[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 20 (Thursday, February 7, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S792-S793]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. DORGAN (for himself, Mr. Brown, and Mr. Casey):
  S. 2611. A bill to make bills implementing trade agreements subject 
to a point of order unless certain conditions are met, and for other 
purposes; to the Committee on Finance.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, today I am introducing a piece of 
legislation aimed at changing the course of our international trade 
policy.
  Part of the problem with our current trade agenda is that there is no 
mechanism to gauge whether the trade agreements we enter into are 
successful--and there is no mechanism to withdraw from agreements that 
have not been successful.
  So I am joining with Senators Brown and Casey in introducing the 
Trade Agreement Benchmarks and Accountability Act, which aims to fix 
that.
  This is how the bill would work.
  The legislation would create a point of order in the Senate against 
any future bill implementing a new trade agreement unless it included 
benchmarks to gauge the success or failure of the agreement.
  The benchmarks would include, at a minimum, the trade agreement's 
impact in four respects.
  First, the number of U.S. jobs created and lost.
  Second, the impact on U.S. wages.
  Third, the extent to which U.S. exports gain foreign market access in 
key sectors.
  Fourth, the extent to which labor and environmental laws are followed 
and enforced.
  The U.S. Trade Representative's office could include additional 
benchmarks in the implementing legislation, at their discretion.
  Every 5 years, the U.S. International Trade Commission, ITC, would 
assess whether the benchmarks in the implementing legislation had been 
met.
  If the ITC determined that any of the benchmarks were not met, there 
would be an expedited process under which the House and the Senate 
would consider a privileged resolution to pull the United States out of 
the trade agreement.
  The resolution would be considered under expedited rules. The 
resolution would first be referred to the Ways and Means and Finance 
committees. If those committees failed to report out the resolution 
within a set period of time, either favorably or unfavorably, the 
resolution would be automatically discharged to the full House and 
Senate.
  The resolution would not be amendable, and a floor vote in the House 
and the Senate on whether to approve the resolution would be mandatory.
  Let me explain why something like this is necessary.
  When NAFTA was sent to Congress for a vote in 1993, its advocates 
said that there would be 200,000 new jobs created annually as a result.
  The proponents relied on a study by economists Gary Clyde Hufbauer 
and Jeffrey Schott. Hufbauer and Schott actually predicted that NAFTA 
would create 170,000 new jobs by 1995. But proponents of the deal in 
the administration and the Senate rounded this number up to 200,000 
jobs.
  Well, we now know that NAFTA has resulted in hundreds of thousands of 
job losses. About 412,000 U.S. jobs have been certified as lost to 
NAFTA, under just one program at the U.S. Labor Department.
  In 2003, 10 years after NAFTA had been approved, I commissioned a 
study from the Congressional Research Service, which identified the top 
100 companies that laid off U.S. workers as a result of NAFTA, between 
1994 and 2002.
  To come up with its data, CRS turned to the Department of Labor, 
which has a ``Trade Adjustment Assistance'' program that gives 
temporary benefits to workers laid off due to NAFTA.
  This program requires companies to certify that they intended to 
eliminate U.S. jobs specifically because of NAFTA. This means that we 
can directly attribute these job losses to NAFTA.
  These 100 companies accounted for 201,414 U.S. jobs lost specifically 
due to NAFTA. In every instance, the companies doing the layoffs 
certified that the jobs were being cut directly because of NAFTA.
  If you look at all U.S. companies that participated in the Department 
of Labor program, the total number of U.S. jobs lost due to NAFTA is 
412,177--and that is just under this one program alone.
  There are some very familiar products, which many people consider 
all-American, now being produced in Mexico.
  Levi Strauss laid off 15,676 U.S. workers due to NAFTA, and now makes 
its jeans in Mexico.
  In March 2003, Kraft Foods closed the Nabisco plant in Fair Lawn, NJ, 
that made Fig Newtons. About 240 jobs were lost right there. Those jobs 
are now in Monterrey, Mexico. Kraft Foods has cut about 955 jobs due to 
NAFTA.
  Fruit of the Loom laid off 5,352 U.S. workers in Texas alone, and 
thousands more in Louisiana. I have often said that it is one thing to 
lose your shirt, quite another to lose your shorts.
  In March 2001, Mattel closed its last factory in the U.S.--a western 
Kentucky plant that produced toys such as Barbie playhouses and 
battery-powered pickups for nearly 30 years. The company shifted 
production at the 980-employee Kentucky plant to factories in Mexico.
  John Deere has laid off about 1,150 workers, who made lawn mowers and 
chainsaws, and moved the jobs to Mexico.
  By the way, in addition to this CRS study, a separate study by the 
Economic Policy Institute found that the overall net effect of NAFTA 
had been the loss of nearly 800,000 American jobs.
  Today, the administration and the U.S. Trade Representative are 
careful to avoid promising that new trade agreements will create more 
U.S. jobs than the agreements will destroy.
  But the administration has no problem figuring out how great trade 
deals will be for other countries.
  One month before the administration signed a trade agreement with 
Korea last year, our principal negotiator in Korea, Assistant U.S. 
Trade Representative Wendy Cutler, was already touting the benefits 
that the agreement would offer Korea:

