[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 155 (Friday, November 7, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H10328-H10334]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          FAST TRACK AUTHORITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 1997, the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone] is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to spend some time tonight initially 
talking about the fast track legislation which we are likely to be 
voting on either tomorrow or Sunday. I am very much opposed to the fast 
track legislation for a number of reasons, and I wanted to use part of 
the hour tonight to outline some of those reasons and begin with a 
local situation in Monmouth County, which is one of the two counties 
that I represent in the State of New Jersey, because I think it 
illustrates the types of problems that I have with fast track by 
reference to NAFTA. Many of those who are opposed to fast track and who 
will be voting against fast track legislation, if it comes up over this 
weekend, are doing so because of the experience with NAFTA.
  I want to comment on why Congress really should resist the pressure 
being put on us to grant the fast track authority, to expand NAFTA and 
essentially put even more Americans out of work. If I could give an 
example from central New Jersey, from Monmouth County, my home county, 
of how these trade agreements can affect the jobs and the lives of 
highly skilled American workers. On September 9, most of the 240 people 
who work at the Allied Signal plant in Eatontown, NJ, in Monmouth 
County were informed of the decision to close what is a defense 
technology manufacturing plant. They were told that the plant would be 
phased out in 1998, with a complete shutdown expected by March 1999. 
The company told the Allied Signal workers in Monmouth County, NJ, that 
in the short run, the jobs would be going to Tucson, AZ. But I believe, 
and I know that everyone at the plant believes, that the jobs 
ultimately will be moved to Mexico. The reason is squarely because of 
NAFTA.

[[Page H10329]]

  Allied Signal is one of the many companies with a history of 
relocating production facilities to Mexico. NAFTA has greatly 
facilitated the flight of manufacturing jobs south where corporations 
can take advantages of low wages, substandard labor rights, and weak 
environmental protection and enforcement. The recent experience with 
Allied Signal shows everything that is wrong in corporate America 
today; namely, corporations abruptly turning their backs on the workers 
and the communities that have made them profitable.
  Ironically, the hard-working folks at Allied Signal are involved in 
the kind of high tech work needed to protect our national security, for 
the United States to maintain its technological edge over our 
adversaries and for the protection of our Nation and our allies. Yet 
the security of the very same defense workers who have helped to make 
America the world's superpower are now being abandoned in the search 
for higher profits and lower wages. The workers of Allied Signal and 
many other such plants have lived up to their end of the bargain but 
their employers have not.
  Mr. Speaker, if I could just talk about this plant a little bit. The 
plant is productive. Its employees are productive. It has won 
commendations from other major firms with which it has contracted, such 
as McDonnell Douglas. The employees of Allied Signal deserve much of 
the credit for this fine track record and they deserve a much better 
fate than this betrayal by the company to which they have devoted so 
much of their time, energy and talent and dedication. The union 
representing the employees of Allied Signal, Local 417 of the IUE, the 
Electronics Workers Union, has organized a petition drive and is 
enlisting the help of their affiliates, and they are also organizing 
demonstrations, they have over the past couple of months, to publicize 
the movement of their work to Mexico.
  Mr. Speaker, the move of this facility is an example, in my opinion, 
of the negative effects fast track agreements like NAFTA are having on 
America's working men and women, an example that hits very close to 
home for me. The loss of quality manufacturing jobs is felt not only by 
the workers and their immediate families, their buying power is 
diminished, meaning that the store, the small businesses, the small 
business owners throughout the area also feel the pinch. Fast track 
deals do not include standards to protect workers and consumers. They 
do not give those of us in Congress who were elected by our 
constituents back home to do a job to look out for their interest, to 
fix what is wrong. Since NAFTA was passed, more than 420,000 American 
workers have lost their jobs. That trend continues and will only get 
worse if we do not stop these unfair trade deals.

