[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 19 (Tuesday, March 3, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H737-H743]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          THE EFFECT OF NAFTA ON AMERICAN LIVES AND BUSINESSES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 1997, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, 3 months ago, Congress and the White House 
were locked in a heated battle over fast track, a very contentious 
issue, debate which we think for now has been set aside and put off 
until another day.
  In the meantime, we have a real opportunity, in the calm after the 
storm, where we can begin a very thoughtful discussion with the 
American people about our engagement in the global economy.
  I am pleased this evening to be joined by two distinguished 
colleagues who, together with me and the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. 
John Lewis), the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Marcy Kaptur), the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Alan Boyd) and the gentlewoman from Florida 
(Mrs. Karen Thurman), took a trip through Georgia and Florida to talk 
to people who were affected by our trade policies. I am joined this 
evening by the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bart Stupak) and the 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Bill Delahunt).
  Several of us, as I said, during the President's Day recess, got on a 
bus and went 500 miles. We stopped in some of the great cities of the 
South. We stopped in Atlanta and Tallahassee. We passed through small 
towns and countless miles of rural countryside. We visited farms and 
factories and cattle ranches and auto plants. We drove down bumpy 
roads. We took a few wrong turns, like we took one very long wrong 
turn. We stayed in people's homes along the way. We talked and we 
argued late into the night, and passed the time with folk songs and 
laughter. We had some very unforgettable experiences.
  How many of us have had the chance to drive through rural Georgia, 
listening to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. John Lewis) tell stories 
of the Freedom Rides which rolled through the same countryside in 1961, 
or tasted fried alligator tail served by the gentlewoman from Florida 
(Mrs. Karen Thurman) at a cattle ranch in someplace called Wacahoota, 
Florida, or followed the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Alan Boyd) to the 
top of the Florida State Capitol building for a birds-eye view of 
Tallahassee?
  But the most important thing that we did on our journey was to 
listen, listen to people, listen to how these policies had affected 
their lives. We saw some inspiring success stories, like the Ford Motor 
Plant in Hatfield, Georgia, which is just outside of Atlanta, where 
managers and workers have turned a unique partnership into one of the 
most successful auto plants in the world. They won the J.D. Power Award 
for Excellence.
  We had a very good discussion that lasted over an hour with workers 
and managers all working together to make a good product, to make a 
quality product that pays good wages. We heard sad stories, too. We met 
with workers who lost their jobs at Lucent Technologies, a plant that 
closed 2 years ago and moved to Mexico.
  This is a picture of our bus, with the gentleman from Massachusetts 
(Mr. Bill Delahunt), the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. John Lewis), and 
some of the workers. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bart Stupak) is 
right here. Some of the workers who had lost their jobs are here.
  I remember talking to one woman who was standing in front of this 
plant. She had worked there 25 years. She quietly told what happened 
when her livelihood disappeared. Like many people today who lose their 
jobs because of trade, she got another one, but it only paid $7.25 an 
hour, I believe, working at the Target store. She had been making $15 
an hour.
  The telephone that she once assembled for Lucent is now made in 
Reynosa, Mexico. Do you know what they pay folks down there to do that? 
Less than $1 an hour. But the price of the telephone, she told us, 
keeps going up. How did she know? She worked in the Target store now 
that sells those telephones.
  We got on the bus from there and we went down to Columbus, Georgia, 
where we met with textile and apparel workers from throughout the 
region. They told us what happened when plants closed in small, rural 
communities where few opportunities are available for those who lose 
their jobs. More than 150,000 textile and apparel workers have lost 
their jobs in the past 2 years alone, 2 years alone.
  Farther down the road, we visited with farmers who worked at a tomato 
packing co-op in Quincy, Florida. The once bustling facility now stands 
virtually empty. Since NAFTA was passed in 1993 more than half the 
tomato farmers in Florida have gone out of business. Many of these 
farms have been owned by the same families for generations. These 
people are very, very proud of their work, and they know they have 
nothing to fear from old-fashioned competition, but one after another, 
they told us of their story and their frustration.
  Here they are, dealing with a situation in Mexico where tomatoes are 
grown with chemicals and pesticides that are illegal here in the United 
States. They are grown in unsanitary conditions and picked by workers, 
including children, children who are 11, 10 years of age, who toil for 
indecent wages. That is what they are up against. These Florida farmers 
wondered aloud how much longer they can stay in business under these 
conditions.
  So what does a tomato farmer in Quincy have in common with a garment 
worker in Columbus, Georgia? What connects a cattle rancher outside of 
Gainesville with these people here, a high-tech telephone worker in 
Atlanta? There is a thread that connects all of these people and their 
diverse lives. They have learned something important, something that 
people in Washington and Wall Street still do not understand. These 
people know from hard firsthand experience that something is wrong with 
our trade policy. Those of us who work in Washington have a lot to 
learn from these folks.
  We know, of course, that a single bus trip cannot solve such a 
complex problem.

