[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 151 (Tuesday, October 11, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H6710-H6722]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                              {time}  1720
PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF SENATE AMENDMENT TO H.R. 2832, EXTENDING 
 THE GENERALIZED SYSTEM OF PREFERENCE; PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF 
      H.R. 3078, UNITED STATES-COLOMBIA TRADE PROMOTION AGREEMENT 
 IMPLEMENTATION ACT; PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 3079, UNITED 
    STATES-PANAMA TRADE PROMOTION AGREEMENT IMPLEMENTATION ACT; AND 
  PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 3080, UNITED STATES-KOREA FREE 
                   TRADE AGREEMENT IMPLEMENTATION ACT

  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee 
on Rules be permitted to file a supplemental report to accompany House 
Resolution 425.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Womack). Is there objection to the 
request of the gentleman from California?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I 
call up House Resolution 425 and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

                              H. Res. 425

       Resolved, That upon adoption of this resolution it shall be 
     in order to take from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 
     2832) to extend the Generalized System of Preferences, and 
     for other purposes, with the Senate amendment thereto, and to 
     consider in the House, without intervention of any point of 
     order, a motion offered by the chair of the Committee on Ways 
     and Means or his designee that the House concur in the Senate 
     amendment. The Senate amendment shall be considered as read. 
     The motion shall be debatable for one hour equally divided 
     and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of 
     the Committee on Ways and Means. The previous question shall 
     be considered as ordered on the motion to its adoption 
     without intervening motion.
       Sec. 2.  Upon the adoption of this resolution it shall be 
     in order to consider in the House the bill (H.R. 3078) to 
     implement the United States-Colombia Trade Promotion 
     Agreement. All points of order against consideration of the 
     bill are waived. The bill shall be considered as read. All 
     points of order against provisions in the bill are waived. 
     The bill shall be debatable for 90 minutes equally divided 
     and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of 
     the Committee on Ways and Means. The previous question shall 
     be considered as ordered on the bill to final passage without 
     intervening motion except one motion to recommit.
       Sec. 3.  Upon the adoption of this resolution it shall be 
     in order to consider in the House the bill (H.R. 3079) to 
     implement the United States-Panama Trade Promotion Agreement. 
     All points of order against consideration of the bill are 
     waived. The bill shall be considered as read. All points of 
     order against provisions in the bill are waived. The bill 
     shall be debatable for 90 minutes, with 30 minutes controlled 
     by Representative Camp of Michigan or his designee, 30 
     minutes controlled by Representative Levin of Michigan or his 
     designee, and 30 minutes controlled by Representative Michaud 
     of Maine or his designee. Pursuant to section 151 of the 
     Trade Act of 1974, the previous question shall be considered 
     as ordered on the bill to final passage without intervening 
     motion.
       Sec. 4.  Upon the adoption of this resolution it shall be 
     in order to consider in the House the bill (H.R. 3080) to 
     implement the United States-Korea Free Trade Agreement. All 
     points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. 
     The bill shall be considered as read. All points of order 
     against provisions in the bill are waived. The bill shall be 
     debatable for 90 minutes, with 30 minutes controlled by 
     Representative Camp of Michigan or his designee, 30 minutes 
     controlled by Representative Levin of Michigan or his 
     designee, and 30 minutes controlled by Representative Michaud 
     of Maine or his designee. Pursuant to section 151 of the 
     Trade Act of 1974, the previous question shall be considered 
     as ordered on the bill to final passage without intervening 
     motion.
       Sec. 5.  House Resolution 418 is laid on the table.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from California is recognized 
for 1 hour.
  Mr. DREIER. For the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 
minutes to my very good friend from Worcester, Massachusetts (Mr. 
McGovern), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. 
During consideration of this measure, all time yielded will be for 
debate purposes only.
  (Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)