                              {time}  2030

  Mr. Speaker, I want to particularly salute the men and women of the 
IEUE in central New Jersey for refusing to accept the loss of these 
Allied Signal jobs without a fight, and, although they have an uphill 
fight, their effort to mobilize solidarity among union ranks and to 
educate the wider public about the negative effects of these trade 
deals will go a long way to derailing fast track and putting our trade 
policy on the right track.
  I believe, Mr. Speaker, that it is highly unlikely that the fast 
track legislation will pass. I hope it will not. I will do whatever I 
can to stop it. But I want to say that one of the reasons why the 
opponents of fast track are likely to succeed and should succeed is 
because of the fact that there have been so many examples around the 
country like Allied Signal and Eatontown, and many of the workers have 
joined together and said, look, we have had enough, we cannot have this 
type of thing continue with the expansion of fast track authority.
  And, Mr. Speaker, I wanted to use Allied Signal as an example, but I 
also wanted to talk in general about fast track and the environment, 
because one of the major reasons that I oppose the fast track relates 
not only to labor concerns and worker concerns here in the United 
States, but also to environmental concerns.
  We were, those of us, and I was not, those of us who were asked by 
the administration to support NAFTA a few years ago, were told that if 
they did, there would be adequate addressing in NAFTA of their concerns 
on the environment, and there would be adequate enforcement if 
environmental problems arose. But the reality is with NAFTA that none 
of that happened. There has not been any environmental enforcement, 
there has not been any real impact to try to protect the environment.
  And if I can just give an example, most of the commitments that were 
made by the administration then were put into what is called an 
environmental side agreement, a side agreement to NAFTA that was 
supposedly going to protect the environment. What we found out since 
NAFTA began is that these side agreements are, in effect, 
unenforceable, and so any suggestion pursuant to the fast track 
legislation that is likely to come this week that somehow there will be 
environmental provisions contained therein or their side agreements 
will be enforcemental on protective environmental concerns, there is no 
reason to believe that, because it did not happen with NAFTA.
  More than 3 years ago, the Commission on Environmental Compliance, 
the CEC, was established under NAFTA for environmental cooperation. 
This was the North American Agreement for Environmental Cooperation, 
the environmental side agreement to NAFTA. The CEC could be considered 
to be the sort of EPA equivalent under NAFTA. Yet of the 10 enforcement 
cases submitted to the CEC, the Commission on Environmental Compliance, 
under NAFTA, only one has resulted in an investigation.
  Enforcement cases submitted to the CEC have included wetland 
pollution in Alberta, Canada; water pollution from livestock farming in 
Quebec; untreated sewage discharges into the Magdalena River in Sonora, 
Mexico; a massive bird die-off in the Silver Reservoir in Mexico; and 
dynamiting of a coral reef, imagine that, in a protected natural 
reserve in Cozumel, Mexico, for the construction of a cruise ship pier.
  Now, although it was submitted almost 2 years ago, a final decision 
on this last case, the Cozumel pier case, the one case which the CEC 
has agreed to investigate, is being delayed pending a vote by the CEC 
members. Of the remaining nine cases, four have been rejected, one has 
been withdrawn, two have been objected to by the Canadian Government, 
and two are still pending review.
  So this is all nonsense. There is not going to be any enforcement. 
Anybody who has brought to the attention of the CEC, this Commission 
that was set up under NAFTA for environmental concerns, anybody who 
brought any concerns to them has basically been told go away, or 
somehow has been swept under the rug.
  In fact the Wall Street Journal recently wrote, and I quote, that 
both supporters and opponents of NAFTA agree that the side agreements, 
not only the environmental side agreements, but all the side 
agreements, the labor side agreement, have had little impact, mainly 
because the mechanisms that created them have almost no enforcement 
power. Our experience with NAFTA has proven that environmental side 
agreements are not enforceable, and that is why environmental groups, 
even groups that support NAFTA, are solidly united in opposition to 
fast track.
  Last time there were a number of environmental groups who supported 
NAFTA. This time they are all unanimously opposed to fast track because 
they realize that these environmental side agreements have been 
completely ineffective.
  Let me talk a little bit more about what the President and the Vice 
President have told us in terms of, in trying to address the concerns 
that people like myself and others who have concerns about the 
environment, in trying to address our concerns in the context of fast 
track. The President and the Vice President have stated that the 
negotiating objectives outlined in the administration's fast track 
legislation would include specific references to the environment.
  Let me say that all that is simply window dressing. None of that 
means a thing.
  It is not enough to simply make the environment a negotiating 
objective. In order for fast track to truly address

[[Page H10330]]

environmental concerns, it would have to clearly set environmental 
protection guidelines for all parties involved. It would be critical 
that fast track require that environmental concerns be directly 
addressed in negotiated trade agreements rather than allowing 
environmental protection to be negotiated separately in these 
unenforceable side agreements, the experience of which we had in NAFTA. 
They cannot possibly adequately protect the health and safety 
of American families.