                              {time}  1815

  But these issues cannot be addressed without listening to the people 
who are affected and understanding what has happened to their lives.
  We began such a dialogue with our 500-mile journey. This is a long-
term debate. It is going to take many years, and we expect to be back 
on the road again soon to continue this discussion. I hope that others 
will join us from my party and the Republican Party as we work together 
to steer this Nation into the future. We can do this if we only find 
common ground, and we can find common ground if we engage in a 
dialogue, not only with each other but with the people in the country 
who are affected by these policies.
  I believe, in conclusion, before I yield to the gentleman from 
Michigan (Mr. Delahunt) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. 
Stupak), that what we are advocating is a policy for the future, a 
trade policy that deals with the issues that our parents and our 
grandparents and their grandparents struggled with a hundred years ago. 
Those same issues are being struggled with in countries that we do 
trade with today,

[[Page H738]]

that are trying to develop into a developed nation.
  In this country 100 years ago we did not have the 8-hour day, we did 
not have the 40-hour work week, unemployment comp, worker's comp. We 
did not have the weekend. We did not have health and safety laws. All 
of those things happened because people were willing to sacrifice, they 
were willing to march, they were willing to demonstrate, they were 
willing to be beat up and go to jail. They were willing in some 
instances to die.
  It was a Triangle Shirtwaist fire in the City of New York, at New 
York University today, a sweatshop where over 100 women were killed 
because of unsafe working conditions, that prompted the movement to a 
safe working condition in this country.
  It was 9,000 coal miners living in tents, demanding an 8-hour day, 
and then having the companies mount machine guns on top of armored cars 
and threaten these miners, burning their tent site, killing 21 of them, 
including 11 children, that started the movement to get the 8-hour day.
  It was Upton Sinclair's novel, ``The Jungle,'' that exposed rotten 
food and beef in this country that was poisoning and killing too many 
innocent people. That led the movement to consumerism and led the 
movement to safe food.
  All of this did not just happen. It happened because people did 
something about it. And there are people like those that I have just 
mentioned in Mexico and in Indonesia and in China who are struggling 
for these same basic rights: a decent wage, a right to organize, a 
right to assemble, a right to collective bargaining, and the right to 
lift themselves up to our level.
  And it is not only right for us to stand with them because it is the 
right thing it to do; it is also the right thing to do for our people 
because when their standards go up, multinational corporations cannot 
say ``Well, if you do not take a cut in pay, a cut in wages, a cut in 
benefits, we are moving to Mexico or Indonesia or China.'' They cannot 
say that because the standards there begin to rise and so the 
comparative advantage is gone.
  In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I want to say that I thank my friends who 
went on this tour, especially the two gentlemen who are with us today, 
the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak), who knows the food safety 
issue. He knows all of these issues, but he knows the food safety issue 
as well as anyone in this Congress, and he has played an instrumental 
role in raising that issue to the forefront as we debate these issues. 
And the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) a new Member who 
immediately understood this issue and sensed the anger and the 
frustration in this country, sensed the inequities, and understands the 
plight of small business people in this, which never gets talked about 
but is very key as well, and who took of his time to come with us and 
listen and to see and to talk and to engage in dialogue so that he 
could come back here and express to our other colleagues what he had 
heard on this trip.
  Mr. Speaker, with that I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.
  Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. 
Bonior) for yielding, and thank him for organizing this special order 
and actually being the leader on the fair trade campaign.
  This bus trip that the gentleman talked about, where we went around 
Georgia and Florida and listened to people, was put on by the Citizens' 
Trade Campaign. That is a group of religious leaders, labor leaders, 
consumer groups, consumer advocacy groups, and they invited us to go 
out and get out of our safe districts, we are comfortable there, and go 
talk to folks like we have in our photograph there, I didn't know any 
of them there other than the Members of Congress, and to listen to 
their stories.
  Mr. Speaker, I found throughout this whole trip, no matter what 
aspect it was, whether it was manufacturing or farming, Americans are 
eager to compete. They want to compete. They want trade agreements. But 
at the same time they know that this country has some standards that we 
must adhere to, whether environmental standards, labor standards, 
agricultural standards, and especially food safety standards.
  They are saying, we are happy to compete. We can compete with anyone 
at any level. Just let us all play by the same rules. Let us have a 
fair trade agreement.
  Mr. Speaker, it was interesting at the Ford plant that the gentleman 
spoke of where they made the Tauruses and the Sables, the number one 
efficient auto plant in the world according to J.D. Power and 
Associates, year after year. They are the number one plant. They have a 
great working relationship between labor and management.
  We asked the question: How many cars do you sell to Japan? Obviously, 
they must sell a lot of this number one popular car. They said, ``This 
year we are doing pretty well. We are going to get 670 units.'' We 
asked how many units do they make in an hour, and they can make 67 
units in an hour. So what Japan orders from us as far as this very 
popular car is one 10-hour shift worth of cars, is all they are going 
to have, and they think that is a breakthrough for this year.
  The point they stressed is that while they are the most efficient 
plant in the world according to J.D. Power, yet they can only sell 670 
cars. What is going on here? And they do put the steering wheel on the 
right-hand side. And Japanese consumers love American cars, especially 
the cars that come off this line in Georgia.
  All they ask is, let us compete. If they are going to bring a car in, 
let us bring a car into Japan. And they were serious and sincere and it 
was neat to listen to these guys.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I 
think a fact that I shall never forget upon visiting that Ford factory 
was that the cost of the car that they produced, which was the Sable, a 
fine car, in the United States cost approximately $20,000. When that 
car was exported to Japan, the consumer in Japan had to pay 
approximately $45,000 for that vehicle.