                             General Leave

  Mr. DREIER. I would also like to ask unanimous consent, Mr. Speaker, 
that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend 
their remarks on this resolution.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from California?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. DREIER. On November 6 of 1979, Ronald Reagan announced his 
candidacy for President of the United States. In that speech, he 
envisaged an accord of free trade among the Americas. He wanted to 
eliminate all barriers for the free flow of goods and services and 
products among all of the countries in this hemisphere.
  On October 3 of 2011, President Obama sent three trade agreements to 
Capitol Hill for consideration. It has been a long time. I mean, 32 
years, I guess, this coming November 6 we will mark the anniversary of 
President Reagan announcing his candidacy for the Presidency and of 
which he envisaged this accord.
  It has been a very, very difficult struggle to get here; but, Mr. 
Speaker, today marks the first step in this last leg of what, as I 
said, has been an extraordinarily lengthy journey towards the passage 
of our three free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South 
Korea.
  For 4 years, workers and consumers in the United States and in all 
three FTA countries have waited for the opportunities that these 
agreements will create. Republicans and Democrats alike--and let me 
underscore that again. Republicans and Democrats alike have worked very 
hard to bring us to this point. We have done so, first and foremost, 
for the sake of job creation and economic growth.
  We're regularly hearing discussion on both sides of the aisle about 
the imperative of creating jobs and getting our economy on track. The 
President of the United States delivered a speech here to a joint 
session of Congress in which he talked about the need to pass his jobs 
bill. Mr. Speaker, this is a very important component of that proposal 
that the President talked about when he was here. So, as I hear a great 
deal of discussion about a lack of willingness on Capitol Hill to 
address the President's jobs bill, it's not an ``all or nothing'' 
thing. We are taking the very, very important components that the 
President has proposed addressing. We've worked in a bipartisan way, 
and this measure before us is evidence of that.
  As I said, the passage of these agreements will allow us to have an 
opportunity to create good jobs for union and nonunion Americans who 
are seeking job opportunities. Together, these agreements will give 
U.S. workers, businesses, farmers access to $2 trillion of economic 
activity; and our union and nonunion workers, our farmers and people 
across this country will have access to 97 million consumers in these 
three countries.

[[Page H6711]]

  President Obama, in his address here, made it very clear and has said 
repeatedly that the independent International Trade Commission has said 
that, in the coming months, we will add a quarter of a million new jobs 
right here in the United States of America--again, union and nonunion 
jobs. The independent International Trade Commission has projected that 
we will see a quarter of a million--250,000--new jobs for our fellow 
Americans seeking job opportunities.
  I don't need to explain to anyone in this place why this is so 
critical for our ailing economy, but those of us who have joined 
together to finally pass these agreements are working towards something 
that is even bigger. We are working to restore the bipartisan consensus 
on the issue of open trade. Eradicating partisan politics from the 
debate on global economic liberalization and returning to a bipartisan 
consensus is essential in our quest to move our economy forward. These 
three agreements are enormously important; but, Mr. Speaker, as you 
know very well, there is still much work that remains to be done.
  Now, I understand that the opponents of economic liberalization are 
very well-intentioned, and I don't fault them. I will say that, as we 
all know very well, we're in the midst of deeply troubling economic 
times. It's easy. We all want to look somewhere to point the finger of 
blame, and trade is a natural target. I mean, I often argue that I 
still have constituents in southern California who, when they get a 
hangnail, blame the North American Free Trade Agreement.