       An FTA with the United States is predicted to produce 
     significant economic benefits for the Korean economy, 
     increasing Korea's real GDP by as much as 2%, establishing a 
     foundation for Korea to achieve per capita income to as high 
     as $30,000, boosting exports to the United States by 15%, and 
     creating 100,000 new jobs.

  Remarkably, Ms. Cutler had no difficulty predicting a specific level 
of job creation in Korea. But she made no similar projection with 
respect to the United States.
  Well, we need accountability in trade agreements. And the best way to 
do that is with benchmarks.
  This is a forward-looking strategy for a successful trade policy that 
is in America's national interest.
  Our bill would apply only to future trade agreements. It would not 
apply retroactively to NAFTA.
  I should say, however, that I think it is important that we gauge the 
impact of NAFTA on U.S. jobs. And I was able to include language in the 
omnibus conference report that will require the Department of Labor, by 
the end of 2008, to calculate the net impact of NAFTA on U.S. jobs, 
industry by industry.
  In any event, we think that this piece of legislation should be 
embraced by the U.S. Congress, because the American people are 
beginning to demand accountability in trade.
  On October 4, the Wall Street Journal provided fresh evidence that 
the American people don't believe that free trade deals are creating 
jobs.
  The Wall Street Journal ran a story with the headline ``Republicans 
Grow Skeptical on Free Trade.''

[[Page S793]]

  The story described a poll, which found that by a two-to-one margin, 
Republican voters believe free trade deals have been bad for the U.S. 
economy.
  It turns out that dissatisfaction with our current trade policy is a 
bipartisan sentiment.
  The poll found that 59 percent of polled Republican voters agreed 
with the following statement:

       Foreign trade has been bad for the U.S. economy, because 
     imports from abroad have reduced demand for American-made 
     goods, cost jobs here at home, and produced potentially 
     unsafe products.

  Only 32 percent of polled Republican voters agreed with the following 
statement:

       Foreign trade has been good for the US. economy, because 
     demand for U.S. products abroad has resulted in economic 
     growth and jobs for Americans here at home and provided more 
     choices for consumers.

  This poll suggests a dramatic change in the way Americans view free 
trade agreements.
  In December 1999, the Wall Street Journal did a poll that found that 
only 31 percent of Republican voters thought free trade agreements had 
hurt our country.
  But in this month's poll, the Wall Street Journal found that the 
number of Republican voters opposing free trade agreements had risen 
from 31 percent to 59 percent.
  Clearly, the American people have seen the results of free trade 
deals, and they don't like what they see. They demand accountability. 
And the Trade Agreement Benchmarks and Accountability Act would give 
them precisely that.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be 
printed in the Record, as follows:

                                S. 2611

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Trade Agreement Benchmarks 
     and Accountability Act''.

     SEC. 2. LIMITATIONS ON BILLS IMPLEMENTING TRADE AGREEMENTS.