  Mr. BONIOR. And it was not just the expensive boat ride over.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. It was not the expensive boat ride. But I think really 
what that particular statistic does really talks to what we are about, 
which was fair trade. We ought to have probably a picture of the car 
that was produced here, produced in Atlanta, Georgia, just to remind 
the American people that that car was $20,000 here in the United States 
and $45,000 in Japan.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back.
  Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the gentleman makes a 
very good point. We asked why does it cost so much? From $20,000 to 
$45,000 to $50,000? And they said: See, when we bring an American car 
and put it over in Japan, then we must follow their rules. We must now 
follow the Japanese standard. Every car must go through a processing 
center where they go through with a very fine-tooth comb, and they 
reject and continue to reject it until that is the perfect car. And 
every time there is a rejection and further inspection, the 
manufacturer here, in this case Ford, would then have to pay to bring 
it up to their standards.
  So if I might, I would like to talk a little bit about standards 
tonight and food safety, because when we went to Florida and we had 
heard from the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Boyd), the gentlewoman from 
Florida (Mrs. Thurman), the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Brown) and 
the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Wexler) and others, as we were doing 
the debate about fast track last year, they said we are happy to 
compete with Mexico on food standards, especially our winter fruits and 
vegetables and the citrus, but just have the same standards. But since 
the implementation of NAFTA in 1993, they said look what happened in 
our State because we do not have the same standards. Florida has lost 
50,000 agriculture-related jobs.
  Mr. BONIOR. How many jobs?
  Mr. STUPAK. 50,000 agriculture-related jobs since the implementation 
of NAFTA. The tomato industry has lost $750 million since 1993. They 
said our job, our health, our Nation's food standards have gone 
downhill. But we said, look, can we compete with Mexico to produce food 
at a competitive price while maintaining the world's highest food 
safety standards? They unequivocally said yes, we can, as long as the

[[Page H739]]

food coming into our country meets the same standards.
  Mr. Speaker, we are not talking about a surcharge or anything to make 
it meet our standards. We are talking about some very, very basic 
health standards that this Nation has set forth, has fought for over 
the years to develop the world's greatest and safest food supply.
  But look what has happened. Take our own State of Michigan. We had 
the school hot lunch program in which strawberries had come in from 
Mexico and they were tainted with hepatitis A. And Michigan is as far 
as one can get from the Mexico southern border. But we have to 
understand that our fruit and our food supply, especially our winter 
vegetables, 50 percent or more comes in from Mexico during these winter 
months.
  So we had these strawberries that got in the school lunch program and 
they came from Mexico. At the initial outbreak we had 179 Michigan 
students contracted hepatitis A after eating tainted Mexican 
strawberries.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, could the gentleman repeat that, please.
  Mr. STUPAK. It started out 179 Michigan schoolchildren contracted 
hepatitis A by eating tainted strawberries. It is now up to 324, and 
this is in Calhoun County, the public health officials have told us 324 
have contracted hepatitis A from school lunch.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. So from the time it was first diagnosed that this 
epidemic broke out, it has almost doubled in terms of the number of 
young children that have been conclusively diagnosed and contracted 
hepatitis as the result of the importation of unsafe food from Mexico?
  Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is correct. I am talking about 
10-year-old students here. Most of these children were second, third 
and fourth grade 10-year-old students.
  If we stop and think about what we are doing in this country, we have 
food standards in this country that are the envy of the world. We have 
the safest food. But if we look at what has happened recently, every 
second of every day someone is stricken with food poisoning. If we take 
a look at it, that is 33 million Americans a year. In fact they 
attribute 9,000 deaths to tainted food here in the United States.
  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, that is a startling number. I do not think 
many of our constituents realize how widespread it is. I know my son 
just got food poisoning last week. We do not know exactly what it was 
from, but that was the diagnosis. It happens and it happens often. As 
my colleague says, 9,000 Americans die per year.
  Mr. STUPAK. From food poisoning. And we do not always recognize it as 
food poisoning. But these numbers are from reports and studies of the 
General Accounting Office. U.S. News and World Report did a big article 
on it a couple of months ago. That is where some of these statistics 
derive from.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield for a 
question, what kind of inspection occurs when these food imports enter 
into the United States?
  Mr. STUPAK. Well, jumping a little bit ahead here, but let me explain 
a little bit of what has happened, what we have found. I mentioned the 
General Accounting Office and they have done a couple of reports. One 
was in May of this year, and here is what they told us.
  Mr. HUNTER. The General Accounting Office is an official agency of 
the United States Government, nonpartisan in nature?
  Mr. STUPAK. Nonpartisan. FDA inspections, talking about domestic and 
imported foods, in 1981 we had 21,000 inspections in this country. 
21,000. In 1996 we have, domestic and imported, 5,000 inspections. In 
1981 we had 21,000 inspections of our food supply; 1996 we had 5,000.
  Mr. BONIOR. It drops down.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. That is less than 25 percent this past year of what 
occurred 6 or 7 years ago.
  Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Speaker, remember what I said earlier. More than 50 
percent of the lettuce, tomatoes, the fresh fruits and vegetables we 
consume in this country are not grown in this country because it is the 
wintertime. Our growing seasons are down, and especially now with the 
weather problems we have seen with El Nino as California has been hit.
  So now we go back to what happened to the tomato industry that we saw 
in Florida. Why did they lose 50,000 agriculture-related jobs? Why did 
they lose $750 million in lost profits? Because they cannot compete 
with the Mexican tomato industry which has really taken over the U.S. 
market.