                              {time}  1730

  Trade is a natural target for frustration and anxiety, and we've seen 
that time and time again. And I know that there are people who believe 
that passage of these trade agreements which, according to the ITC, 
would create 250,000 new jobs right here in the United States of 
America, is, in fact, a bad thing. Trade is the wrong target, Mr. 
Speaker.
  The worldwide marketplace, as we all know, is a big, dynamic, and 
complex operation. It offers tremendous opportunity for those who 
engage and tremendous peril for those who follow the isolationist path. 
Those who innovate, who aggressively pursue new ideas and new 
opportunities are able to compete and succeed. The U.S. has proven this 
time and time again. The American entrepreneurial spirit has enabled us 
to not just succeed, but, as we all know, we are the largest, most 
dynamic economy on the face of the Earth. These agreements will allow 
us to reaffirm and strengthen that.
  We all know this, Mr. Speaker: Our country, the United States of 
America, is the birthplace of Google and Facebook, of Ford and IBM, of 
Caterpillar and Whirlpool, and of Coca-Cola and eBay. Unfortunately, 
over the last several years, while the three free trade agreements have 
languished, the United States of America has stood still. We've let 
countless opportunities pass us by. We've let our competitors chip away 
at our market share. If we compete, the United States of America wins. 
If we compete, we win.
  But what happens when we take ourselves out of the game, which has 
been the case for the last several years? We've literally taken 
ourselves out of the game of breaking down barriers, allowing for the 
free flow of goods and services and capital. What happens? We lose 
jobs. We lose market share, and we lose our competitive edge.
  Now, I'm not going to say that we would not have gone through the 
terrible economic downturn that we've suffered over the past few years 
if we had, several years ago, passed these trade agreements. 
Negotiations began back in 2004 for these agreements. If we had stepped 
up to the plate, I am absolutely convinced that we would have mitigated 
the pain and suffering that our fellow Americans are going through with 
this ailing economy that we have.
  Getting our economy back on track and reasserting our American 
leadership role in the worldwide marketplace will require far more than 
simply passing these free trade agreements, but it's a key and very 
important step. The agreements will open new markets for workers and 
job creators here in the United States; and perhaps even more 
important, it will send a signal to the world that the United States of 
America is back open for business.
  The United States of America is once again choosing to shape the 
global marketplace rather than to allow ourselves to be shaped by it. 
Because, Mr. Speaker, if we don't shape the global marketplace, we will 
continue to be shaped by that global marketplace. We will also send a 
very powerful message to our allies that the United States of America 
is living up to its commitments.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, it is utterly shameful that we have forced three 
close friends of the United States--two of our own neighbors right here 
in the Americas and one in an extraordinarily strategic region--to wait 
for 4 long years. It is shameful that we have forced these friends and 
allies, who negotiated in good faith with us for these agreements, to 
wait as long as they have.
  One of the things we've observed is that the world has taken note. 
Our would-be negotiators--not only on trade agreements but on other 
issues as well--our would-be trade partners and negotiating partners, 
as I said, on issues beyond trade have taken note.
  I don't believe that our credibility will be immediately restored 
with the passage of these free trade agreements, but we will at least 
begin the process. We will begin the process of demonstrating 
credibility on the part of the United States. We will signal that the 
U.S. is recommitting itself to its partnerships, that our word at the 
negotiating table can be trusted.
  Very sadly, over the past several years, our partners could come to 
no other conclusion than that our word cannot be trusted at the 
negotiating table because of action that was taken here a few years 
ago, rejecting an opportunity for consideration of these agreements.
  Mr. Speaker, this rule puts in place a lengthy debate process, during 
which the tremendous economic and geopolitical benefits of these three 
trade agreements will be discussed, and the misinformation surrounding 
these agreements will be able to be refuted. That's why I think this is 
a very important debate. It's vitally important that we have this 
debate so that the facts can get on the table and the ability to refute 
specious arguments can be put forward. And that's what's going to 
happen this evening and tomorrow leading up to the votes that we are 
going to cast.
  This rule provides also for the consideration of Trade Adjustment 
Assistance, a modest program that has helped to build that bipartisan 
consensus that I have been talking about and I believe is essential to 
our economic recovery. Now, I don't believe that the TAA program is 
perfect. Meaningful reforms have been incorporated. And most important, 
Mr. Speaker, the passage of Trade Adjustment Assistance will, in turn, 
help us not just pass the FTAs, but it will help us maintain what I 
have had as a goal going back two decades ago when we put together a 
trade working group that has had bipartisan participation. It will 
allow us to rebuild the bipartisan consensus that I think is so 
important. That will send a powerful message to the markets, to job 
creators, to workers in this country, to Americans who are seeking job 
opportunities, and it will send a very important message to our allies 
and we hope future allies throughout this world.

  So, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to come together in a strong 
bipartisan way and support the rule that will allow us to have a very, 
very rigorous debate on the underlying agreements and Trade Adjustment 
Assistance.
  With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. I thank the gentleman from California for providing me 
the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself 5 minutes of that time.
  Mr. Speaker, today we take up several trade bills. The Rules 
Committee had a chance to guarantee sufficient time for debate on each 
agreement and ensure that the time would be equally divided between 
those who support and those who oppose each bill. That's the way we 
should be debating these bills. That's the fair and the right thing to 
do.
  But fairness was not part of the discussion in the Rules Committee. 
Instead, we have a rule that gives more

[[Page H6712]]

time to those in support of these bills and less time to those who have 
legitimate concerns about them. And if that weren't bad enough, this 
rule waives CutGo, just one more broken promise by this Republican 
Congress.
  Mr. Speaker, I strongly support the TAA and GSP bills. These programs 
provide America's companies and workers with stability and fairness and 
some minimum resources for those that suffer because of trade 
agreements. They have earned our support.