  And agreements negotiated under fast track should also be required to 
include enforcement mechanisms that will serve to hold governments to 
set environmental protection standards. None of this is being proposed 
with the fast track legislation that we are going to see possibly this 
weekend.
  Again the inadequacy of the environmental side agreement to NAFTA and 
its protection of the United States-Mexican border environment serves 
as a disturbing example of the ineffectiveness of the environmental 
side agreements that the administration has proposed. The number of 
factories along the already heavily polluted United States-Mexico 
border has increased by 20 percent since NAFTA went into place, yet 
little is being done to insure that these new facilities are complying 
with environmental standards. The health and safety of American 
families are being put at risk by the 44 tons of hazardous waste that 
are illegally dumped by these border facilities every day.
  Free trade agreements, I should say, also create pressure on 
neighboring governments to relax environmental regulations in an effort 
to lure manufacturers across borders, thereby allowing these companies 
to profit by polluting and abusing natural resources. We had this 
underlying problem that, in effect, what NAFTA has done and, in effect, 
what the free trade agreements will do if there is not adequate 
protection, which this legislation does not do, is that they basically 
create a ratcheting down so that environmental laws, environmental 
protection became less and less because of the competition between the 
countries and between the companies, each country, in effect, trying to 
provide less and less environmental protection in order to lure jobs 
and companies.
  Rather than entering into trade agreements that directly undermine 
U.S. efforts on the environment, these agreements should establish a 
level playing field among neighboring countries that requires all 
parties involved to adequately protect the environment, natural 
resources and human health, but this is not happening, Mr. Speaker. 
This is not happening with the fast track legislation that we may see 
tomorrow or Sunday or perhaps at some later time.
  It is not just the environment. Another major issue that has come to 
the forefront, an area that is not being adequately addressed, is that 
of food. There are tremendous food safety problems that have resulted 
from the NAFTA experience.
  Many of my colleagues have highlighted; I wanted to mention Ms. 
DeLauro of Connecticut, one of my colleagues who put out a dear 
colleague just a couple of days ago which she calls fast track 
stomachache, and she points out that each year overburdened American 
Customs inspectors allow more than 3 million trucks carrying produce 
from Mexico to cross the United States-Mexico border without 
inspection. Less than 1 percent of all trucks crossing the border are 
stopped and thoroughly inspected. Canadian beef is not properly 
inspected at the United States border for dangerous chemicals. More 
than 200 cases of the potentially fatal hepatitis-A have been 
associated with strawberries imported from Mexico. But NAFTA's 
regulations have denied us the chance to change the situation.
  Under section 7171(a), the gentlewoman from Connecticut [Ms. DeLauro] 
writes, an increase in inspections of meat, produce and other 
perishables are considered a restraint on trade. So the continued 
absence of inspections only encourages importers to continue to cut 
corners, jeopardizing our food safety to guarantee larger profits for 
themselves.
  Again, whether it is the environment, human health, food safety, 
labor laws, none of these, none of these are being protected, none of 
these are being addressed under NAFTA, and there is absolutely no 
reason to believe that they will be addressed under the fast track 
agreement that we are being asked to consider either tomorrow or 
Sunday.
  Now, I wanted to get into some of the labor issues as well because in 
the same way that I am concerned about the impact of fast track on the 
environment and food safety, I am also concerned about the impact on 
labor, on wages, on people's ability to retain their jobs, going back 
to Allied Signal and the example I used again from my home county of 
Monmouth County, NJ.
  Public Citizen, which is a watchdog group, put out a publication just 
a few days ago where they point out how the labor side agreements, or 
the labor side agreement under NAFTA, that those have also not been 
enforceable and have not managed to protect a single worker essentially 
under NAFTA, and there is no reason to believe that the experience 
would be any different with fast track.
  I wanted to just use a couple examples from the document called Deals 
for NAFTA, Votes to Bait and Switch, which Public Citizen put out this 
month. There are many examples of broken promises in this document, but 
just to give a few examples here this evening:
  One of the promises that were made with those who were concerned 
about displaced workers pursuant to NAFTA related to assistance for 
harmed workers. In other words, the idea is if you lost your job 
because of NAFTA, you were going to be made whole in some fashion. 
There is absolutely, the whole history of this effort called trade 
adjustment assistance for harmed workers has been one of failure.
  Just to give an example, this program was created, as I said, to hold 
harmless workers, and it is estimated that more than 400,000 Americans 
have been laid off due to NAFTA. The NAFTA-implementing legislation 
created the Transitional Adjustment Assistance Program. To date only 
one-third of NAFTA job loss victims are being certified as potential 
recipients of benefits under this program, and as of mid-October 1997, 
144,691 workers have been certified as eligible for assistance. So of 
the 400,000 that we estimate have lost their jobs under NAFTA, only 
144,000 have been certified to even receive assistance.
  Now, that does not mean that they are even going to get any 
assistance. Essentially you have to show that you are directly impacted 
in some way to qualify, and the reality is that many of these workers 
have had a very difficult time getting any kind of benefits under these 
workers training programs, under this hold harmless program.
  The other thing that was promised pursuant to NAFTA again by the 
administration was an effort to protect and promote labor rights in 
Mexico. In other words, some of us were concerned about protecting 
workers here; others were concerned about what would happen to workers 
in Mexico. President Clinton promised to use existing trade laws to 
take action if Mexico's policies denied internationally recognized 
workers' rights, but not only did the administration not fulfill its 
promise in this regard, which required issuance of an executive order, 
but it has since taken steps in its fast track proposal to ensure that 
neither President Clinton nor any future President has the authority to 
do so.
  So what we have been seeing in Mexico is that not only are labor laws 
not respected or not enforced, but, in fact, what has been happening is 
that the actual, the protections and the wages for Mexican workers have 
actually gotten less, and the amount of money that they are making, the 
minimum wage, has not only not risen, it has moved in the opposite 
direction. Between 1993 and the first quarter of 1997, productivity in 
Mexico manufacturing rose by over 38 percent while real hourly wages 
for production workers fell 21 percent.