       (a) In General.--Notwithstanding section 151 of the Trade 
     Act of 1974 (19 U.S.C. 2191) or any other provision of law, 
     any bill implementing a trade agreement between the United 
     States and another country shall be subject to a point of 
     order pursuant to subsection (c) unless the bill--
       (1) is accompanied by a statement of the benchmarks 
     described in subsection (b)(1) and that statement is approved 
     as part of the implementing bill; and
       (2) contains the reporting provisions described in 
     subsection (b)(2).
       (b) Benchmarks and Reporting Provisions.--
       (1) Benchmarks.--
       (A) In general.--Each bill implementing a trade agreement 
     shall be accompanied by a statement that contains benchmarks 
     described in subparagraph (B) and predictions made by the 
     International Trade Commission, the United States Trade 
     Representative, and other Federal agencies, of the impact the 
     implementation of the agreement will have on the United 
     States economy.
       (B) Description of benchmarks.--The benchmarks described in 
     this subparagraph are as follows:
       (i) An estimate of the number of new jobs that will be 
     created, the number of existing jobs that will be lost, and 
     the expected net effect on job creation in the United States 
     as a result of the agreement. The estimate shall include the 
     number and type of the new jobs that will be created and 
     lost.
       (ii) An assessment and quantitative analysis of the extent 
     to which the agreement will result in an improvement in wages 
     for workers in the United States.
       (iii) An assessment and quantitative analysis of how each 
     country that is a party to the agreement is implementing and 
     enforcing the labor and environmental standards that are part 
     of the agreement.
       (iv) A quantitative analysis of the extent to which the 
     agreement will result in an increase in the access by United 
     States businesses to the market of each country that is a 
     party to the agreement, particularly those sectors identified 
     by the United States Trade Representative as of special 
     importance with respect to the agreement.
       (2) Reporting provisions.--The reporting provisions 
     described in this subsection are that each bill implementing 
     a trade agreement shall contain a requirement that not later 
     than 5 years after the date the agreement enters into force 
     with respect to the United States, and every 5 years 
     thereafter, the International Trade Commission shall submit 
     to Congress a report that provides an assessment and 
     quantitative analysis of how the trade agreement has resulted 
     in meeting the benchmarks described in paragraph (1).
       (3) Contents and conclusions of report.--The International 
     Trade Commission shall determine in any report required by 
     this section regarding an agreement whether the benchmarks 
     and predictions described in paragraph (1)(B) (i) and (ii) 
     have been met with respect to that agreement.
       (c) Point of Order in Senate.--The Senate shall cease 
     consideration of a bill to implement a trade agreement, if--
       (1) a point of order is made by any Senator against any 
     bill implementing a trade agreement that is not accompanied 
     by statement regarding the benchmarks to be achieved by the 
     agreement or does not contain the reporting provisions 
     regarding the benchmarks described in subsection (b); and
       (2) the point of order is sustained by the Presiding 
     Officer.
       (d) Withdrawal of Approval.--
       (1) In general.--The approval of Congress, provided in a 
     bill to implement a trade agreement, shall cease to be 
     effective if, and only if, a report described in subsection 
     (b) indicates that the benchmarks and predictions made in 
     connection with the agreement are not being met and a joint 
     resolution described in subsection (e) is enacted into law 
     pursuant to the provisions of subsection (e) and paragraph 
     (2).
       (2) Procedural provisions.--
       (A) In general.--The requirements of this paragraph are met 
     if the joint resolution is enacted under subsection (e), 
     and--
       (i) Congress adopts and transmits the joint resolution to 
     the President before the end of the 1-year period (excluding 
     any day described in section 154(b) of the Trade Act of 1974 
     (19 U.S.C. 2194(b)), beginning on the date on which Congress 
     receives a report described in subsection (b); and
       (ii) if the President vetoes the joint resolution, each 
     House of Congress votes to override that veto on or before 
     the later of the last day of the 1-year period referred to in 
     clause (i) or the last day of the 15-day period (excluding 
     any day described in section 154(b) of the Trade Act of 1974) 
     beginning on the date on which Congress receives the veto 
     message from the President.
       (B) Introduction.--A joint resolution to which this section 
     applies may be introduced at any time on or after the date on 
     which the International Trade Commission transmits to 
     Congress a report described in subsection (b), and before the 
     end of the 1-year period referred to in subparagraph (A)(i).
       (e) Joint Resolutions.--
       (1) Joint resolutions.--For purposes of this section, the 
     term ``joint resolution'' means only a joint resolution of 
     the 2 Houses of Congress, the matter after the resolving 
     clause of which is as follows: ``That Congress withdraws its 
     approval, provided under section __ of the ___________