jobs, bring the President's jobs bill to the floor. Economists predict that the American Jobs Act could create up to 1.9 million jobs next year and boost economic growth by about 2 percentage points. You've got a twofer here. Not only do you put people back to work, but you help to reduce our deficit when you put more people to work. If we could lower the unemployment rate in this country by a few percentage points, we could lower our deficit. Why is that so controversial? Rather than focusing on partisan bills that don't mean much for the economy, it's time for the Republicans to take up the American Jobs Act, which is fully paid for, includes bipartisan ideas, will create jobs, and grow our economy now. What we should be doing every single day on this House floor is focusing on jobs, on putting people back to work. Instead, today is another bill attacking the EPA, and yesterday we did an abortion bill. I mean, we're talking about everything but how to put people back to work, so I would urge my colleagues to get their priorities straight. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, the Colombia FTA is bad for American workers, bad for jobs, and bad for Colombian workers, small farmers, and human rights defenders. Colombia is still a country in conflict that affects thousands every year. We know Colombia is the deadliest place in the world to be a trade unionist, but it also suffers from over 4 million internally displaced, second only to Sudan. Over 1 million Colombians are refugees in neighboring countries. They are fleeing terrifying, crippling violence from paramilitaries, guerrillas, and even Colombia's own army. And after these people leave, drug traffickers, criminals, and wealthy interests come in and they take over. This FTA will only increase that vicious cycle. Nearly every study done asserts that the FTA will push even more small farmers off their land. They will either be forced to join the ranks of the displaced, grow coca or join the guerrillas or paramilitaries just to feed their families. They won't be buying American goods, Madam Speaker. And when Colombian workers have no rights, then there's no level playing field for American workers, and that costs jobs. This FTA is set up to help the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It's the last thing Colombia's workers, farmers, and human rights defenders need. Finally, Madam Speaker, let me ask my colleagues in this Chamber, do human rights matter anymore? If so, we should not be debating this FTA today. We should be waiting until we see real, honest-to-goodness results on the ground in terms of improvements of human rights. When it comes to human rights, Madam Speaker, the United States of America should not be a cheap date. We should stand firm, and we should be unabashed in our support for human rights. Madam Speaker, that is why I urge all my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this FTA agreement. [From Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Oct. 10, 2011] Free Trade: The Big Lie--We Should Stop Making Trade Agreements That Hurt Workers (By Daniel Kovalik) On March 10, 2010, former President Bill Clinton made this stunning confession to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee regarding his free trade policies in Haiti: ``It may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked. It was a mistake. I had to live every day with the consequences of the loss of capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people because of what I did; nobody else.'' Even more surprisingly, Mr. Clinton, one of the founding fathers of the modern free trade agreement, admitted that this type of trade policy ``failed everywhere it's been tried. . . .'' Truer words have never been spoken. And yet, even in the face of such a confession, and in the face of incontrovertible facts, the U.S. Congress is poised to pass not just one, but three new free trade agreements--with Colombia, South Korea and Panama--of the very type that Mr. Clinton now loses sleep over. So, what are the facts? Let's start with the mother of all free trade agreements-- the North American Free Trade Agreement--the one which Mr. Clinton had promised would create jobs in the United States but which presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama ran from in 2008, claiming that it needed fixing. And fixing it surely needs. According to the Economic Policy Institute, nearly 900,000 (mostly high-paying) U.S. jobs were lost to NAFTA between 1993 and 2002 alone. Meanwhile, Mexico has fared even worse. Indeed, the same devastation Mr. Clinton's policies wrought in Haiti have been experienced in Mexico. Thus, the agricultural provisions of NAFTA--almost identical to those contained in the Colombia Free Trade Agreement now being considered--cost the livelihood and land of 1.3 million small farmers in Mexico. Where did these small farmers go? Many are being forced to emigrate to the United States. Indeed, while small farmers make up a relatively small percentage of the Mexican population, they make up around 40 percent of Mexicans immigrating into the United States. Still others have been pushed into the illicit drug trade--the very drug trade the United States purports to fight there. Meanwhile, the good industrial jobs lost in the United States under NAFTA never translated into good