                              {time}  1830

  Down in Florida we tell them, you have to play by the rules. You 
cannot use illegal pesticides. You must use very clean irrigation 
water, and you must have proper handling of your product. But they do 
not play by the same rules in Mexico, and when they come across the 
border, there is no one to inspect.
  For instance, take a look at it, there are 9,000 trucks per day that 
come in from our southern border carrying fruits and vegetables. 
Actually it is 12,000, but 9,000 are carrying food products. Of those 
12,000, 9,000, which are food products, how many are inspected? One 
percent. Just 1 percent are ever inspected.
  The infrastructure to do the inspections that are necessary was never 
in place when NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, was 
passed. And look what has happened. The inspections have actually gone 
down.
  So we wrote the President and the administration a letter, 84 Members 
of this Congress signed it, and said, look, if we are going to do these 
trade agreements, and we are for trade, and if we are going to have 
equal standards, you have to do a couple things, Mr. President. And we 
hope we can join and work with you because we want to have trade 
agreements, but we need to include three things.
  Number one, we need to include strong food safety and health safety 
standards in these trade agreements, whether it is NAFTA or an 
extension of the fast track agreement. Have our standards, please, Mr. 
President. Let us increase the funding for border inspections of 
Mexican trucks carrying food produce, meats, frozen foods into our 
country, and last but not least let us begin an aggressive food 
labeling program so all food products that come into this Nation, when 
you go to the store and you reach for that tomato, it should be labeled 
in that bin, whether that is grown in Mexico, California or Florida. 
And let the American consumer decide whether they want tomatoes grown 
in Florida or Mexico.
  Mr. BONIOR. Are there any States that do this now?
  Mr. STUPAK. Right now there are two States. Florida is actually one 
of them. So is the State of Maine. In this bus trip we asked 
agricultural people, what does it cost if we would say you have to 
label your fresh fruits and vegetable products from the country of 
origin so the consumer would know? They said, it costs, according to 
State officials, $4 for every store you own a year, $4 for every store. 
There were some consumer groups and we asked them. I will take it back, 
it was $4 a month. So we asked the consumer advocacy groups what did 
they think. Florida said it was $4 per month per store. What do you 
think it is? They said, at most it is $8 to $10 per month per store. 
That is the added cost, very limited, very, very limited.
  So there is not a big financial incentive why not to do it, but 
again, should not the American consumer have the final say on where 
they want their fruit, vegetables, especially during wintertime, where 
it is grown, you choose where you want to take it from, that that 
Nation does not live up to our standards like on irrigation water and 
illegal use of pesticides, then you should have the right to say, I 
reject that fruit or vegetable from Mexico. I would rather have U.S.-
grown because I know the standards it lives by.
  That is all we are trying to do is, what are the safety standards. We 
talk about safety standards all the time. Whether you are in Michigan, 
Florida, Georgia, when it comes to trade and food safety standards, you 
are certainly concerned about your health, your family's health, and 
you want to make sure you these high standards are met.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. If the gentleman would yield, I do not think that there 
is any Member of this body that would disagree with the fact that it is 
unconscionable to allow food that is contaminated to be imported into 
this country.

[[Page H740]]

  I want to get back to the statistics that you talked about in terms 
of your home State of Michigan and Mr. Bonior's State where there were 
in excess of 300 children under the ages of 10 who contracted 
hepatitis. But putting aside the human anguish, putting aside the fact 
that this is just unacceptable to the American people, what I would 
dare say is that the cost of treating the victims of that epidemic in 
terms of our health care dollars has to be substantial.
  Somebody is paying the bill. And it would appear to be the people of 
Michigan in that particular case, but people all over this Nation in 
terms of allowing into this country the import or importation of food 
products that very well might be endangering the health of Americans, 
there is a dollars and cents cost to that.
  Mr. STUPAK. No doubt. There is a dollar and cents cost, but let us 
continue with this Michigan example. There are 300 and some children 
now who have hepatitis A. We know how to treat that. You are very ill. 
There is an antibiotic, you will get better. But what has happened in 
Michigan? Give you some idea of what kind of food we are importing 
here, these children right now today are still suffering from loss of 
hair, skin loss, respiratory infections, asthma-related illnesses, 
shingles, sores in their mouth. Those are not symptoms of hepatitis A. 
The suspicion is that there were other things in these strawberries. 
The unclean water that they used to irrigate, could there have been 
lead, arsenic? Was there an illegal pesticide as Mexico uses, DDT? We 
have not used that in this country for a long time, and 30 other 
chemicals in this country they still use in Mexico.
  So the secondary symptoms, which are quite horrendous to say the 
least, we have asked the FDA to do a further follow-up. You have these 
strawberries. They were impounded. What else was there? Was it lead? 
What else is causing these other symptoms for these poor children in 
Michigan? We wrote that back last fall. We still have yet to receive an 
answer.
  So while there is a monetary cost, as the gentleman pointed out from 
Massachusetts, of treating hepatitis A, we have added costs of things 
we do not know. We have the agricultural loss of jobs. You have the 
industry loss, but how do you tell a 10-year-old whose hair is falling 
out that, well, it is okay, we have got a good trade policy in this 
country, and we just do not have enough inspections on the border, and, 
well, I mean, you cannot. Financially or emotionally, you cannot put a 
value on that.
  Mr. BONIOR. It is not just the children in Michigan. Two facts 
briefly, if I could, that relate to your comments. Number one, I was 
astounded to learn on our trip that approximately 70 percent of the 
food sold at this time of the year in Michigan in the Detroit area is 
imported, 70 percent. I do not know why I was astounded. I guess I 
never really thought about it that much. That is a huge number.
  The second point I would make, it is not only the children of 
Michigan who have suffered dramatically as a result of these trade 
policies that do not take into account lower standards, health 
standards, but it is the children of Mexico as well. If you look along 
the border between the United States and Mexico from Texas to 
California, an area called the maquiladora, there has been virtually no 
cleanup. They have had this huge surge of industrial development and 
these plants pouring their waste and their sewage into canals where 
children bathe and play, and as a result we have had this terrible 
outbreak of health problems for these children.