                              {time}  1740

  But I cannot say the same for the free trade agreements, and I would 
like to focus my remarks on just one of them, the Colombia FTA.
  Mr. Speaker, I've gone to Colombia seven times over the past 10 
years. Nearly everyone I talk to--the poor, the most vulnerable, those 
who defend basic human rights and dignity--they all believe that the 
United States stands for human rights, that we stand for justice. And 
I'd like to believe that's always true. But not if we pass this FTA.
  Colombia is still the most dangerous place in the world to be a trade 
unionist. Each year, more labor activists are killed in Colombia than 
the rest of the world combined. A staggering 2,908 union members 
murdered since 1986. That's about one murder every 3 days for the past 
25 years. One hundred fifty in just the past 3 years. If 150 CEOs had 
been assassinated over the past 3 years, would you still think Colombia 
is a good place to invest?
  In 2010, 51 trade unionists were murdered; 21 survived attempts on 
their lives; 338 received death threats; and 7 disappeared. Their 
bodies may never be found. Forty have been murdered since President 
Santos took office.
  As for justice, well, in Colombia that's still just a dream. Human 
Rights Watch just released a study that looked at convictions in cases 
of murdered trade unionists over the past 4\1/2\ years. They found 
``virtually no progress'' in convictions in these killings. Just six 
out of 195 cases. And not a single, solitary conviction for the more 
than 60 attempted murders and 1,500 death threats during that same 
period. There's a name for that, Mr. Speaker. It's called complete and 
total impunity.
  Just look at the faces of six of the 23 unionists murdered so far 
this year.
  This man in the top right, Luis Diaz, he was a regional leader of the 
University Workers' Union and a security guard at Monteria Public 
University in Cordoba. He was assassinated near his home, shot four 
times.
  I was in Cordoba at the end of August. It's controlled by 
paramilitaries, drug traffickers, and criminal networks. They work hand 
in glove with wealthy landed interests, and many local officials, 
judges, prosecutors, and police are corrupt or benefit from the 
violence. They are also the most likely parties in Cordoba to profit 
from the Colombia FTA.
  Another fellow here, Jorge de los Rios. He was a teacher and an 
environmentalist who exposed damage to communities by open pit mining. 
On June 8, he was shot several times on the campus of his school.
  This young man right here, Dionis Sierra, was an elementary 
schoolteacher killed May 15, also in Cordoba.
  Carlos Castro, an engineer, murdered in Cali on May 23. He was shot 
in the neck by two armed men. He was 41 and the father of three.
  Here's Hernan Pinto right here, drinking a cup of coffee. He had 
taken the lead in the farm workers' struggle right before he was 
murdered in March.
  Silverio Sanchez, just 37 years old, also a teacher. He died on 
January 24 from burns on 80 percent of his body from an explosive.
  These men were husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons. If we don't 
stand up for them, then we also abandon the children, families, 
workers, and communities they left behind, those who continue to fight 
for labor rights, human rights, and basic human dignity.
  As the old song goes, which side are you on?
                               Washington, DC, September 29, 2011.
     Dr. Viviane Morales,
     Attorney General, Diagonal 22B, No 52-01,
     Bogota, Colombia.
       Dear Attorney General Morales: I am writing to follow up on 
     the very constructive meeting we had in Bogota this June 
     regarding the problem of impunity for anti-union violence in 
     Colombia. We are encouraged by the steps the Attorney 
     General's Office is currently taking under your leadership to 
     address this longstanding problem. Yet we also believe 
     further measures are needed to ensure that your efforts 
     succeed and the era of unchecked violence against trade 
     unionists in Colombia is finally overcome.
       As you know, Colombia continues to face an extraordinarily 
     high level of anti-union violence. While the number of trade 
     unionists killed every year is certainly less today than a 
     decade ago, it remains higher than any other country in the 
     world. The National Labor School (ENS), Colombia's leading 