jobs in Mexico. Rather, NAFTA created low-paying, dangerous and environmentally damaging industries on the other side of the border which have devastated Mexican workers and their communities. One only need look at Juarez, Mexico--the city that was to be a model of development under NAFTA and which instead is experiencing violence at wartime levels, with 4,300 civilians murdered in the last two years out of a population of 2 million. Again, it was NAFTA and the ``free trade'' principles it embodied which have done this, which have transformed Mexico into the near failed state it is today. This now brings us to the Colombia FTA--the one I know most about and which represents the biggest concern for labor and human rights advocates. When running for office, President Obama took a principled stance against the Colombia FTA, echoing the concerns of labor that we shouldn't enter into a free trade agreement with Colombia in light of its abysmal labor and human rights situation. As Mr. Obama explained, ``We have to stand for human rights and we have to make sure that violence isn't being perpetrated against workers who are just trying to organize for their rights.'' The rationale behind this stance continues to this day, with 51 unionists killed in Colombia in 2010 and 23 killed so far this year, allowing Colombia to retain its dubious distinction as the most dangerous country in the world in which to be a trade unionist. In addition to unionists, human rights defenders, indigenous and Afro-Colombian leaders, and Catholic priests defending the poor are also targeted in Colombia. This year alone, six Catholic priests have been murdered in Colombia. Meanwhile, according to Colombia's own prosecutor general, right-wing paramilitaries aligned with the Colombian state have murdered more than 170,000 civilians over the past 15 years. Of these, around 50,000 have ``disappeared.'' Yet this is a country to which the United States may give special trade preferences. The Colombia FTA, while costing the United States an estimated 55,000 net jobs, according to the Economic Policy Institute, would wreak further havoc in Colombia. The agricultural policies that devastated Haiti and Mexico--those allowing the United States to dump cheap, subsidized food into those countries--would be applied to Colombia. This would lead to the impoverishment and dislocation of hundreds of thousands of small farmers in Colombia, many of whom would join the ranks of the 5 million internally displaced persons in Colombia--the largest internally displaced population in the world. In short, free trade has never worked as promised and it will not work now. But sadly, like the false prophets of a bad religion, those holding the reins of power in the United States continue to push ``free trade'' policies despite all the evidence that they have failed. These false prophets exhort us to believe in the magical force of the ``invisible hand'' of the ``free market'' to save us, all the while giving real and visible aid to corporations and Wall Street banks even as they tell working people to keep tightening their belts. It is time that these lies and these bad economic and trade policies be rejected.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).

Mr. McGOVERN. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, Congress was right in refusing to take up the Colombia FTA when it was signed in 2006. Supporters of the FTA now talk about those years as Colombia's dark past, but they supported the FTA then just as they do now. The House was right to block the FTA in 2008. Supporters then extolled the virtues of the Uribe government, but Colombia's new Attorney General has revealed mind-boggling corruption in every agency of Uribe's government. Criminal acts were the norm. I believe the Santos government is Colombia's best chance to bring about much needed reforms and institutional change. I want him to succeed, but goodwill is not enough. We have had promises before. We need time to see if good intentions result in concrete change on labor and human rights. This is Tito Diaz. He was the mayor of El Roble in Sucre. In 2003, he denounced the links between public officials and paramilitaries. For this, he was tortured and murdered. His body was found strung up like a crucifix and shot 11 times--his fingernails ripped out, his knees bludgeoned, and his mayor's I.D. card taped to his forehead. His son, Juan David, carried on his father's work, leading the victims' movement in Sucre. He survived four assassination attempts but finally fled the country. Others took his place. Since 2006, five more victims' rights leaders in Sucre have been murdered--two this year. This is the reality for Colombia's human rights defenders, 29 of whom have been killed this year; 51 priests murdered in the past decade, six so far this year. In this violent reality, Colombian workers attempt to exercise their rights. I ask my colleagues to think about the lives of all the brave labor leaders, human rights defenders, religious and community leaders. Do not turn your backs on them. Demand concrete change on the ground before approving the Colombia FTA. You know that that is the right thing to do. If the United States of America stands for anything, we ought to stand out loud and four-squared for human rights. Let's remember that as we deliberate on the