  The American Medical Association, a conservative and I might even say 
stodgy organization, but one that is held in pretty high esteem in this 
country, called this area, called this area, the border area, the 
maquiladora area, a cesspool of infectious disease. Their words, not 
mine.
  So to get this to trade again, what we are all about is raising those 
standards so that not only those Mexican children but our children do 
not have to suffer the consequences that the gentleman from Michigan 
and my friend from Massachusetts, who so ably outlined for us.
  Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Speaker, the issue here in the United States, we want 
to maintain our food supply as safe as we can. So while we want to 
raise the standards for the children south and even north of our 
border, we also must maintain what we already have. These standards, 
again, the workers we saw, they can compete with anyone provided we are 
playing by the same standards.
  We have had problems with beef coming from Canada, that has been 
tainted. We have had trouble with Guatemalan raspberries. We have had 
milk problems up in the Northeast from an airborne pathogen that came 
over probably from Europe.
  So that is why it was so important when we had the fast track 
discussion last fall and we asked the President to sort of do three 
things for us, to maintain our standards, the United States standards. 
Number one, renegotiate the provisions of NAFTA that relate to border 
inspections and food safety to ensure that any fast track authority 
would include strong food safety provisions. Secondly, we asked to 
increase the funding for border inspections or, alternatively, limit 
the increasing rate of food imports to ensure that there is a safe 
supply of food here in this country. Last but not least, to begin the 
program to label all foodstuffs including fresh and frozen fruits, 
vegetables and meats with their country of origin. Unfortunately, that 
was not put forth by the administration.
  I guess those were simple standards we asked for, but stop and think 
about it. About 6 months ago or maybe even a little longer, we were 
ready to go to a trade war with China over things like CDs, 
intellectual property rights, copyrights, banking laws. That is all 
fine. We have these standards for cassette discs. We have it for 
copyright infringement. We have it for so-called intellectual property, 
and we have it for copyrights. Why not for food safety, something where 
we all eat and consume? And yet we have more than 50 percent of our 
fruits and vegetables. At least give the American consumer the right to 
determine whether they want that tomato grown in Mexico or in Florida, 
and you know what standards they are grown under.
  I learned a lot from these folks on our bus trip. I look forward to 
future trips for the Citizens for Fair Trade campaign. I think we are 
all for trade, but when you hear these stories of these people or whose 
children have been stricken because of improperly imported food, you 
certainly, your heart goes out to them. But this is an issue that is 
being repeated too often. As I said, each second of every day someone 
suffers from food poisoning, 33 million Americans a year suffer from 
it. There are 9,000 deaths per year.
  A CD has never killed anybody, but we certainly maintain its 
standards. Why can we not have that same standard for our food safety 
in this Nation?
  I thank Mr. Bonior for organizing this special order and also being a 
leader on this issue and opening our eyes to some of these very, very 
serious issues that must be addressed, and it is the proper position of 
the U.S. Congress to ask these questions as we continue trade 
agreements around this Nation and around this world.
  Mr. BONIOR. I thank my colleague for his insights and leadership, 
particularly on this aspect of the trade issue.
  I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I, too, want to echo the sentiments 
expressed by Mr. Stupak that it was an extremely informative and 
educational trip for myself as well as for every Member of Congress. I 
did learn something about food. As you know, I come from Massachusetts, 
which is not necessarily considered an agricultural economy. However, I 
should point out that Massachusetts is the second leading producer, it 
might be the first, but I will concede to Wisconsin, the second leading 
producer of cranberries, and most of those cranberries happen to be 
cultivated and grown in my district, which includes the south shore of 
Boston as well as Cape Cod and the islands.
  But I did learn this that I had never known before. When we talk 
about globalization, when we talk about trade, you mentioned, for 
example, that 70 percent of the food that is consumed in the State of 
Michigan during the course of the winter is imported. When we talk 
about globalization, we are really talking to, I would suggest, the 
beginning of the end of a way of

[[Page H741]]

life, but because what I learned on this trip as it related to 
agriculture is that it is the small farmer in America that is losing, 
not the large agribusiness, not the large multinational conglomerate, 
if you will. But again and again we heard that the small farmer just 
cannot make it.

