[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 12 (Thursday, January 27, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S329-S331]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             THE NEXT GENERATION OF AMERICAN MANUFACTURING

  Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I rise to speak for the first time in this 
Chamber as a Senator. It is an honor to do so. Already, after my 
service at the end of the 111st Congress, I am keenly aware of the 
impressive array of skills brought to this place by my colleagues and 
of the great traditions of this Chamber, as well as the tremendous 
challenges facing both our Nation and this institution as we work 
together to make progress.
  On November 2, the citizens of Delaware elected me to come here on 
their behalf and work with 99 other Senators for a very specific goal: 
getting America moving again and getting our economy back on track. 
With our country just now recovering from the loss of so many jobs, 
with a substantial deficit and the painful and lingering wreckage of a 
great recession, we must set aside politics and focus on progress.
  I am honored to have this opportunity to serve. I am especially 
honored to serve alongside our State's distinguished senior Senator, 
Tom Carper, and to serve at a time when the President of the Senate is 
another distinguished Delawarean, Vice President Joe Biden, whose 
service in this body for 36 years was marked by a tireless advocacy for 
America's middle class and the people of our State. Membership in the 
Senate is a privilege not to be taken lightly, and I am determined to 
make the greatest contribution I can to solving the challenges facing 
us all.
  Similar to my colleagues, my path to the Senate involved many 
experiences that have shaped my views and priorities. Growing up in 
Delaware, my family taught me the values of faith, hard work, and 
service to others. As a student, traveling and volunteering in Africa 
and later working with the homeless in this country, I learned 
difficult truths about poverty and human suffering but also witnessed 
the awesome power of hope and faith. Later, working for the National 
``I Have a Dream'' Foundation and running an AmeriCorps program, I saw 
the transformative power of education and of national service to change 
lives.
  Following these early years of learning and service, I spent 8 years 
as in-house counsel to one of Delaware's most innovative, high-tech 
manufacturing companies, where I saw the strength of American ingenuity 
and entrepreneurship. Later, as county executive, running a local 
government that served half a million Delawareans, I learned how to 
make the tough choices that led to reining in spending, to growing our 
local economy, balancing a budget, and achieving a surplus. Most 
important, today, as a husband and father of three young children, I 
spend more time than ever concerned about their future, wondering 
whether we will leave them and all our children a nation burdened by 
debt and struggling to maintain its place in the world or a nation with 
a renewed strength and focus on the fundamentals that made this the 
greatest Nation in human history. As a Member of the Senate, I look 
forward to applying these lessons while working with my new colleagues.
  I said a few moments ago our constituents sent us here with the goal 
of getting our economy back on track, a goal of focusing relentlessly 
on economic recovery. However, mere recovery--recovery alone--cannot be 
our goal. The American people deserve and expect from us policies that 
will lead to an economy and a job market stronger, more vibrant, and 
more prosperous than before. To achieve this, I believe we need to 
pursue a new manufacturing agenda, one that will lead to the creation 
of inventive businesses and that will open new plants and hire skilled 
workers for modern and sustainable jobs, one that will produce the next 
generation of American manufacturers. It should focus on sustaining and 
growing American manufacturing by rewarding innovation and fostering 
entrepreneurship and by pairing those great American strengths to an 
equally great American workforce.
  As someone long committed to progressive values, I believe the best 
way to help stabilize neighborhoods and support families, to advance 
social justice and fight poverty, is through ensuring more and more 
Americans have access to good, high-quality jobs. I am encouraged 
President Obama chose to highlight competitiveness and innovation in 
his State of the Union Address and its potential to create those 
sustainable middle-class jobs. He is right to call this our 
generation's ``Sputnik moment.''
  We have a choice. We can keep doing the things we have for years, but 
then we will simply keep getting the same results or we can recommit 
ourselves, as we did as a nation during the space race, to outinnovate, 
outcompete, and outproduce every other Nation. That is how we, once 
again, can spark an era of growth and prosperity. Unlike so many other 
sectors of our economy, with manufacturing, it is not just about 
creating jobs, it is about creating and sustaining good jobs, jobs that 
pay a livable wage, provide quality health insurance, jobs with 
longevity and security.