Colombia FTA. It is just wrong to rationalize, or explain away, the human rights situation in Colombia. We are better than that. We should demand more on behalf of the workers and the human rights defenders in Colombia. Vote ``no'' on the rule, and vote ``no'' on the Colombia FTA. A Brief History of the Victims' Rights Movement (MOVICE) in the Department of Sucre (Colombia) Eudaldo ``Tito'' Diaz 1. Biographical Note on Eudaldo ``Tito'' Diaz Summary Eudaldo ``Tito'' Diaz was the mayor of El Roble municipality in Sucre Department, Colombia. He was killed for denouncing the links between public officials and paramilitary death squads. On the 5th of April 2003, Mr. Diaz was disappeared, tortured for five days and murdered. His body was found, strung up like a crucifix. He had been shot eleven times, his fingernails ripped out and his knees bludgeoned. On his forehead, the assassins had placed his mayor's identity card, as a warning to others who would speak out against the paramilitaries and public officials who supported them. Background Eudaldo ``Tito'' Diaz was the mayor of El Roble municipality in Sucre Department, Colombia. He was killed for denouncing the links between public officials and paramilitary death squads. After speaking out, he was sacked and his security detail was withdrawn. He knew that his actions carried a high price: ``they are going to kill me'' he said, at a televised public meeting on February 1, 2003, at which he spoke out about the corruption and threats. The meeting was attended by former president Uribe and then governor of Sucre, Salvador Arana Sus, whom Mr. Diaz had publicly denounced. Two months later, on April 5, 2003, Mr. Diaz was called to a meeting by governor Arana, colonel Norman Leon Arango (the former Police Chief of Sucre), Alvaro Garcia Romero (former Senator, sentenced for his role in the Chengue massacre and for his links to paramilitaries), Jaime Gil Ortega (former Inspector General of Sucre), Guillermo Merlano Martinez (former Inspector General of Sucre) and Eric Morris Taboada (former governor of Sucre during 1997-2001, sentenced for his links with paramilitary groups). On his way to that meeting, Mr. Diaz was disappeared, tortured for five days and murdered. On April 10th, his body was found, strung up like a crucifix. He had been shot eleven times, his fingernails ripped out and his knees bludgeoned. The ulcer in his stomach showed that he had been deprived of food and water. On his forehead, the assassins had placed his mayor's identity card, as a warning to others who would speak out against the paramilitaries and politicians who supported them. Mr. Diaz' son, Juan David, carried on his father's work. He has survived four assassination attempts and received over 20 death threats. The day his father was killed, he received his first death threat. Soon after, governor Arana was named ambassador to Chile by president Uribe. Mr. Arana is currently serving a 40-year sentence for Mr. Diaz' murder. At least 12 of the witnesses in the case have been killed. 2. Prosecutions for Assassination of Eudaldo ``Tito'' Diaz Salvador Arana Sus, former governor of Sucre, sentenced to 40 years for forced disappearance, aggravated homicide with political motives, and promotion of illegal armed groups. He had been appointed by former president Uribe as ambassador to Chile 2003-2005. Angel Miguel Berrocal Doria alias ``El Cocha,'' a paramilitary, sentenced to 37 years for homicide. Rodrigo Antonio Mercado Pelufo, alias ``Cadena,'' head of the paramilitary group Heroes de los Montes de Maria, sentenced in absentia to 40 years for aggravated homicide and simple kidnapping. Emiro Jose Correa alias ``Convivir'' and Jose Tomas Torres alias ``Orbitel,'' known paramilitaries who allegedly carried out governor Sus' instruction to kill Mr. Diaz, were absolved in 2011. Diana Luz Martinez, former director of the La Vega prison, who allegedly enabled the paramilitaries to leave the prison where they were detained in order to carry out the assassination, was absolved of all charges. The paramilitaries Edelmiro Anaya, alias ``El Chino,'' Carlos Verbel Vitola, alias ``Caliche,'' Wilson Anderson Atencia, alias ``El Gafa'' and Jhon Ospino, alias ``Jhon'' are also under investigation. Coronel Norman Leon Arango, then police chief of Sucre, has been formally linked to the assassination. 3. Members of MOVICE Assassinated (Nationwide) Thirteen members of MOVICE have been assassinated since the movement was created in 2005. Five of those were in the Department of Sucre: 1. Garibaldi Berrio Bautista, MOVICE Sucre, 10 April 2007 2. Jose Dionisio Lozano Torralvo, MOVICE Sucre, 12 August 2007 3. Carlos Burbano, MOVICE Caqueta, 8 March 2008 4. Luis Mayusa Prada, MOVICE Arauca, 8 August 2008 5. Walberto Hoyos, MOVICE Choco, 14 October 2008 6. Carlos Rodolfo Cabrera, MOVICE Arauca, 28 November 2008 7. Carmenza Gomez Romero, MOVICE Bogota, 4 February 2009 8. Jhonny Hurtado, MOVICE Meta, 15 March 2010 9. Nilson Ramirez, MOVICE Meta, 7 May 2010 10. Rogelio Martinez, MOVICE Sucre, 18 May 2010 11. Oscar Maussa, MOVICE Choco, 24 November 2010 12. Eder Verbel Rocha, MOVICE Sucre, 23 March 2011 13. Ana Fabricia Cordoba, MOVICE Antioquia, 7 June 2011 I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. We have the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott), and then I will close.