                              {time}  2045

  The national average minimum wage fell by 20.43 percent during the 
first 4 years and 9 months of NAFTA.
  So the labor side agreement, the environmental side agreement, it has 
really been effectively worthless. There is absolutely no reason to 
believe that anything would be any different with the fast-track 
legislation that we are considering.

[[Page H10331]]

  If I could just summarize in a way some of the concerns, it is not 
that those of us who are opposed to fast track are opposed to free 
trade. I do not see it as a vote on free trade at all. What we are 
concerned with, though, is we do not want to negotiate away in one fell 
swoop, if you will, any ability on our part, on Congress' part, if you 
will, to protect the American workers, to protect the environment.
  We want to reserve the right, if you will, to look at the agreements 
that would be negotiated individually and to make sure that there are 
adequate protections of the environment, adequate labor protections, 
adequate food safety protections, in those agreements.
  The problem is that if you simply pass fast track, in effect you are 
giving the administration a blank check to extend NAFTA without 
Congress having the opportunity to seriously address the problems that 
have been raised with NAFTA.
  If we look at our trade deficit, if we look at what is happening, the 
United States trade deficit with Mexico has skyrocketed. In the auto 
sector alone the deficit has jumped from $3 billion to $15 billion. A 
number of jobs have already been lost because of NAFTA. Drug 
trafficking, violent crime in our border regions has increased, and I 
already talked about the public health, of course.
  So what those of us who are opposed to fast track are saying is the 
experience with NAFTA tells us we cannot simply give the administration 
the blank check that they are looking for with fast track. We have to 
have input into the trade agreements that are being negotiated, and, if 
we do not, we believe that there will be more tragic consequences that 
result in the same way that the tragic consequences have resulted from 
what has happened with NAFTA and the experience of NAFTA over the last 
few years.


                     Turkish Studies Chair at UCLA

  Mr. Speaker, I wanted to just talk briefly about a few other issues. 
First of all, I should say that my colleague from California [Mr. 
Sherman], touched on two issues that I wanted to mention briefly also 
this evening. He mentioned that the University of California at Los 
Angeles, UCLA, is establishing a Turkish Studies Chair, funded I may 
add, by the Government of Turkey. I wanted to join the gentleman in 
expressing my serious concern about this unfortunate use of a major 
prestigious university as a vehicle of indoctrination by another 
country.
  In my home State of New Jersey, we had a similar situation where 
Princeton University set up a study program that was financed by the 
Government of Turkey. As a result, the information that was coming out 
of the study program essentially denied the Armenian genocide. There 
has been a history with the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey 
to basically deny that the Armenian genocide ever occurred.
  My concern, and I know that of Mr. Sherman as well, is that by 
establishing these chairs or these Turkish study programs in different 
parts of the country, in my case at Princeton, in his case at UCLA, the 
Turkish Government is using these study programs to basically deny 
history and deny the facts of the Armenian genocide. In fact, it is 
really a brazen opportunity, if you will, a brazen attempt by a foreign 
government, to manipulate an American university for the denial of the 
historically verified genocide of the Armenian Nation.
  The Turkish Government is not setting up scholarships. These are 
propaganda and propaganda alone. It would be like a German Government 
that had not acknowledged the Holocaust funding a Nazi studies program 
at an American university. Of course, the difference is that Germany at 
least accepts responsibility and apologizes for the Holocaust of the 
Jewish people. The Turkish Government, still defying the historical 
record, denies that the Armenian genocide ever happened.
  I just wanted to join this evening with the Armenian community in the 
United States in appealing to the officials at UCLA, in the same way 
that I did at Princeton University about a year ago, and ask the board 
of regents to stop the effort of filling the heads of young Americans 
with revisionist propaganda in the name of so-called scholarship.
  This is something that we have seen happen more and more where the 
Turkish Government has been financing these study programs or chairs at 
various American universities in order to basically deny the Armenian 
genocide.