  According to the National Association of Manufacturers, the average 
manufacturing worker in our country earned 25 percent more than workers 
in all other sectors. That is over $72,000 last year, including pay and 
benefits, while the average nonmanufacturing worker earned less than 
$59,000. Manufacturing jobs means higher wages and better benefits, and 
they have for decades been a reliable path for the middle class for 
millions of hard-working American families. That path is not nearly as 
wide or as clear as it was just 10 years ago. Since then, our Nation 
has lost more than 3 million manufacturing jobs not only to the 
developing world but to our competitors in the industrialized world as 
well.
  For those who have lost jobs, the stakes couldn't be higher, and for 
we as leaders our mandate couldn't be clearer.

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  I strongly disagree with those who believe America's leadership in 
manufacturing is behind us and that our future lies somehow in being a 
country dedicated to services and consumption financed by debt. Those 
naysayers point to factories that have sprouted up across the 
developing world, that it is cheaper labor and looser environmental and 
worker protections--key reasons why we have, in fact, seen millions of 
our manufacturing jobs move offshore.
  However, while labor-intensive commodity manufacturing may, in fact, 
have permanently moved offshore, we can remain a global leader in 
innovative and high-performance manufacturing, as we still are today in 
industries ranging from aircraft to pharmaceuticals, if we will just 
focus our efforts on creating an encouraging environment in tax and 
trade policy, in education and training that matches the strength of 
American engineering and innovation.
  Many Americans may not realize it today, but ours still remains the 
No. 1 manufacturing economy in the world. We still produce one-fifth of 
all manufactured goods worldwide, and this sustains more than 18 
million private sector jobs. Advanced manufacturing businesses know 
that to achieve the quality and productivity they need, they must find 
a top-notch workforce, modern infrastructure, and a fair and 
predictable system of regulation.
  I learned this myself firsthand when I was working in the private 
sector at a company known as W.L. Gore & Associates. It is better known 
perhaps for discovering and marketing GORE-TEX fabrics, but it is a 
materials-based company that manufactures hundreds of products, from 
medical devices to wire and cable. At one point, I was part of a site 
location team that had to decide where to build a new state-of-the-art 
manufacturing plant, costing more than $100 million. It could have been 
anywhere in the world, but we wanted to locate it right here in 
America. As we considered many cities and States bidding for the plant, 
we ultimately made a decision.
  What made the difference? What were we looking for? First, a reliable 
and skilled workforce. Second, State, county, and city governments that 
were responsive and had already made investments in local 
infrastructure. While we also considered tax credits and training 
grants, an educated workforce, responsive local government, and high-
quality infrastructure were the main factors that attracted our 
business.
  When we visited the ultimate site, our team was greeted by area 
educators who told us about a strong public education system and city 
leaders who informed us of the public infrastructure we would need, 
such as water, electricity, sewer, and ready access to road, rail, and 
air, which were already in place. When we asked local officials how 
long it would take to get building permits, they said: Just send us 
your plans. Everything we needed was ready to go.
  In the end, we were able to stand up a successful and profitable new 
venture in record time and to achieve significant growth in the local 
tax base and the economy, offering hundreds of clean, high-tech 
manufacturing jobs to a responsive community.
  That experience on the site selection team taught me two things: the 
advanced manufacturing sector can really thrive in America, and we in 
government have a critical role to play.
  It will be the private sector and America's entrepreneurs and 
innovators that will create jobs. It is our job in government though, 
to ensure our country is the most attractive choice for business 
investment.
  We can do it by reducing bureaucratic hurdles and investing in an 
educated workforce capable of high productivity and ongoing innovation.
  That's the critical role we can play not only in getting Americans 
back to work but ensuring a bright and prosperous future for America's 
middle class.
  Right now, far too many middle-class families are struggling not 
because they made poor choices but in spite of having made the right 
ones. People who worked hard in school, who raised good families, who 
served in the military, who gave back by volunteering in their 
communities--Americans who did everything right--in this recession they 
still lost their jobs.
  They need to know that we in Congress have their backs.
  The truth is, we are not going to be able to reopen all the plants 
that have closed and get those workers back on the assembly lines 
making the same products they used to make. This is why we must make 
this push for advanced manufacturing.
  Thankfully, we are not starting from scratch. Innovative businesses, 
including many from my home State, have long been leaders in creating 
new manufacturing jobs based on new inventions.
  This, I believe, is the result of Delaware's highly educated 
workforce and the State and local government commitment to working with 
business as partners toward growth.
  One of the most compelling examples of this partnership between 
government and business took place in Delaware over the past 2 years. 