Mr. McGOVERN. I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington from the Committee on Ways and Means, Mr. McDermott. (Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 25 seconds to respond to the gentleman from California. He mentioned a labor leader, in his remarks before, as saying how wonderful the Labor Action Plan was. I should point out to him that last Monday, on October 3, that same labor leader joined in a press conference with other Colombian unions to express his frustration with the Colombian Government's failure to implement the Labor Action Plan. I also would point out that the Colombia Labor School also has issued a long statement about how the Colombian Government has failed to enact the Labor Action Plan. I don't care what the Canadians do. In the United States of America, we're supposed to respect human rights. Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 3 minutes to the gentlelady from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).

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

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, at this point it is my privilege to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Levin. (Mr. LEVIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. McGOVERN. Then I will reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. I thank the gentleman from California for providing me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself 5 minutes of that time. Mr. Speaker, today we take up several trade bills. The Rules Committee had a chance to guarantee sufficient time for debate on each agreement and ensure that the time would be equally divided between those who support and those who oppose each bill. That's the way we should be debating these bills. That's the fair and the right thing to do. But fairness was not part of the discussion in the Rules Committee. Instead, we have a rule that gives more time to those in support of these bills and less time to those who have legitimate concerns about them. And if that weren't bad enough, this rule waives CutGo, just one more broken promise by this Republican Congress. Mr. Speaker, I strongly support the TAA and GSP bills. These programs provide America's companies and workers with stability and fairness and some minimum resources for those that suffer because of trade agreements. They have earned our support. But I cannot say the same for the free trade agreements, and I would like to focus my remarks on just one of them, the Colombia FTA. Mr. Speaker, I've gone to Colombia seven times over the past 10 years. Nearly everyone I talk to--the poor, the most vulnerable, those who defend basic human rights and dignity--they all believe that the United States stands for human rights, that we stand for justice. And I'd like to believe that's always true. But not if we pass this FTA. Colombia is still the most dangerous place in the world to be a trade unionist. Each year, more labor activists are killed in Colombia than the rest of the world combined. A staggering 2,908 union members murdered since 1986. That's about one murder every 3 days for the past 25 years. One hundred fifty in just the past 3 years. If 150 CEOs had been assassinated over the past 3 years, would you still think Colombia is a good place to invest? In 2010, 51 trade unionists were murdered; 21 survived attempts on their lives; 338 received death threats; and 7 disappeared. Their bodies may never be found. Forty have been murdered since President Santos took office. As for justice, well, in Colombia that's still just a dream. Human Rights Watch just released a study that looked at convictions in cases of murdered trade unionists over the past 4\1/2\ years. They found ``virtually no progress'' in convictions in these killings. Just six out of 195 cases. And not a single, solitary conviction for the more than 60 attempted murders and 1,500 death threats during that same period. There's a name for that, Mr. Speaker. It's called complete and total impunity. Just look at the faces of six of the 23 unionists murdered so far this year. This man in the top right, Luis Diaz, he was a regional leader of the University Workers' Union and a security guard at Monteria Public University in Cordoba. He was assassinated near his home, shot four times. I was in Cordoba at the end of August. It's controlled by paramilitaries, drug traffickers, and criminal networks. They work hand in glove with wealthy landed interests, and many local officials, judges, prosecutors, and police are corrupt or benefit from the violence. They are also the most likely parties in Cordoba to profit from the Colombia FTA. Another fellow here, Jorge de los Rios. He was a teacher and an environmentalist who exposed damage to communities by open pit mining. On June 8, he was shot several times on the campus of his school. This young man right here, Dionis Sierra, was an elementary schoolteacher killed May 15, also in Cordoba. Carlos Castro, an engineer, murdered in Cali on May 23. He was shot in the neck by two armed men. He was 41 and the father of three. Here's Hernan Pinto right here, drinking a cup of coffee. He had taken the lead in the farm workers' struggle right before he was murdered in March. Silverio Sanchez, just 37 years old, also a teacher. He died on January 24 from burns on 80 percent of his body from an explosive. These men were husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons. If we don't stand up for them, then we also abandon the children, families, workers, and communities they left behind, those who continue to fight for labor rights, human rights, and basic human dignity. As the old song goes, which side are you on? Washington, DC, September 29, 2011. Dr. Viviane Morales, Attorney General, Diagonal 22B, No 52-01, Bogota, Colombia. Dear Attorney General Morales: I am writing to follow up on the very constructive meeting we had in Bogota this June regarding the problem of impunity for anti-union violence in Colombia. We are encouraged by the steps the Attorney General's Office is currently taking under your leadership to address this longstanding problem. Yet we also believe further measures are needed to ensure that your efforts succeed and the era of unchecked violence