                      Plight of the Kurdish People

  I know Mr. Sherman also mentioned earlier this evening, and another 
of my colleague from California, Bob Filner, has basically spearheaded 
this effort, there has been a group of Kurdish Americans who have been 
fasting on the steps of the Capitol, on the main steps of the Capitol 
now for a number of days, probably more than a few weeks, in order to 
highlight, if you will, the ongoing tragedy in the mountains of 
Kurdistan, where, again, the Turkish Government, which is, of course 
denying the Armenian genocide and continues to, is also basically 
trying to essentially obliterate, not only individually by killing 
Kurds in Turkey, but also by denying Kurds the ability to speak their 
language, to learn about their culture, to go to school in Kurdish, and 
this fast, conducted by supporters of the Turkish people on the Capitol 
steps, includes the human right activist Cameron Porter, who is the 
spouse of one of our colleagues, the distinguished gentleman from 
Illinois [Mr. John Porter].
  I just want to say these fasters deserve tremendous credit for the 
dedication, courage and perseverance. It has been getting cold lately 
here in Washington, but that has not deterred them.
  Last Friday I joined with a group of my colleagues, members from both 
sides of the aisle, to visit with the fasters and supporters. I know 
Congressman Sherman and Congressman Filner were out there with me. 
Every day as we pass by these people sacrificing for the causes of 
peace and human rights, the sight of these protestors on the Capitol 
steps is a reminder to all people of conscious of the plight of the 
Kurds and the governments that hold them down, most notably the 
Government of the Republic of Turkey.
  In particular, Mr. Speaker, as we come into the Capitol to cast votes 
on legislation, sent here to do a job by the constituents who elected 
us, I hope we will remember one of our fellow elected legislators who 
does not have the opportunity to represent her constituents, Mrs. Leyla 
Zana, one of the most prominent victims of Turkey's cruel, irrational 
anti-Kurd cruel policies.
  Leyla Zana was elected to a seat in the Turkish Parliament in 1991 
representing her hometown. She was elected with 80 percent of the total 
vote, and she became the first Kurd to break the ban on the Kurdish 
language in the Turkish Parliament, for which she was later tried and 
convicted. She had uttered the following words: ``I am taking this 
Constitutional oath for the brotherhood of the Turkish and Kurdish 
peoples.''

  On May 17, 1993, she and one of her colleagues addressed the Helsinki 
Commission of the U.S. Congress. The testimony was used against her in 
a court of law. On March 2, 1994, her constitutional immunity as a 
member of Parliament was revoked and she was arrested, taken into 
custody, tried in a one-sided mockery of justice, convicted, and 
sentenced to 15 years in prison.
  Leyla Zana, who is 35 years old and the mother of two children, is 
well into the third year of her 15 year sentence at a prison in Ankara, 
the Turkish capital.
  Leyla Zana's pursuit of Democratic change by nonviolent means was 
honored by the European Parliament, which unanimously awarded her the 
1995 Sakharov Peace Prize. She has received major consideration for the 
Nobel Peace Prize. More than 150 Members of this House, my colleagues, 
have written to President Clinton on her behalf, and I hope a majority 
of the Members of this House will join with the European Parliament in 
defending the human and civil rights of this brave woman, and I might 
remind my colleagues, a fellow Parliamentarian, a fellow elected 
official. We owe her our moral support and to urge our ambassador in 
Ankara to raise Mrs. Zana's case with the Turkish authorities at the 
highest levels.
  Mr. Speaker, I just want to share with the Members of this body and 
anyone watching this some of the basic goals of Ms. Lasagna, of the 
fasters outside this building, and of the repressed Kurdish people of 
Turkey. The Kurdish identity must be recognized. The use of the Kurdish 
language in

[[Page H10332]]

