[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 166 (Tuesday, December 4, 2001)]
[House]
[Page H8816]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   PASSAGE OF FAST TRACK LEGISLATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Biggert). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. BONIOR. Madam Speaker, I congratulate the flower company for 
locating in Miami, but I would like to tell my friends that the bloom 
is off the rose here on Fast Track coming up this Thursday.
  Madam Speaker, this Thursday's vote on Fast Track is an ill-timed 
attempt to force a divisive issue on our Nation when we least can 
afford it. Last week, the United States was officially declared in 
recession. Job losses are skyrocketing as a result of the faltering 
economy and the September 11 attacks. Workers are unsure of their jobs 
and unsure of their futures.
  Meanwhile, nothing, absolutely nothing, has been done to help these 
workers. The Republican leadership has blocked effort after effort to 
address these most important questions that affect working men and 
women in this country. A meaningful improvement of unemployment 
compensation laws, any attempt to help expand health care for those who 
are out of work, and any other assistance that these worker desperately 
need, we have tried repeatedly month after month to get the leadership 
on the other side of the aisle to address these questions; and nothing 
has come from our efforts.
  What the Republican leadership has done is use every opportunity 
available to spend billions of dollars in corporate tax benefits at the 
expense of working men and women in this country. We are waging war 
abroad, and we are united in that; but what is happening in this 
country is that the leadership of the Republican Party is waging war on 
the workers of this country.
  This push for Fast Track is no different. Our flawed trade policies 
of the last decade have had a devastating toll on American workers. 
Since 1994, three million U.S. jobs have evaporated as a direct result 
of our failed trade policies.
  In my home State of Michigan, over 150,000 jobs have been lost. 
Thousands of workers around the country are struggling to keep their 
jobs right now. They are in danger of becoming tomorrow's job-loss 
statistics.
  It is time we reversed this trend. It is time we woke up and dealt 
with the crisis that is affecting millions of American workers and 
their families today. No money and unemployment comp to pay for the 
rent, to pay for the mortgage, to pay for education, to pay for food. 
No resources for health care, for members of the workforce or their 
families.
  We do not need more job losses. We do not need more corporate 
giveaways, and we certainly do not need Fast Track.
  I want to thank my colleague, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown), 
for organizing this important discussion which we will have a little 
later on this floor tonight and for his work to highlight the efforts 
of Fast Track will have on all of our workers, including our farmers. 
Madam Speaker, many farmers are already reeling from bad trade deals. 
It is the same tune; it is the same song every time we get one of these 
things. Whether it is NAFTA or WTO or China, they come and they will 
offer the world, they will tell people they will fix this and they will 
fix that; and then the farmers, they get taken in every time on these 
things, not all of them. Some of them have figured it out, but the 
numbers prove what we have been saying all along: these trade policies 
are not good for our agriculture community.
  I say to my colleagues, the timing of the Fast Track bill puts many 
U.S. farm bills in jeopardy once again, and the administration's 
willingness to put our trade laws on the table after the recent WTO 
ministerial shows our farmers have just as much to lose as every other 
worker in this country.
  Madam Speaker, I ask that my colleagues look seriously at the 
proposal that the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) is bringing to 
the floor. It is flawed. It does not deal with worker rights, 
environmental rights, farmer rights; and the upshot of all of this is 
that we will give away much of our authority and power in the United 
States House of Representatives and in the other body to deal fairly 
and adequately and substantively with trade laws that will affect not 
only those areas, labor, environment, agriculture, but a whole host of 
other areas that affect the American public.
  I ask my colleagues to stand with us as we fight this ill-conceived 
idea of Fast Track.

                          ____________________