against trade unionists in Colombia is finally overcome. As you know, Colombia continues to face an extraordinarily high level of anti-union violence. While the number of trade unionists killed every year is certainly less today than a decade ago, it remains higher than any other country in the world. The National Labor School (ENS), Colombia's leading NGO monitoring labor rights, reports that in 2010 there were 51 killings of trade unionists, 22 homicide attempts, and 397 threats. A major reason for this ongoing violence has been the chronic lack of accountability for cases of anti-union violence. Colombia has failed to deliver justice for more than 2,500 trade unionist killings committed over the past 25 years. As Vice-President Angelino Garzon acknowledged during a November 2010 speech, ``[T]he immense majority of crimes [against] trade unionists remain in impunity . . . there have been advances in the investigations . . . but we still have not gotten to 200 court rulings, and there are thousands of workers and union leaders killed and disappeared.'' In 2006, the Attorney General's Office sought to end this impunity by establishing a sub-unit of prosecutors to focus exclusively on crimes against trade unionists. This initiative brought with it several important advantages: the sub-unit's prosecutors would receive extra material and human resources and have the opportunity to develop expertise in solving these crimes. By working out of Bogota and other main cities, the prosecutors would generally be less vulnerable to pressure and threats than local justice officials. Since its creation, the sub-unit has made important progress: there are now scores of convictions for trade unionist killings every year where before there were almost none. Over the past four-and-a-half years, the sub-unit has secured convictions for more than 185 trade unionist killings. Yet this progress, while welcome, has in fact been very limited. And, unless urgent steps are taken to improve the sub-unit's performance, it will almost certainly prove to be unsustainable. Over the past several months, Human Rights Watch has carried out a comprehensive evaluation of the sub-unit's work, reviewing hundreds of court judgments for crimes against trade unionists, examining the most recent available data provided by the Attorney General's Office on the status of investigations, and conducting dozens of interviews with prosecutors, judges, rights advocates, and victims. Our research has found severe shortcomings in both the scope of the sub-unit's work and the investigative methodology that it employs. In terms of the scope, we found that: The increase in the number of convictions since the sub- unit's creation, while substantial, represents only a small fraction of the total number of cases of trade unionist killings that still need to be investigated and prosecuted. The increase in convictions is largely due to confessions provided by paramilitaries under the Justice and Peace process, which does not apply to cases of killings committed after 2006. The sub-unit has made virtually no progress in obtaining convictions for killings from the past four-and-a-half years. The sub-unit has made virtually no progress in prosecuting people who order, pay, instigate or collude with paramilitaries in attacking trade unionists. In terms of the methodology of the investigations, we found that: The sub-unit has routinely failed to thoroughly investigate the motives for the crimes. The sub-unit has not conducted the type of systematic and contextualized investigations that are necessary to identify and prosecute all responsible parties. While we were encouraged to encounter prosecutors in the sub-unit who are very professional and committed to advancing these cases, it is also clear that further measures must be taken to support their work and ensure the sub-unit overcomes its current limitations. Under the current circumstances, what is at stake is the justice system's ability to act as an effective deterrent to anti-union violence. We are concerned that unless you take action to improve the sub-unit's performance, the office will continue to fall short in ensuring accountability for attacks on trade unionists, and Colombia will remain a uniquely dangerous country for workers seeking to exercise their basic labor rights. The Scope of the Sub-unit's Work Convictions Represent Fraction of Total Killings The annual number of convictions for cases of crimes against trade unionists has risen about nine-fold since the sub-unit began operating in 2007. Overall, the subunit has obtained convictions for more than 185 trade unionist killings. Despite this accomplishment, a great deal of work remains to be done. At this stage, Colombia has obtained a conviction for less than 10 percent of the 2,886 trade unionist killings recorded since 1986 by the ENS. The sub-unit reported to Human Rights Watch that it had opened an investigation into 787 cases of trade unionist killings as of June 2011. Investigations into the more than 2000 other reported trade unionist murders presumably remain with ordinary prosecutors, who have long failed to resolve such cases. As concluded by the February 2011 International Labor Organization (ILO) High-level Tripartite Mission to Colombia, ``The majority of [trade unionist killings] have not yet been investigated nor have the perpetrators, including the intellectual authors of these crimes, been brought to justice.'' Recent Progress Is Largely Due to Justice and Peace Process The sub-unit's progress in prosecuting anti-union violence has largely been due to confessions by paramilitaries participating in the Justice and Peace process. Human Rights Watch reviewed all 74 convictions handed down over the past year by the three specialized courts dedicated to crimes against trade unionists and found that 60 percent of the convictions were the direct result of plea bargains with demobilized paramilitaries participating in the Justice and Peace process. In a majority of the remaining rulings from this period, testimony by defendants in the Justice and Peace process also played an important role in producing the conviction. This increase in the number of convictions spurred by the Justice and Peace process is