conversation and in writing should be legalized. All cultural rights 
should be conceded. Kurdish political parties must be given full 
constitutional rights and a general amnesty for all political prisoners 
must be granted.
  Mr. Speaker, we often hear from our own administration and other 
apologists for Turkey about what a great democracy the Republic of 
Turkey is. Yet this is how a duly elected representative of that so-
called democracy is being treated for the crime of speaking her 
language and defending the rights of her people.
  Mr. Speaker, this cannot go on. For many years we have witnessed a 
clear pro-Turkish tilt on the part of the State Department. We often 
hear about strategic importance of Turkey and its pivotal location, and 
I do not discount those arguments completely. But we have to balance 
those factors against some other very important considerations.
  Turkey continues to spend billions of dollars in obtaining 
sophisticated weapons systems, not only from the United States, but 
from France, Russia and elsewhere. Much of this military hardware is 
then used to repress and terrorize the Kurdish people, citizens of 
Turkey who should be extended the protection of their country's armed 
forces and not be victimized by those armed forces.
  Meanwhile, Turkey does not have a strong industrial base, and is 
lacking in infrastructure in many key areas. So why is Turkey, our 
ally, throwing so much of its limited resources on sophisticated 
weapons to use against its Kurdish residents, when it could be 
investing in better schools, health care and other services that could 
help put Turkey on a par with the western nations it seeks to be 
associated with?
  About half of the worldwide Kurdish community lives within the 
borders of the Republic of Turkey, where their treatment is an absolute 
affront to basic fundamentals of human rights.
  At least one-quarter of the population of Turkey is Kurdish. Yet in 
Turkey, the Kurds are subjected to a policy of forced assimilation 
which is essentially written into the Turkish Constitution. To date, 
3,134 Kurdish villages have been destroyed and more than 3 million of 
their residents have been forced to become refugees, either in 
Kurdistan or abroad.
  Mr. Speaker, I would venture to say that in many ways what we are 
seeing happen in Kurdistan today is in some ways the prelude to the 
same type of genocide that occurred by the Turks against the Armenian 
people 80-some years ago.
  While the situation for the Kurdish people in such nations as Iraq, 
Iran and Syria is also deplorable, I wish to draw particular attention 
to the situation in Turkey for some basic reasons. Turkey is, after 
all, a military ally of the United States, a member of NATO. As such, 
it has received billions of dollars in military and economic 
assistance, courtesy of the American taxpayers. In addition, Turkey 
aspires to participate in other major western organizations and 
institutions, such as the European Union.
  Mr. Speaker, I believe most Americans would be frankly appalled to 
know a country that has received so much in the way of American 
largesse is guilty of so many breaches of international law and simple 
human decency. I have joined with many of my colleagues in denouncing 
Turkey's illegal blockade of Armenia, its failure to acknowledge 
responsibility for the Armenian genocide of 1915 through 1923, its 
ongoing illegal occupation of Cyprus and its threatening military 
maneuvers in the Aegean Sea.
  The brutal treatment of the more than 15 million Kurds living within 
Turkish borders offers a major argument for cutting back on military 
and economic aid to Turkey, or to at least attach very stringent 
conditions to provisions of this aid.
  If Turkey wants the benefits of inclusion in Western institutions 
that are supposed to be founded on the defense of democracy and human 
rights, then that country should start living up to the agreements it 
has signed.
  Again, the situation in Kurdistan is just another example of the type 
of treatment that Turkey has done historically with the Armenian people 
and other peoples, and it must stop.


                        Tribute to Ravi Shankar

  Mr. Speaker, I would like to do one more thing tonight, if I could. 
This is because of a couple of events that are going to occur this 
weekend, both at the Embassy of India and also at the Kennedy Center 
with regard to the legendary sitar virtuoso and composer, Ravi Shankar. 
I just wanted to make a tribute to Ravi Shankar this evening before the 
House.
  On this Sunday, November 9, at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Ravi 
Shankar, the legendary sitar virtuoso and composer, will perform in 
concert with his daughter. Ravi Shankar is India's most esteemed 
musical ambassador and a singular phenomenon in the classical music 
worlds of both East and West.
  His pioneering work in bringing Indian music to the West has helped 
to cultivate an unprecedented audience, making him an important and 
respected cultural influence for over 40 years. As a performer, 
composer, teacher, and writer, he has obtained a level of admiration 
and respect, both in India and in the West, that is unique in the 
annals of the history of music.
  Mr. Speaker, two quotes from musicians representing widely different 
points on the musical spectrum, both of whom have been friends and 
collaborators with Ravi Shankar, show the profound reach of his 
enigmatic genius.
  The great classical violinist Yehudi Menuhin said, ``Ravi Shankar has 
brought me a precious gift and through him I have added a new dimension 
to my experience of music.'' To me, his genius and humanity can only be 
compared to that of Mozart.'' George Harrison, the former Beatle, said, 
``Ravi Shankar is the Godfather of World Music.''