More than one thousand people lost their jobs when General Motors shut 
down its plant in Newport, DE, in 2009, a plant that had been in 
production more than 60 years and was long touted as one of the most 
productive in the country.
  Some of those workers packed up their families and sought work 
elsewhere in the country. Some stayed and found other work. Too many 
are still looking today.
  But they weren't the only ones looking for jobs. Led by our tireless 
Governor, Jack Markell, those of us in State and local government in 
Delaware were engaged in a job search as well, and after months of 
searching and hard work, we were able to bring Fisker Automotive to 
Newport, DE, to take over and reinvest in the shuttered GM plant. We 
did it by bringing together state and local officials, UAW union 
leaders, and Federal tax credits and investments. This partnership 
could not have been possible without $500 million in Federal stimulus 
funds.
  I was proud to be a small part of the team that brought Fisker to 
Delaware, but I will be even prouder to watch hundreds of Delawareans 
stream through the plant's gates again when it reopens to build plug-in 
electric automobiles.
  When I asked the leadership of the new company what made them choose 
Delaware, it was a familiar answer--a skilled and reliable workforce, a 
responsive State and county governments, strong local infrastructure, 
and access to global markets through our roads, rails, and the Port of 
Wilmington.
  Fisker is just one example. In Delaware, we have recently seen long-
established leaders such as DuPont as well as relative newcomers such 
as Ashland Chemical, Agilent, and Perdue invest in new facilities, new 
research or new production.
  My State has also been at the forefront of high-tech job growth with 
innovative Delaware companies such as ILC Dover, Solar Dock, and Miller 
Metal, as well as multinational companies such as Sanosil, Motech, and 
Fraunhofer USA that have brought jobs there.
  I am proud that so many new products and technologies that are 
invented here are also ``Made in America, Manufactured in Delaware.''
  In Delaware, businesses have seen that we're ``ready to go.''
  In our State, we have the ability to bring together stakeholders 
often seen as adversaries and deliver productive collaboration. This 
involves both labor and businesses making sacrifices and sharing 
responsibility.
  We need to replicate this model and these successes all over the 
country as much as possible.
  Indeed, we are already seeing progress nationally, as the latest 
manufacturing numbers attest. In 2010, our manufacturing sector grew 
136,000 new jobs. Some economists have predicted a further gain of more 
than double that this year.
  Despite predictions that American manufacturing was in a permanent 
decline, we are actually seeing a modest uptick, one on which we must 
capitalize.
  The formula for our economic success has long been the unstoppable 
combination of an innovative citizenry and investment in cutting-edge 
research. This is what generates companies that invent new products, 
often high-tech and research-driven products, and, along with these new 
products, create skilled jobs right here in the United States.

[[Page S331]]

  Investments in an educated workforce, our public infrastructure, and 
critical funding for research and development will be the keys to both 
short-term economic recovery and long-term growth. These investments 
must coincide with efforts to make it easier for Americans to start and 
expand small businesses and for multinational companies to locate 
advanced manufacturing here in America.
  As we embark on this renewed effort, we must continue, though, to 
safeguard the important workplace safety, labor, and environmental 
protections we have put in place over the past decades. Our 
manufacturing growth must be a function of innovation, not a turning-
back of the clock.
  That is why I strongly support policies such as extending the 
research and development tax credit, a manufacturing tax credit tied to 
research and development done here, in and the extension of the Build 
America Bonds program for public infrastructure improvements.
  We have unfinished work to do to change the focus of our tax and 
trade policies. We must stop providing incentives to move productive 
work offshore. Instead, we should reward those companies that reinvest 
in America--in both inventing a new generation of products and 
manufacturing them here.
  We will also need to focus more of our attention on clean-energy 
manufacturing. Government investment in clean energy technologies has 
been a core factor in our competitors' growth. We need to help our 
businesses compete with theirs.
  I was disappointed, frankly, that the Senate was unable to reach an 
agreement to include the advanced energy manufacturing tax credit in 
the bipartisan tax relief package we passed last December. That credit 
is an example of the kinds of policies that will help spur the 
innovation, manufacturing, and new deployment that will generate clean-
energy jobs. I am encouraged, though, that it included funding for the 
treasury grant program, which leverages private investment in clean-
energy projects, for which I pushed along with a number of my 
colleagues to be included in the package.