certainly a positive development. Unfortunately, it does not by itself represent sustainable progress. The process has allowed prosecutors to resolve cases because it has provided extraordinary incentives for demobilized paramilitaries to confess to their crimes. But these incentives do not apply to crimes committed since paramilitary groups finished demobilizing in 2006 and therefore will not help prosecute individuals who assassinate trade unionists today or in the future. Lack of Convictions for Recent Trade Unionist Killings When it comes to obtaining convictions for cases from the past several years--which are not covered by the Justice and Peace process--the sub-unit has made virtually no progress. Of the more than 195 such killings that have occurred since the sub-unit started operating in 2007, the special office had obtained convictions in only six cases as of May 2011. It had not obtained a single conviction for the more than 60 homicide attempts, 1,500 threats and 420 forced displacements reported by the ENS during this period. The sub-unit has not opened investigations into the majority of the trade unionist murders that have occurred since the office began operating in 2007. As of March, it had opened an investigation into only one of the 51 trade unionist killings committed in 2010. And the vast majority of the sub-unit's investigations into killings since 2007 (89 percent) remain in a preliminary stage in which prosecutors have yet to formally identify a suspect. We understand that the current Attorney General's Office shares our concern with the lack of progress in prosecuting recent killings. As discussed below, your office has announced steps that could help address this problem, such as instructing prosecutors to prioritize investigations of crimes against trade unionists committed since 2007. Lack of Prosecutions of Intellectual Authors and Accomplices We are also concerned that the prosecutions have focused almost exclusively on the commanders of armed groups or triggermen and have not extended to include other individuals who may have instigated or facilitated the crimes. Of the more than 275 convictions handed down through May 2011 by the specialized courts that handle the sub-unit's cases, 80 percent have been against former members of the United Self- Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). Yet there is compelling evidence that paramilitaries and the groups that replaced them have not acted alone in killing trade unionists. These groups have historically operated with the toleration or even active support of members of the public security forces, as well as in collaboration with politicians and allies in the private sector. According to several justice officials, rights advocates and victims' lawyers close to these cases, paramilitaries appear to have killed trade unionists at the behest of employers, local officials, or other individuals with particular interests in eliminating the victims. A review of 50 recent convictions for anti-union violence handed down by the specialized courts found that in nearly half of the cases under consideration, the judgments contained evidence pointing to the involvement of members of the security forces or intelligence services, politicians, landowners, bosses, or coworkers. Rulings in ten of these cases contained evidence indicating that individuals outside the armed groups (including two mayors, a hospital administrator, a plant manager, a captain of the Sectional Judicial Police, and a detective from the Colombian intelligence service) may have hired, ordered, or otherwise instigated paramilitaries to kill the trade unionists. Yet despite the evidence of involvement and collusion by third parties in crimes committed by armed groups, the sub- unit has obtained virtually no results in bringing such individuals to justice. Only 10 of the more than 275 rulings handed down by specialized courts since 2007 have convicted politicians, members of the security forces, employers, or coworkers. Only one of the 50 rulings handed down between September 2010 and May 2011 that Human Rights Watch reviewed punished such individuals. Similarly, a comprehensive study by the Center for the Study of Law, Justice, and Society (DeJusticia) reveals that just 3 percent of the judgments in trade unionist cases handed down through March 2010 included the conviction of a ``strategic intellectual author'' (an individual outside of an armed structure who ordered or otherwise instigated the crime). Prosecuting the triggermen and their commanders for these crimes is a crucial step for accountability. But identifying these individuals alone will not enable the justice system to act as an effective deterrent to anti-union violence. As long as some people believe they can get away with ordering, paying, or instigating armed groups to kill trade unionists, they will continue to find armed groups and gunmen for hire to do their dirty work. Flaws in the Investigative Methodology Colombia's progress in curbing impunity for anti-union violence, while important, has been limited by shortcomings in the investigative strategy pursued by the subunit of the Attorney General's Office. The first is a routine failure to adequately investigate the motive in cases of trade unionist killings. The second--and more troubling--is the failure to conduct the sort of systematic and contextualized investigation necessary to identify and bring to justice all responsible parties. As discussed below, the current administration of the Attorney General's Office has recognized the problem of the sub-unit's methodology and announced the adoption of measures to improve it. But these correctives remain to be fully implemented, and must be followed with additional measures to shore up the quality of the sub-unit's work. Inadequate Investigation of Motives Prosecutors often base their charges almost entirely on testimony by paramilitaries participating in the Justice and Peace process without conducting a thorough investigation that could determine the actual motive for targeting the victim. According to one of the specialized judges, in many cases prosecutors base their charges on ``two or three lines from what the defendant in Justice and Peace says.'' Given