                              {time}  1845

  They cannot survive. And my memory, and maybe it is a romantic view 
of American history, was a small farmer in America that really produced 
not just food, but in many respects our national prosperity.
  Mr. BONIOR. Our way of life, our culture, so many pieces of the 
fabric and texture of our country was established, as the gentleman 
correctly stated, by that type of an entity. It was not just an 
economic entity, it was a social entity that carried tremendous values 
that today we revere in this country.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. As the gentleman says, it is almost as if there is a 
loss of a sense of community; that these people who really made America 
great, the small farmer, is at such an incredible disadvantage because 
of unfair trade. Unfair trade.
  And those are the people we ought to be concerned about. Who is 
standing up for the small farmer here in America today? It is certainly 
not the multinational conglomerate.
  I was pleased to hear my friend, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. 
Stupak), talk about that we are not opposed to trade. Because the 
reality is every single Member that participated in that trip wants to 
encourage trade. We are pro-trade. We are pro-fair trade. But what we 
want to be able to do is to write the rules of international commerce 
so that every single American benefits from the prosperity that is 
generated by global trade and by the global economy. That is what we 
are about. And that was really the first very small step along that 
road. The very first step.
  But what we have discovered in real terms is that not everybody is 
playing by the same rules. We have to have a set of rules where there 
is a minimum wage; where there are child labor standards; where there 
is a 40-hour workweek; where there is paid vacations; where there is a 
weekend. It is not about exploiting other nations, it is about raising 
their standard of living and not suppressing our own standard of living 
to benefit the few.
  If we can pause and reflect, we think of in the past 10 years how 
well the stock market has done. Broken all records. Every day there is 
a new record. I daresay that the stock market has probably increased, 
since 1980, 700 or 800 or 900 percent, and my gut tells me that I am 
underestimating that. But what is happening to the median income of the 
American people in this country? The top 20 percent have done well.
  Mr. BONIOR. Extremely well.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. But what about the other 80 percent? What about the 
middle class in America? It is really about the middle class, because 
if we do not have a viable middle class, the poor and the disadvantaged 
have nowhere to go but even further down.
  So what we are talking about is a global commerce, an international 
trade where the American people, through its Congress and through its 
President, write the new rules, the new rules that will encourage 
trade, but where every single American and people all over the world 
will benefit, not just a few.
  Mr. BONIOR. And the gentleman is so correct when he talks about just 
the few. There has been an enormous wealth created in this country, 
particularly over the last 15 to 20 years, and accrued to the top 20 or 
25 percent, as the gentleman stated, of our population. They have had 
tremendous increases in their standard of living and in their worth.
  And that is not an insignificant number of people. Twenty-five 
percent of America is what, maybe 60 million, something like that? 
Sixty-five million people. That is a lot of people who have generated 
an enormous amount of wealth. They tend to be the same people who 
control the organs of communication: the media, the networks, the 
newspapers, the periodicals, the way we communicate electronically 
today. They are the folks that control that, and oftentimes they do not 
move beyond their own circles. They do not see what we see.
  The gentleman is absolutely right, the top did very well. But those 
below the 75 or 80 percent level, below that top 20 or 25 percent, 
their salaries have basically been frozen or gone down. If we go to the 
bottom 25 percent of working people in this country, they have had a 
serious, serious drop in real wages over this same period of time, to 
the point now where we have in this country the largest income gap 
between the top working people and the people at the bottom. It has 
grown enormously.
  Why is that? Well, there are many reasons. Trade is a piece of it. I 
want to be careful and use the right word, but I would say we have 
betrayed our ancestors and we have betrayed our heritage on the issues 
that both of us have talked about that took so long to build up in this 
country. These struggles for a decent wage, for safe working 
conditions, for compensation, for time off, they just did not happen. 
We struggled for that.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. If the gentleman will continue to yield for a moment. 
If those that went before us had not prevailed, would there be a middle 
class in America today?
  Mr. BONIOR. Of course not. Of course not.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Is it not absolutely critical that whatever we talk 
about in terms of our own responsibility, it is to ensure that those 
standards that were created, as the gentleman said, through struggle 
and toil, stay the same so that we continue to have a healthy middle 
class that really sets us apart as a healthy democracy?
  Mr. BONIOR. That is right.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Because without a healthy middle class, democracy 
starts to erode.
  Mr. BONIOR. That is right.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. And we become a society of have and have-nots. And that 
is part of the problem.
  Mr. STUPAK. If the gentlemen will yield on that point. In talking 
about the middle and upper class, and I guess we could say the lower 
class, those on the lower economic scale, there was an interesting 
article recently put out by ``Inside Michigan Politics,'' a publication 
from our home State, just 2 weeks ago.
  Mr. BONIOR. That the gentleman shared with me on the bus.
  Mr. STUPAK. Right. Basically, they have been doing this study and 
they had broken down the American workers into five different 
categories, the top percentile, the middle, and the lower percentile; 
and again breaking them, the whole working population, into 5 
percentiles. The highest percentile, from 1990 to 1996 nationwide, they 
went up 13 percent greater than any other class.
  Mr. BONIOR. The top 20 percent.
  Mr. STUPAK. The top 20 percent went up 13 percent. In Michigan it was 
12.7, rounded off 13 percent. The middle class, the third percentile, 
the third level, the middle one here, during that same 6-year period, 
from '90 to '96, they lost 2 percent. So they went down 2 percent. And 
the bottom 20 percent, or the lowest economic class that they surveyed, 
actually lost about 20 percent over the same period of time.
  So we can see the rich will get richer, the poor will get poorer, and 
the poor middle class here that we all relate to and speak of, actually 
lost 2 percent in our home State of Michigan.

  Mr. BONIOR. And the gentleman is right. What happens, of course, is 
when people's salaries get bumped from, as I described earlier this 
woman at Lucent Industries, is making $15 an hour and she lost her job. 
She found another one at Target, the department store, for $7.50, half 
her salary. What happens with those people, of course, is that they 
work two jobs.
  Mr. STUPAK. What is their biggest concern right now?
  Mr. BONIOR. And their spouse often works two jobs.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. And what does that mean?
  Mr. BONIOR. That means they are not home.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. That is correct.
  Mr. BONIOR. And when they are not home, the whole fabric that keeps 
our society together, the values of the family being there when their 
kids come home from school, working with them on their homework, going 
to their ball games or their dance recitals, it is not there. And they 
do not participate in their community. They do not vote.