                              {time}  2100

  To honor his 75th birthday, a four CD boxed set, entitled ``Ravi in 
Celebration'' has been issued. And Ravi Shankar has not stopped 
creating spiritually powerful new music. His latest CD, ``Chants of 
India,'' produced by George Harrison, offers a new approach to the 
traditional and Vedic and Upanishad hymns.
  Pandit Ravi Shankar has been honored throughout the world, by the 
leaders in the realms of politics and the arts. In India, he has 
received the Nation's highest civilian awards. He was awarded an 
honorary doctorate from Harvard University. He has the distinction of 
being a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Lettres in France, he was presented 
with the Praemium Imperial Prize of the Japan Art Association by the 
Japanese Royal Family, among many other distinctions and honors. That 
list of awards will grow tomorrow, Saturday, November 8, when Ravi 
Shankar is honored by the U.S. Asia Foundation and the Indian American 
Forum for Political Education with the Light of Asia Award at a 
reception by India's Ambassador to the United States, the Honorable 
Naresh Chandra.
  Mr. Speaker, the occasion of India's 50th anniversary of independence 
and democracy gives us an opportunity to reflect on the great 
contributions by Indians and people of Indian descent. For decades, in 
virtually every part of the world, Ravi Shankar's music has held 
audiences spellbound. Further, his artistic genius is matched with an 
abiding devotion to building bridges of friendship and understanding 
across the cultural and political gulfs that have divided people.
  Maestro Shankar's concert on Sunday with his daughter Anoushka is 
being held in tribute to the 50th anniversary of India, a country to 
which he remains devoted. But, as is always the case when Ravi Shankar 
performs, Sunday evening's concert will transcend the boundaries of 
culture and language. Ravi Shankar is a great international artist with 
the power to move his audience with his unparalleled genius and vision. 
I am very pleased tonight to be able to take a couple of minutes to pay 
tribute to this man.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to request to yield the balance of my time 
to the gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Taylor], and I guess then he 
could yield to the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Visclosky].


                 Powerful Arguments Against Fast Track

  Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, if I may, I would like 5 
minutes of that time, and I hope you will tell me when my time is up, 
because I would like to yield the balance to my other colleague.

[[Page H10333]]

  I want to begin by thanking the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. 
Pallone] for being so generous with his time. I want to compliment him, 
a very active member of the Democratic Party, and compliment the 
previous speaker, the gentleman from California [Mr. Hunter], also a 
very active member of the Republican Party, for their very articulate 
remarks against giving President Clinton fast track authority to 
negotiate new free trade agreements with other countries.
  Mr. Speaker, we have a constitutional crisis in our country. In 
addition to everything that the gentleman from California [Mr. Hunter] 
said, which was on the mark, and everything that the gentleman from New 
Jersey [Mr. Pallone] said that was on the mark of why this trade 
agreement is bad, it is bad because it violates the Constitution of the 
United States.
  Apparently, there are a number of Congressmen who, after working very 
hard to get here, decided that they do not want to do their job. The 
first time that Congress gave away their constitutional responsibility 
was on the War Powers Act. If we look at Article I, Section 8 of the 
Constitution, it very clearly gives to Congress and Congress alone the 
power to declare war. Our Founding Fathers did that because they grew 
up in an era where one king or one queen could decide for everyone that 
the Nation's youth would go off and die, and they wanted to change 
that. So they saw to it that the people's representatives and only the 
people's representatives by a majority vote could make that decision.
  When Congress gave the President the War Powers Act, it was the first 
time they gave away their constitutionally mandated responsibilities.
  The second time they did that was just last year when the majority in 
Congress voted to pass the line-item veto. It was espoused at the time 
as something to cut the pork out of the budget, but they failed to 
mention that it was a budget that Congress put together. It was in 
effect saying that we cannot help ourselves.
  I voted against that, and I predicted at the time that all that it 
would be used to do is cut the defense budget. Thus far, Mr. Speaker, I 
am 90 percent right, because 90 percent of all of the things that have 
been vetoed by the President of the United States are defense related, 
and none of them contained any pork.
  Either tomorrow or Sunday, this body will once again have to make a 
decision as to whether or not we want to keep our constitutionally 
mandated duties or give them to the President of the United States. I 
am going to vote to keep those duties that I want the citizens of south 
Mississippi to have, and I think that more than half of my Democratic 
colleagues, for a variety of reasons, will vote to do so. So I really 
want to address my talk tonight to my Republican colleagues and those 
people who consider themselves to be Republicans.
  Mr. Speaker, almost on an hourly basis my Republican colleagues come 
to the House floor and say that President Clinton cannot be trusted. 
And they point to some things that would certainly give a great deal of 
credibility to their arguments. I hope that they are saying what they 
mean, and that they will mean what they say, because they will be asked 
either tomorrow or Sunday to give away their constitutionally mandated 
responsibility as espoused in Article I, Section 8, clause 3 of the 
Constitution to regulate commerce. They will be giving that, if they 
vote for fast track, to the man they say cannot be trusted. It is a 
very powerful argument for every Republican in this Congress to vote 
against fast track.
  Mr. Pallone is right when he talks about people being hurt. I 
represent \1/435\th of this country. In that \1/435\th of this country, 
5 factories have been closed. The people who want to give the President 
fast track authority tout it as being somehow a way to smack the unions 
about. Not one of those factories was a union factory, not one. What it 
was was a place that in most instances employed women who had found 
themselves, either through the death of their husband or the separation 
from their husband as the sole earners of their family, they had been 
stuck with the responsibility of raising children and they were the 
only ones who were making a living. Ninety percent of the people who 
lost their jobs as a result of NAFTA were the women in those factories, 
not the union, ``union thugs,'' that were told were opposed to it.
  It is even worse than that, because the gentleman from New Jersey 
[Mr. Pallone] comes from a very populous State, and maybe in a populous 
State like New Jersey the retraining that he talks about makes some 
sense, because maybe there is something else for those people to do. 
But I can assure my colleagues in Neely, Mississippi, in Wiggins, 
Mississippi, in Lumberton, Mississippi, and the other small towns of 
Mississippi that have had their only factory shut down as a result of 
NAFTA, there is nothing else for those people to do. It is simply not 
fair, and it is simply naive for Congress to imagine that there is 
additional opportunities for these people.