the lack of additional evidence gathered by prosecutors, the judges often rely primarily or exclusively on paramilitaries' accounts to determine the motive for the crime. Paramilitaries' confessions frequently seek to justify trade unionist killings as counter-insurgency operations, claiming that their victims were guerrilla collaborators. Consequently, a substantial share of judgments for trade unionist killings have identified the victims' alleged links to guerrilla groups as the motive behind the killings. Yet, there are good reasons to suspect that in many cases the paramilitaries label the victims as guerrilla collaborators to disguise the true reasons for the killing. By offering defendants the same reduced sentence no matter how many abuses they admit to, the Justice and Peace Law provides paramilitaries with extraordinary incentives to confess to all of their crimes. But when it comes to testifying about their accomplices--who may have ordered trade unionist killings for their own political or economic interests--paramilitaries often have strong incentives to keep silent and justify the murders as part of their anti- guerrilla campaign. As revealed by several recent judicial investigations and news reports, there are credible allegations that paramilitaries have been repeatedly bribed or pressured to conceal the criminal activity of their political and economic allies. In cases involving collusion with powerful individuals, paramilitaries and their family members could face severe reprisals should they expose their accomplices. In some court rulings, judges have found reason to doubt the veracity of paramilitaries' anti-guerrilla justifications for the killings. For example, in one recent ruling against paramilitaries who claimed that the union leader had been killed because he was a guerrilla collaborator, the judge wrote that it appeared the group had been paid to murder the victim because of his union activity, noting that: ``The excuse provided by the [defendants] regarding the motive of the killing . . . seems to actually be a form of hiding the existence of a particular interest to silence the victim.'' The judgment explicitly described how the prosecutor had failed to collect key pieces of evidence that would have helped clarify the motive for the crime. According to DeJusticia's 2010 study, while 102 of the 271 court rulings they analyzed identified the trade unionist's alleged guerrilla ties as the motive for the killing, the judges explicitly rejected the allegations in nearly half of those judgments. Given the inadequacy of investigations, it is impossible at this point to know how many killings were in fact motivated by the victims' union activities. What is clear is that without more thorough investigations, prosecutors will not be able to determine with an adequate level of certainty whether or not the crimes were related to the victims' participation in their union. This is a serious problem in Colombia given the tendency of some officials and commentators to downplay anti-union violence by dismissing the attacks as isolated crimes unrelated to the victims' union affiliation. And worse still, if court rulings based on paramilitaries' testimony indicate that the victims were guerrillas, the stigmatization is confirmed and the risks are worsened for those who exercise union activity. Lack of Systematic and Contextualized Investigations With few exceptions, the sub-unit's prosecutors have not pursued investigations that take into account the context of crimes against other members of the victim's union from the same region and time period, and have often neglected to conduct serious inquiries into the victim's union activity at the time of the crime. Instead, killings have generally been investigated in an isolated case-by-case manner and without any serious effort to determine how the crimes might form part of a broader pattern of anti-union violence. As one top official within the Attorney General's Office recently told Human Rights Watch, until now, the sub-unit has treated each case as ``an island.'' Similarly, in separate interviews, all three current judges from the specialized courts that handle these cases told Human Rights Watch that the cases brought to their courts are investigated as isolated crimes. Victims' lawyers also said that the sub-unit's failure to draw connections between killings is one of the fundamental problems with the investigations. This serious deficiency in the sub-unit's investigations is also evident in the judgments in cases of anti-union violence. According to DeJusticia's 2010 study, a ``systematic approach'' to investigations--defined as taking the general context of anti-union violence as the starting point for the investigation--was reflected in five of the 271 court rulings handed down through March 2010. As a result of this investigative approach, prosecutors have not been able to identify patterns of crimes that could lead them to the individuals--including public officials and employers--who may have ordered, instigated, or otherwise colluded with armed groups in attacking trade unionists. As one of the three special judges who handle cases of anti- union violence said, ``To know what's behind the crimes, if there was a state policy or company policy or not, there has to be a macro-investigation. [Prosecutors] have not done that.'' Another judge specified that the piecemeal investigations have impeded prosecutors from identifying intellectual authors: ``It would make more sense to analyze the historical context of the union and the criminal organization that operates in the region. But in reality, [the cases] come [to the courts] as isolated victims. . . . The investigations have progressed very little in providing the judges with the context. The context would help identify intellectual authors.'' This shortcoming is compounded by the sub-unit's failure to consistently conduct a thorough inquiry into the context of the victim's union activity at the time of the crime, which limits prosecutors' ability to establish leads that could help clarify the motive for the killing and identify potential suspects. While some prosecutors do make an effort to look into such activity, two judges we spoke with said that