[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 171 (Tuesday, December 11, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H9084-H9085]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      PARTISAN VOTING MEANS LOSS OF OPPORTUNITY FOR NEW TRADE ERA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, the December 6 House vote on 
Presidential Trade Promotion Authority continued a sad string of hard-
edge partisan votes since September 11 and the loss of an historic 
opportunity to move to a new era of trade.
  The pattern was established when the leadership took the legitimate 
need for stabilizing the airline industry and rushed through a program 
to lavishly reward airlines, but with no consideration of the needs of 
American workers.
  The antiterrorism legislation, produced unanimously by the Committee 
on the Judiciary in the House, was rejected in favor of a narrow, more 
partisan alternative that did not even have a hearing. The economic 
stimulus bill was shoe-horned through by a single vote. Its package of 
corporate tax breaks, with no connection to investment or economic 
growth, has been roundly criticized by liberals and conservatives 
alike. Even legislation to stabilize the insurance industry was 
hijacked by other ideological and political agendas.
  The trade promotion legislation fell victim to this same treatment 
when the House Republican leadership prevented any effort to resolve 
other legitimate concerns, with the active support, sadly, of the Bush 
administration, instead focusing on advancing partisan political 
objectives.
  The President could have openly repudiated the partisan ideological 
posturing here in Congress. He could have demanded and would have been 
given a bipartisan bill with broad support that would have helped place 
trade promotion above the political fray. That would have placed, in a 
stressful time for the country and our economy, a majority of the House 
of Representatives, like the majority of Americans, in a position to 
give benefit of the doubt to the President, as they have done 
repeatedly since September 11. The President could have achieved this 
objective by making modest adjustments to the trade legislation.
  The concern about disadvantage to American workers, with the 
extension of NAFTA to the entire western hemisphere, could have been 
answered by making a principal trade objective adherence to, and 
enforcement of, the International Labor Organization's core labor 
standards, which all of these countries say they support. To the fear 
that chapter XI investor protections under NAFTA put foreign investors 
in a superior position to undermine American environmental protections, 
a simple answer would have been to mandate that no foreign investor be 
given a superior position to American companies, and the House would 
have gone along.
  Finally, we could have made provisions for the continued 
enforceability of environmental treaties. When both parties to trade 
disputes are signatories, we can insist that these agreements' 
provisions being enforced is not an unfair trade barrier.
  These three simple changes, together with meaningful assistance to 
the financially distressed and unemployment, that were promised months 
ago and have yet to be meaningfully delivered, would have produced a 
comfortable margin of votes from Democrats and Republicans alike. 
Instead, the administration chose to wheel and deal in ways that will 
only become clear from careful observation and good journalism. It is 
bad enough that the price of passing poor trade legislation might be 
funding for unnecessary public works projects.
  What is worse is that the administration and the Republican 
leadership abandoned their commitment to free trade in the poorest of 
countries by gutting the Caribbean Basin Initiative. This hard-fought 
trademark legislation was a proud bipartisan achievement that would 
have helped some of the poorest and most distressed countries. We are 
now jettisoning our principles, denying hundreds of millions of the 
world's poorest citizens the power of trade benefits.

                              {time}  1245

  Of course, we await to learn the concessions, not just to citrus 
growers but

[[Page H9085]]

to the whole tired American agricultural regime. Our current policy 
works to the detriment of most American farmers and the taxpayers and 
undercuts our ability at the bargaining table to open up foreign 
markets to American agriculture.
  It is not too late for the President to restore integrity to our 
trade negotiations by abandoning these narrow, ideological partisan 
approaches. The Senate can easily make this a better bill by 
jettisoning the trade-corrupting provisions, letting the legislative 
process work, and listening to the critics who have legitimate 
concerns.
  We are not going to end the debates on the role of globalization and 
trade policy; but by addressing these legitimate concerns, we can 
narrow the debate and enable the administration to pursue the policies 
that United States Trade Representative Zoellick sincerely wants to 
achieve, I believe.
  Given the right bill, we will not be held hostage to narrow special 
interests at home while we make the poorest of countries pay the price 
for our lack of political leadership and policy clarity.

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