[[Page H742]]

  It is no wonder the percentage of people participating democratically 
in this country is starting to slide, because they do not know what is 
happening in their communities. They are busy trying to make a living 
and trying to stay even.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. It is like running on a treadmill. That is exactly what 
it is like.
  Mr. BONIOR. Do my colleagues remember the woman who came on the bus, 
and where was it, it was just outside of Gainesville, with the 
gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Karen Thurman), and sang us that song?
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Anytown USA.
  Mr. BONIOR. Anytown USA; about how these towns have just changed so 
dramatically. We now have CVS Pharmacies coming in, and the small 
pharmaceutical companies, the store owner is gone. We have the Kmarts 
and we have the Wal-Marts that have come in, with the huge percentage 
of products made abroad, by the way, and that just kind of ruins the 
whole downtown area in these communities.
  The multinational large corporations have had an enormous impact on 
changing the values and the face of what America looks like today.
  Mr. STUPAK. These workers we spoke to, especially ones outside this 
plant, and even the textile workers down in Columbus, Georgia, if we 
look at that photograph, and I know it is hard to see for the folks, 
but those workers there are not young people just out of high school. 
They had 25 to 30 years. This was the last plant they had of making 
these telephones. So they moved, some of them, five and six times 
trying to keep their jobs.
  And the gentleman is right, they were making about $13 or $15 an hour 
and, now, working at Target, for like $7 an hour. But look at these 
workers. They were mid- to late 50s. They have 25 to 30 years in with 
this company. And they said we have been gone now for over a year and 
we are struggling to find work.
  And their big concern, what was their big concern? While they were 
retirees and had vested benefits, they were now taking their health 
benefits away.
  Mr. BONIOR. That is right. These folks, 25 to 30 years, moved their 
jobs away, now working somewhere else, but at least they had these 
benefits. Now they are going after their health and pension benefits.
  Mr. STUPAK. Now they are going for their health and pension benefits.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. It is important to remember, too, we are not just 
talking blue collar workers here. There were people that were concerned 
and frightened about their jobs as middle managers.
  I can remember reading 2 or 3 years ago a series in The New York 
Times about corporate downsizing and restructuring. The victims of 
corporate restructuring and downsizing are out there, too. The 
individual that was making $65,000 or $75,000 or $85,000 a year, we 
should speak about him, too, because he has or she has not had an 
opportunity to secure a job, similar kind of employment, that exceeds 
in many cases more than 60 percent of what his or her income was.
  The gentleman spoke earlier about the small business person. Does 
anybody in America recognize what is happening in the community? The 
gentleman talked about the drugstore. I have this vivid memory of every 
day, on my way home from school, stopping at the independent drugstore: 
The individual who sponsored the Little League team, who knew my name, 
who traded with my parents, who was an integral part of the community.
  That does not happen today. That store is gone. The hardware store, 
that was part of the song that that folk singer sang to us. Rather than 
going down and getting your nails and hammer at the hardware store in 
our local town, where again we knew that individual and we connected 
with the owner, with the proprietor, he or she is also gone. Today we 
walk into Home Depot.
  Maybe an argument can be made, and I have not heard it yet, that we 
are better off as a result of the efficiencies that are occurring 
there. But there is something missing in terms of the quality of life 
with these people going on.

                              {time}  1900

  Remember community banks? Is there anybody in America that has not 
witnessed the incredible acceleration of the demise of community banks? 
I know in New England we really have two banks left. If you are a 
middle-class person, and you need a loan real quickly, go in and knock 
on that friendly door.
  Mr. STUPAK. Whether it is banking or whatever, and I hope the folks 
listening do not just think it is Georgia or Florida we are talking 
about but it is everywhere, whether it is Massachusetts or Michigan.
  My home area, northern Michigan, I represent the northern half of the 
State but even my little community of Menominee, which is 10,000 
people, and Marinette, Wisconsin right across the border, 12,000 
people, we had 4 paper mills in the area. Recently we have been 
devastated by layoffs. 896 workers have been laid off since September 
of 1996.
  Our paper industry up there in northern Michigan, each of our mills 
found their own little niche in the market. What happened? The big 
corporate multinational company from Australia, Visi, comes in. They 
like this nice little plant in Menomonee, so they buy it. They buy it 
for two reasons, the niche or the product line we produce and our 
customer base. So they buy this plant, they buy our product line, they 
buy our customer base.
  Then suddenly, even though that mill makes money and machine number 
one, paper machine number one still made money, it was not as efficient 
as they wanted it. So without any responsibility to the community, 
machine number one is gone, that is 220 workers, and all the support in 
that factory needs it.
  Kimberly-Clark takes over, Scott paper, Scott tissue, we all know 
that. Kimberly-Clark came in, bought the product line, bought the 
customer base, basically shut the place down.
  Badger was a very small little paper mill in Peshtigo, Wisconsin. 
Again, imports made it cheaper to buy the pulp elsewhere, and Badger is 
really struggling to make ends meet. As we globalize, not only is there 
economic and social justice you have to argue, but there is also a 
corporate responsibility to these communities and to these individuals. 
Where do these people, whether in Georgia, Florida or Michigan, who 
have 30 years in, go for a job?
  Mr. BONIOR. There is a backlash that is going on all around not only 
the country, around the world today, to globalization. We know it is 
happening, we know it is a reality, we know it is here. It is here to 
stay, that our borders are broken down, we are going to be trading with 
each other, and that is good.
  The backlash comes when it is not fair. What we are all about is 
trying to write the rules so that the average man and woman gets a 
break and it does not all go to the top. It is not much more 
complicated than that, although we have talked about all the difficult 
and intricate pieces here.
  What we have got to do is start holding accountable those 
multinational corporations and those governments that are in cahoots 
with these corporations to make sure that the average working man and 
woman get a break, because we are all in this together. What happens to 
the worker in Mexico or Indonesia or in China affects the worker here. 
People are starting to figure that out.
  I thank the gentlemen for spending the time this evening. I look 
forward to getting back on the bus with them and going to other parts 
of this country to hear stories, to understand and listen to people and 
coming back here and sharing their concerns with our colleagues and 
with the country.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I have the great pleasure and honor of 
yielding now to the distinguished gentleman from Waco, Texas (Mr. 
Edwards), the Chief Deputy Democratic Whip.