     NGO monitoring labor rights, reports that in 2010 there were 
     51 killings of trade unionists, 22 homicide attempts, and 397 
     threats.
       A major reason for this ongoing violence has been the 
     chronic lack of accountability for cases of anti-union 
     violence. Colombia has failed to deliver justice for more 
     than 2,500 trade unionist killings committed over the past 25 
     years. As Vice-President Angelino Garzon acknowledged during 
     a November 2010 speech, ``[T]he immense majority of crimes 
     [against] trade unionists remain in impunity . . . there have 
     been advances in the investigations . . . but we still have 
     not gotten to 200 court rulings, and there are thousands of 
     workers and union leaders killed and disappeared.''
       In 2006, the Attorney General's Office sought to end this 
     impunity by establishing a sub-unit of prosecutors to focus 
     exclusively on crimes against trade unionists. This 
     initiative brought with it several important advantages: the 
     sub-unit's prosecutors would receive extra material and human 
     resources and have the opportunity to develop expertise in 
     solving these crimes. By working out of Bogota and other main 
     cities, the prosecutors would generally be less vulnerable to 
     pressure and threats than local justice officials.
       Since its creation, the sub-unit has made important 
     progress: there are now scores of convictions for trade 
     unionist killings every year where before there were almost 
     none. Over the past four-and-a-half years, the sub-unit has 
     secured convictions for more than 185 trade unionist 
     killings.
       Yet this progress, while welcome, has in fact been very 
     limited. And, unless urgent steps are taken to improve the 
     sub-unit's performance, it will almost certainly prove to be 
     unsustainable.
       Over the past several months, Human Rights Watch has 
     carried out a comprehensive evaluation of the sub-unit's 
     work, reviewing hundreds of court judgments for crimes 
     against trade unionists, examining the most recent available 
     data provided by the Attorney General's Office on the status 
     of investigations, and conducting dozens of interviews with 
     prosecutors, judges, rights advocates, and victims.
       Our research has found severe shortcomings in both the 
     scope of the sub-unit's work and the investigative 
     methodology that it employs. In terms of the scope, we found 
     that:
       The increase in the number of convictions since the sub-
     unit's creation, while substantial, represents only a small 
     fraction of the total number of cases of trade unionist 
     killings that still need to be investigated and prosecuted.
       The increase in convictions is largely due to confessions 
     provided by paramilitaries under the Justice and Peace 
     process, which does not apply to cases of killings committed 
     after 2006.
       The sub-unit has made virtually no progress in obtaining 
     convictions for killings from the past four-and-a-half years.
       The sub-unit has made virtually no progress in prosecuting 
     people who order, pay, instigate or collude with 
     paramilitaries in attacking trade unionists.
       In terms of the methodology of the investigations, we found 
     that:
       The sub-unit has routinely failed to thoroughly investigate 
     the motives for the crimes.
       The sub-unit has not conducted the type of systematic and 
     contextualized investigations that are necessary to identify 
     and prosecute all responsible parties.
       While we were encouraged to encounter prosecutors in the 
     sub-unit who are very professional and committed to advancing 
     these cases, it is also clear that further measures must be 
     taken to support their work and ensure the sub-unit overcomes 
     its current limitations.
       Under the current circumstances, what is at stake is the 
     justice system's ability to act as an effective deterrent to 
     anti-union violence. We are concerned that unless you take 
     action to improve the sub-unit's performance, the office will 
     continue to fall short in ensuring accountability for attacks 
     on trade unionists, and Colombia will remain a uniquely 
     dangerous country for workers seeking to exercise their basic 
     labor rights.

