[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 58 (Thursday, May 9, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Page S4132]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              IMPORTS OF FOREIGN LUMBER AND WOOD PRODUCTS

  Mr. DAYTON. I thank the Chair.
  Madam President, I rise in morning business to discuss an amendment 
which Senator Craig from Idaho and I are going to offer when we resume 
consideration of the trade bill. I wish to take a few minutes in 
morning business now to talk about it.
  It is an amendment that I believe will complement the intent of TPA. 
Others may view it differently. It is one Senator Craig and I developed 
out of our shared experiences working with and representing members of 
our respective States, Idaho and Minnesota, who have lost jobs, farms, 
and farm income because of trade policies.
  I first had the opportunity to work with the Senator from Idaho when 
Minnesota loggers and small business owners running sawmills were being 
harmed seriously--some put out of business, some losing their jobs--as 
the result of imports of foreign lumber and wood products coming into 
this country and to our State. I found that Senator Craig had been 
working on these problems for years before I arrived.
  I actually took his lead. He spearheaded a group of us working on the 
impact of sugar coming into this country on sugar beet growers in 
Minnesota and Idaho. I know he is someone who has a deep and abiding 
commitment to do what is right for the citizens of his State, as I hope 
I can demonstrate for the people of Minnesota.
  Madam President, you probably had this experience in your State as 
well. The trade policies of this country which have been in effect over 
the last couple of decades from one Republican administration to a 
Democratic administration and now to a Republican administration have 
relatively consistently encouraged the expansion of trade, the 
expansion of exports upon which a lot of jobs in Minnesota depend and 
on which a lot of businesses in Minnesota, large and small, have 
successfully and profitably expanded markets across this country and 
the world--grain traders, commodity traders, those who provide that 
transportation, those who finance the businesses engaged in all of 
this. There are a lot of winners in Minnesota, a lot of beneficiaries 
through jobs, through expanding businesses, through rising stock 
portfolios, who say, hey, more trade is better for us, who frankly 
cannot even imagine why I am torn on this subject.

  I find in the presentations and the discussions about trade 
authority, there is very seldom a recognition, even an acknowledgment, 
of the thousands of men and women whose jobs, whose farms, whose 
businesses, have been lost. And lost is not even the right word; they 
have really been taken away from them because of the impact of these 
trade policies.
  So recognizing that this legislation, the so-called trade promotion 
authority, is a high priority for the administration, that was passed 
by the House of Representatives, that, as the Senator from Oklahoma 
said earlier, the tradition of the Senate has been to support free 
trade in anticipation of the probability that final legislation will 
pass the Senate if we get to that point, I think this amendment is a 
crucial addition to standing beside and with those men and women in my 
State anyway, and I think elsewhere across the country, who are being 
harmed by these policies or who will be in the future.
  This amendment says if an agreement comes back that has been 
negotiated by trade representatives, acting at the behest of the 
President but not elected by the people of this country--comes back 
with changes in the trade remedy laws, which change--in most cases 
weaken--these laws that have been passed by the Congress, signed into 
law by the President of the United States, for the purpose of 
protecting those who will be harmed by these trade agreements, by 
illegal dumping of products--it has certainly been devastating to 
northeastern Minnesota, to the steelworkers there and across this 
country--that before those laws and their provisions can be altered or 
weakened or negotiated away or used as bargaining chips to get some 
other purpose achieved, the Congress has the authority--it is not 
required but it has the option--to remove those sections of the bill 
and put the rest of the agreement through the fast track, so-called, 
the procedures that will have been enacted into law, but to reserve the 
prerogative to review these changes, these measures, that are going to 
affect the kind of protection, the kind of safety net, the kind of 
assistance that Americans think they can depend on, cannot be taken 
away, cannot be altered, except by more careful consideration by the 
Senate and Congress.
  The fact that we have 26 Members of the Senate who are cosponsors and 
are in support of this legislation, 13 Republicans, 13 Democrats, men 
and women from all different parts of the country with all different 
perspectives and philosophies, says to me they have had this same 
experience in their own States with their own constituents, that they 
too have recognized that these trade policies have very mixed results 
in their States, and particularly those who are not the beneficiaries, 
who are going to be the casualties of expanded trade, the increased 
imports which have been, I think, really tilting our trade policies out 
of balance in a way that is detrimental to this country.
  Last year, the trade imbalance, the deficit in our trade, was $436 
billion. We owed other nations $436 billion more from their imports 
than we received from our exports. In agriculture, well, there is still 
a positive trade balance, but that positive balance has been reduced. 
We have seen from NAFTA a flood of imports of food, of automobiles, of 
other manufactured goods, and our trade imbalance with Mexico has gone 
from being a slight positive in 1993 to a negative balance in the year 
2000. Our trade balance with Canada has gone from being slightly in the 
negative to seriously in the negative in those 7 years.

  Again, I have seen in Minnesota men and women, farmers, workers, 
business owners, who have lost all of that, lost their hopes, lost 
their livelihoods, lost their homes, lost their pensions, lost their 
health care as a result of this. To me, it would be unconscionable to 
hand that over to an unelected representative of any President, any 
administration--previous administration, this administration, a future 
administration--and allow that situation to develop where that 
agreement would come back and we would be told, take it or leave it, up 
or down; either make that decision that is going to benefit people but 
disregard those who are going to be most harmed.
  I see the Senator from Nevada has returned, hopefully with some 
illumination for us. We have taken this opportunity to talk about the 
amendment.
  Mr. REID. If the Senator will yield, the majority leader is on his 
way.
  Mr. DAYTON. I will yield even more so when the majority leader 
arrives.
  I thank the Senator from Idaho for his work on this. I think he has 
heard more about it from other parties than I have.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
  Mr. CRAIG. Madam President, we are in morning business, are we not?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
  Mr. CRAIG. I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak for 15 
minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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