                           Religious Freedom

  Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the distinguished minority 
whip for recognizing me to speak for a few minutes on an issue that is 
very near and dear to my heart. Mr. Speaker, I am here today to discuss 
an issue that I believe is of critical importance to our Nation and to 
every American family. The issue is religious freedom.
  Specifically, I want to comment on Federal legislation that I believe 
will

[[Page H743]]

do great damage to our Bill of Rights and to the cause of religious 
liberty. The gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Istook) has introduced a 
constitutional amendment that, if passed into law, would for the first 
time in our Nation's history amend our cherished Bill of Rights, that 
Bill of Rights which has for over 200 years protected American's 
religious, political and individual rights. On Wednesday the Committee 
on the Judiciary is expected to vote on this ill-conceived legislation.
  The gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Istook) has mislabeled his work the 
Religious Freedom Amendment. More appropriately, it should be called 
the Religious Freedom Destruction Amendment, because that is what it 
will do.
  In my opinion, the Istook amendment is the worst and most dangerous 
piece of legislation I have seen in my 15 years in public office. It is 
dangerous because it threatens our core religious rights and would 
literally tear down the 200-year-old wall that our Founding Fathers 
built to protect religion from the intrusion of government. That is why 
I will be working with a bipartisan coalition of House Members and 
religious leaders from across the Nation to defeat this measure.
  The Istook amendment would allow satanic prayers and animal 
sacrifices in the name of prayers to be performed in our public school 
rooms. It would step on the rights of religious minorities and allow 
government facilities, including county courthouses and elementary 
public schools, to become billboards for religious cults.
  Mr. Speaker, America already has a religious freedom amendment. It is 
called the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It is the first 
pillar of our Bill of Rights. It is the sacred foundation of all of our 
rights.
  The First Amendment begins with these cherished words: ``Congress 
shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or 
prohibiting the free exercise thereof.'' For over two centuries that 
simple but profound statement has been the guardian of religious 
liberty, which is perhaps the greatest single contribution of the 
American experiment in democracy. To tamper with the First Amendment of 
our Bill of Rights has profound implications.
  In the name of furthering religion, the Istook amendment would harm 
religion. In the name of protecting religious freedom, it would damage 
religious freedom. With no disrespect intended to my colleague, if I 
must choose between Madison, Jefferson and our Founding Fathers versus 
the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Istook) on the issue of protecting 
religious liberty, I shall stand with Madison, Jefferson and our 
Founding Fathers.
  If history has taught us nothing else, it has taught us that the best 
way to ruin religion is to politicize it. Our Founding Fathers deleted 
the mentioning of God in our Constitution, not out of disrespect but 
out of total reverence for their faith in God and the importance of 
religion in our lives. It is that same sense of reverence that should 
move us in this Congress to protect the First Amendment of 
our Constitution, not dismantle it.

  Some have suggested that the Istook amendment is necessary because 
they allege God has been taken out of public places. I would suggest 
those people must not share my belief that no human has the power to 
remove an all-powerful, ever-present God from any place on this earth.
  The fact is there is no law in America that prohibits prayers in 
school. Teachers have said as long as there are math tests, there will 
be prayers in school. I agree. Under present law, school children may 
pray silently in school or even out loud, so long as they do not 
disturb the class work of others and try to impose their religious 
views upon their fellow students. Today in our schools children can say 
grace over school lunches and, if they wish, pray around the flagpole 
before and after school.
  Under the Bill of Rights, government resources, though, cannot be 
used to force religion upon our school children against the wishes of 
their parents or the children themselves. What the Bill of Rights does 
prohibit is government-sponsored prayer, as it should.
  Our Founding Fathers were wise to separate church and State in the 
very First Amendment of the Bill of Rights. Religious freedom 
flourishes in America today. Why? Precisely because of our 
Constitution's wall of separation between church and State. Islamic 
fundamentalism seen in the Middle East today is a clear example of how 
religious rights are trampled upon when government gets involved in 
religion.
  In the months ahead, I urge Americans to look beyond the sound bite 
rhetoric of the Istook amendment and ask themselves this question: 
Should prayer be an individual right or a government program?

                          ____________________