such rigorous inquiries are not the norm. In our review of 50 recent convictions in these cases, we found the majority of the rulings did not refer to the victim's union activity in the period leading up to the crime. (If the prosecutors had investigated such activity, a reference to this line of inquiry should at least appear in the judgment, according to jurists consulted by Human Rights Watch.) Of the judgments that did mention the victim's union activity at the time of the crime, most references were general, suggesting that no in-depth probe had been undertaken. Steps Your Office Has Announced To Advance Prosecutions Based on our meeting last June, we know that your office is aware of the problems outlined above and has announced some important initial steps that could help address them. In terms of increasing the quantity of cases investigated and prosecuted by the subunit, we were encouraged by the following measures announced by the Attorney General's Office: The addition of 100 judicial police from the Directorate of Criminal Investigation and Interpol (DIJIN) and planned incorporation of 14 new prosecutors to the subunit; Your office's June 2011 memorandum instructing prosecutors to prioritize cases of trade unionist killings committed since 2007; Your office's April 2011 memorandum mandating the early identification in all new homicide cases of whether the victim was a union member, which should help ensure that in the future the sub-unit can immediately open investigations into these new cases: Your office's recent transfer of 35 cases of trade unionist killings from 2009 to the sub-unit. Your office also has announced measures that could improve the sub-unit's investigative methodology, such as: Providing instructions within the April memorandum for prosecutors to take the urgent steps that will allow them ``to determine the motives for the crime and the causal relationship between the [homicide] and victim's condition as a trade unionist''; Providing instructions within the June memorandum for prosecutors to analyze cases of trade unionist killings based on the region where the crimes occurred; Adding six analysts to the sub-unit who will help identify links between cases in order to detect patterns of crimes against trade unionists. In addition, the current coordinator of the sub-unit told us in May that the sub-unit has adopted a new methodology that involves grouping cases not only on the basis of location, but also based on the victim's union and the suspected responsible armed group. Yet, we are concerned that the new methodology has not yet been effectively implemented. In separate interviews this May, the prosecutors within the sub-unit appeared to have very different understandings of how they were expected to proceed with their investigations. Two prosecutors said that the sub-unit had not in fact adopted a new methodology. ``There is no policy that comes from the coordinators,'' one told us. ``The methodology depends on each prosecutor. . . Investigations are case-by-case. It would be important to group [cases] by trade union, but it has not been done.'' Other prosecutors mentioned the new investigative policy, but said that it remains to be carried out in practice. Furthermore, your office's attempt to implement a systematic approach is undercut by the sub-unit's limited caseload and inefficient allocation of investigations among prosecutors. As discussed above, the sub-unit is not investigating the majority of reported trade unionist killings. Consequently, cases from the same union, region, and time period are often split between the sub-unit and ordinary local prosecutors. And of those investigations that have been assigned to the sub-unit, cases involving trade unionists from the same organization and region have generally been divided among the office's different prosecutors. Recommendations In order to build on your initial correctives and fully address the problems identified in this letter, we believe it is crucial to adopt the following measures: 1) The sub-unit should investigate all reported cases of killings, enforced ``disappearances,'' and homicide attempts committed against trade unionists. In order to do so, we recommend the Attorney General's Office: a) Transfers to the sub-unit all reported cases of killings, enforced ``disappearances,'' and homicide attempts against trade unionists that are currently assigned to local prosecutors; b) Assigns to the sub-unit all future cases of killings, enforced ``disappearances,'' and homicide attempts against trade unionists. 2) The sub-unit should implement a policy to conduct systematic, contextualized and thorough investigations. The policy should ensure that: a) Rather than treating each killing as an isolated case, investigations also examine all other crimes against members of the same union in the same region and time period to identify possible connections and patterns of crimes that could help to determine the motive for the killing, and identify all the responsible parties; b) Prosecutors do not rely inordinately on paramilitaries' confessions to resolve cases, but instead use this testimony as a starting point to pursue a solid judicial investigation; c) Prosecutors conduct a thorough inquiry into the victim's union activity at the time of the crime in order to collect evidence that could help clarify the motive for the attack and identify potential suspects; d) Prosecutors vigorously pursue leads that point to the possible involvement of state agents and other actors in crimes against trade unionists. 3) Cases should be distributed among the sub-unit's prosecutors based on the victim's union and the region where the crime occurred. As we have pointed out on numerous occasions, overcoming ongoing impunity for violence against trade unionists requires confronting complex challenges. There is an enormous amount of work to be done, and success will not be achieved overnight. Yet we also believe that, if your office rigorously pursues the measures we are recommending here, it will be possible to make significant progress in prosecuting these cases and transform the sub-unit into an effective deterrent to future attacks on trade unionists in Colombia. I reserve the balance of my time.