                    The Scope of the Sub-unit's Work


            Convictions Represent Fraction of Total Killings

       The annual number of convictions for cases of crimes 
     against trade unionists has risen about nine-fold since the 
     sub-unit began operating in 2007. Overall, the subunit has 
     obtained convictions for more than 185 trade unionist 
     killings.
       Despite this accomplishment, a great deal of work remains 
     to be done. At this stage, Colombia has obtained a conviction 
     for less than 10 percent of the 2,886 trade unionist killings 
     recorded since 1986 by the ENS. The sub-unit reported to 
     Human Rights Watch that it had opened an investigation into 
     787

[[Page H6713]]

     cases of trade unionist killings as of June 2011. 
     Investigations into the more than 2000 other reported trade 
     unionist murders presumably remain with ordinary prosecutors, 
     who have long failed to resolve such cases. As concluded by 
     the February 2011 International Labor Organization (ILO) 
     High-level Tripartite Mission to Colombia, ``The majority of 
     [trade unionist killings] have not yet been investigated nor 
     have the perpetrators, including the intellectual authors of 
     these crimes, been brought to justice.''


      Recent Progress Is Largely Due to Justice and Peace Process

       The sub-unit's progress in prosecuting anti-union violence 
     has largely been due to confessions by paramilitaries 
     participating in the Justice and Peace process. Human Rights 
     Watch reviewed all 74 convictions handed down over the past 
     year by the three specialized courts dedicated to crimes 
     against trade unionists and found that 60 percent of the 
     convictions were the direct result of plea bargains with 
     demobilized paramilitaries participating in the Justice and 
     Peace process. In a majority of the remaining rulings from 
     this period, testimony by defendants in the Justice and Peace 
     process also played an important role in producing the 
     conviction.
       This increase in the number of convictions spurred by the 
     Justice and Peace process is certainly a positive 
     development. Unfortunately, it does not by itself represent 
     sustainable progress. The process has allowed prosecutors to 
     resolve cases because it has provided extraordinary 
     incentives for demobilized paramilitaries to confess to their 
     crimes. But these incentives do not apply to crimes committed 
     since paramilitary groups finished demobilizing in 2006 and 
     therefore will not help prosecute individuals who assassinate 
     trade unionists today or in the future.


         Lack of Convictions for Recent Trade Unionist Killings

       When it comes to obtaining convictions for cases from the 
     past several years--which are not covered by the Justice and 
     Peace process--the sub-unit has made virtually no progress. 
     Of the more than 195 such killings that have occurred since 
     the sub-unit started operating in 2007, the special office 
     had obtained convictions in only six cases as of May 2011. It 
     had not obtained a single conviction for the more than 60 
     homicide attempts, 1,500 threats and 420 forced displacements 
     reported by the ENS during this period.
       The sub-unit has not opened investigations into the 
     majority of the trade unionist murders that have occurred 
     since the office began operating in 2007. As of March, it had 
     opened an investigation into only one of the 51 trade 
     unionist killings committed in 2010. And the vast majority of 
     the sub-unit's investigations into killings since 2007 (89 
     percent) remain in a preliminary stage in which 
     prosecutors have yet to formally identify a suspect.
       We understand that the current Attorney General's Office 
     shares our concern with the lack of progress in prosecuting 
     recent killings. As discussed below, your office has 
     announced steps that could help address this problem, such as 
     instructing prosecutors to prioritize investigations of 
     crimes against trade unionists committed since 2007.


      Lack of Prosecutions of Intellectual Authors and Accomplices

       We are also concerned that the prosecutions have focused 
     almost exclusively on the commanders of armed groups or 
     triggermen and have not extended to include other individuals 
     who may have instigated or facilitated the crimes. Of the 
     more than 275 convictions handed down through May 2011 by the 
     specialized courts that handle the sub-unit's cases, 80 
     percent have been against former members of the United Self-
     Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). Yet there is compelling 
     evidence that paramilitaries and the groups that replaced 
     them have not acted alone in killing trade unionists. These 
     groups have historically operated with the toleration or even 
     active support of members of the public security forces, as 
     well as in collaboration with politicians and allies in the 
     private sector. According to several justice officials, 
     rights advocates and victims' lawyers close to these cases, 
     paramilitaries appear to have killed trade unionists at the 
     behest of employers, local officials, or other individuals 
     with particular interests in eliminating the victims.
       A review of 50 recent convictions for anti-union violence 
     handed down by the specialized courts found that in nearly 
     half of the cases under consideration, the judgments 
     contained evidence pointing to the involvement of members of 
     the security forces or intelligence services, politicians, 
     landowners, bosses, or coworkers. Rulings in ten of these 
     cases contained evidence indicating that individuals outside 
     the armed groups (including two mayors, a hospital 
     administrator, a plant manager, a captain of the Sectional 
     Judicial Police, and a detective from the Colombian 
     intelligence service) may have hired, ordered, or otherwise 
     instigated paramilitaries to kill the trade unionists.
       Yet despite the evidence of involvement and collusion by 
     third parties in crimes committed by armed groups, the sub-
     unit has obtained virtually no results in bringing such 
     individuals to justice. Only 10 of the more than 275 rulings 
     handed down by specialized courts since 2007 have convicted 
     politicians, members of the security forces, employers, or 
     coworkers. Only one of the 50 rulings handed down between 
     September 2010 and May 2011 that Human Rights Watch reviewed 
     punished such individuals. Similarly, a comprehensive study 
     by the Center for the Study of Law, Justice, and Society 
     (DeJusticia) reveals that just 3 percent of the judgments in 
     trade unionist cases handed down through March 2010 included 
     the conviction of a ``strategic intellectual author'' (an 
     individual outside of an armed structure who ordered or 
     otherwise instigated the crime).
       Prosecuting the triggermen and their commanders for these 
     crimes is a crucial step for accountability. But identifying 
     these individuals alone will not enable the justice system to 
     act as an effective deterrent to anti-union violence. As long 
     as some people believe they can get away with ordering, 
     paying, or instigating armed groups to kill trade unionists, 
     they will continue to find armed groups and gunmen for hire 
     to do their dirty work.