  Additionally, if we wish to remain on the cutting edge of new clean-
energy manufacturing technologies and retain our place as the global 
leader in scientific innovation, we need to pass more legislation like 
the America COMPETES Act. In addition to creating ARPA-E, which makes 
strategic investments through the Federal Department of Energy in game-
changing technologies, it also focuses resources on science, 
technology, engineering, and mathematics education.
  I am proud to have been a cosponsor of the America COMPETES Act, 
which was so actively championed by my predecessor, Senator Ted 
Kaufman, who served Delaware so well. This is just the type of 
legislation that I came here to support.
  We need to find additional ways to expand educational opportunities 
for more of our students, especially in these fields essential to 
future competitiveness. There is vital work to be done in ensuring that 
our business leaders are at the table as we renew America's education 
policy, helping make certain that our schools are educating our 
children for the demands of the modern workplace.
  This is especially critical in light of recent international 
standardized test scores that once again showed American students 
falling behind their competitors from Asia and Europe in reading, 
science, and mathematics.
  A strong educational foundation is the launching pad for new ideas, 
which will soar to become tomorrow's products and industries.
  To achieve this, we must have a strong Federal investment in great 
teachers and strong schools, set high standards matched with the 
resources to achieve them, and engage parents, communities, and 
employers.
  We should never settle for just recovery. We must reach for the 
prosperity and growth I know we can together achieve. We can do it if 
we make these critical investments and changes in direction today.
  That is why I am excited to get to work with my colleagues on a 
number of important legislative projects. Because I believe we need to 
redouble our efforts to protect the fruits of that innovation through 
stronger protections for our intellectual property, I am proud to be an 
original cosponsor of the Patent Reform Act and look forward to working 
with Chairman Leahy on the Judiciary Committee toward its passage.
  Likewise, I found out this week that I will be serving on the Foreign 
Relations Committee, and I will be pushing for us to be tougher on our 
trading partners to ensure fairness and a level playing field for 
American exports, as well as new efforts to expand the range of our 
overseas markets.
  I am honored as well to be a new member of the Energy and Natural 
Resources Committee, and I am eager to work with Chairman Bingaman, 
Senator Murkowski, and the other members on finding ways to spur clean-
energy manufacturing here in America.
  My other assignment will be as a member of the Budget Committee, and 
I look forward to working with my colleagues there to identify ways to 
address the deficit comprehensively and in line with our necessary 
priorities of simplifying the Tax Code, investing in our workforce, and 
incentivizing manufacturing job growth.
  Outside of my committee assignments, I am excited to get to work 
reinvigorating the Senate Manufacturing Caucus with many of my 
colleagues, including Senators Stabenow of Michigan, Brown of Ohio and 
Graham of South Carolina. We are going to renew this Chamber's focus on 
what voters sent us here to do: restoring our economy by getting our 
neighbors back to work.
  The American people have at times grown frustrated with the Senate 
because it seems as if this body has not realized the scale of our 
Nation's challenges; that legislators have taken a piecemeal approach 
to important policies and have failed to address our most difficult 
problems comprehensively.
  Why are we not looking at tax policy, education policy, and job 
growth strategy collectively? Our problems are interrelated, and the 
solutions must be as well.
  Likewise, our budget deficit should not be treated merely as a 
talking point or a source of partisan advantage but instead as the 
serious threat that it is. And real deficit reduction will only come 
with a careful approach, and a willingness to share in the sacrifice 
will see us toward real deficit reduction.
  Working together, we can change how we get things done here, and we 
can find a way to do it without jeopardizing the Senate's vital role in 
our political system.
  Even more importantly, at a time when many worry about the tone of 
our politics, we as Senators must do all we can to return this body to 
its founding mission as a stabilizing force in our political system.
  The Senate must lead by example and for this Nation be a source of 
civility, a beacon of cooperative spirit, and a place where we come 
together to address our greatest challenges.
  That is how we will move forward together to solve our problems. That 
is how we will boost our manufacturing sector and get millions back to 
work. And that is how we will build a strong, prosperous, and 
sustainable future for America's middle class.
  Those who have lost their jobs are doing the very best they can to 
find new ones. We owe it to them to do our best--to be determined and 
deliberate, to focus on progress not partisanship, to be true to our 
principles, but not so unyielding in our positions that we make more 
news than progress.
  These are serious times, and our Nation--our people--face tough 
challenges. I look forward to working with each and every one of my new 
colleagues to bear down and work together to find innovative solutions, 
real solutions, that will build a brighter future for all Americans.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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