  The only thing that Congress should know is that in a microcosm, the 
good people of America have been hurt and in a microcosm our Nation has 
gone from a trade surplus to a trade deficit with both Mexico and NAFTA 
as a result of the last Free Trade Agreement.
  So, Mr. Speaker, since we will have very, very little opportunity to 
speak on this in the next couple of days, and since apparently the 
Speaker of the House has seen to it that this vote will take place on a 
weekend when most congressional offices will be closed, and therefore, 
there will be no one at the phones to answer those phones when citizens 
want to call up and encourage their Congressman to vote against this, I 
want to take this opportunity to speak on it and have my remarks put in 
the Record.


              America's Lost Value: Hard Work is Rewarded

  Mr. VISCLOSKY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the recognition and I 
appreciate the gentleman from New Jersey as well as the gentleman from 
Mississippi yielding time to me, and I would also start out by 
associating myself with the remarks made by both the gentleman from New 
Jersey as well as the gentleman from Mississippi on the proposed fast 
track authority that we in this Chamber will be voting on sometime 
Sunday.
  Mr. Speaker, we live in a global economy and we are engaged in a 
global competition. I know this and so do the tens of thousands of 
working Americans that I represent. The people I represent in northwest 
Indiana are not afraid of competition. They embrace it, because they 
work hard and do their job better than anyone else in the world. The 
steel workers and other working men and women I represent are happy to 
trade their products in the world's markets, but in trading their 
products, they do not want to trade away a living wage.
  For half a century, the people of America, at the cost of thousands 
of lives and trillions of dollars, have fought and worked to export the 
unique American value of democracy. As we look back on history and at 
the world today, we can see we have achieved success in doing so. But 
as we stand here today, we must think about exporting another important 
American value, the value that hard work is rewarded. This is a value 
that I was taught growing up in Gary, Indiana. I was taught that if one 
studied in school and worked hard in life, one would be rewarded with a 
living wage that would allow you to get married, buy a house, have 
children, send them to school, and then enjoy an economically secure 
retirement.
  But in today's debate on fast track, instead of working to export the 
American value of hard work globally, we are diminishing the value of 
work for all. The competition that will arise from the trade strategy 
we are debating today will not result in a race to the top, but in a 
drop to the bottom. And my fundamental concern is that if we in this 
House and others in this government do not export the value of labor 
and reward hard work in America, no one else will.
  I find it interesting that prior to the adoption of NAFTA 3 years 
ago, a local industry told me that they supported the agreement because 
it would be good for us. Prior to NAFTA, the same industry had a trade 
surplus with Mexico. Since NAFTA, that industry has a trade deficit 
with Mexico 20 times as large. But they have never complained. Why? 
Because their bottom line has not changed, and in fact, it has 
increased. They invest overseas, paying

[[Page H10334]]

people less and make more money. Unfortunately, the thousands of 
employees they have left stranded in places like Gary, Indiana; New 
Chicago, Indiana, have no recourse. In abrogating their responsibility, 
the responsibility to fairly reward hard work, these corporate citizens 
of the United States of America have dashed the American dream of many 
of the people we represent.
  We must not take the world economy as we find it and adapt to it, as 
so many people have suggested we do. We must make the world economy 
adapt to our fundamental American economic principle that hard work 
pays. It pays in the form of a living wage to working people.
  It might not happen this year; it might not happen next year, it 
might not happen in 20 years, but if it happens 50 years from now, our 
grandchildren will look back and say that we today here in this place 
did not break our covenant with the next generation of American 
citizens.
  I would ask all of my colleagues to join with me in opposing giving 
President Clinton his fast track authority.

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