                 Flaws in the Investigative Methodology

       Colombia's progress in curbing impunity for anti-union 
     violence, while important, has been limited by shortcomings 
     in the investigative strategy pursued by the subunit of the 
     Attorney General's Office. The first is a routine failure to 
     adequately investigate the motive in cases of trade unionist 
     killings. The second--and more troubling--is the failure to 
     conduct the sort of systematic and contextualized 
     investigation necessary to identify and bring to justice all 
     responsible parties.
       As discussed below, the current administration of the 
     Attorney General's Office has recognized the problem of the 
     sub-unit's methodology and announced the adoption of measures 
     to improve it. But these correctives remain to be fully 
     implemented, and must be followed with additional measures to 
     shore up the quality of the sub-unit's work.


                  Inadequate Investigation of Motives

       Prosecutors often base their charges almost entirely on 
     testimony by paramilitaries participating in the Justice and 
     Peace process without conducting a thorough investigation 
     that could determine the actual motive for targeting the 
     victim. According to one of the specialized judges, in many 
     cases prosecutors base their charges on ``two or three lines 
     from what the defendant in Justice and Peace says.''
       Given the lack of additional evidence gathered by 
     prosecutors, the judges often rely primarily or exclusively 
     on paramilitaries' accounts to determine the motive for the 
     crime.
       Paramilitaries' confessions frequently seek to justify 
     trade unionist killings as counter-insurgency operations, 
     claiming that their victims were guerrilla collaborators. 
     Consequently, a substantial share of judgments for trade 
     unionist killings have identified the victims' alleged links 
     to guerrilla groups as the motive behind the killings.
       Yet, there are good reasons to suspect that in many cases 
     the paramilitaries label the victims as guerrilla 
     collaborators to disguise the true reasons for the killing. 
     By offering defendants the same reduced sentence no matter 
     how many abuses they admit to, the Justice and Peace Law 
     provides paramilitaries with extraordinary incentives to 
     confess to all of their crimes. But when it comes to 
     testifying about their accomplices--who may have ordered 
     trade unionist killings for their own political or economic 
     interests--paramilitaries often have strong incentives to 
     keep silent and justify the murders as part of their anti-
     guerrilla campaign. As revealed by several recent judicial 
     investigations and news reports, there are credible 
     allegations that paramilitaries have been repeatedly bribed 
     or pressured to conceal the criminal activity of their 
     political and economic allies. In cases involving collusion 
     with powerful individuals, paramilitaries and their family 
     members could face severe reprisals should they expose their 
     accomplices.
       In some court rulings, judges have found reason to doubt 
     the veracity of paramilitaries' anti-guerrilla justifications 
     for the killings. For example, in one recent ruling against 
     paramilitaries who claimed that the union leader had been 
     killed because he was a guerrilla collaborator, the judge 
     wrote that it appeared the group had been paid to murder the 
     victim because of his union activity, noting that: ``The 
     excuse provided by the [defendants] regarding the motive of 
     the killing . . . seems to actually be a form of hiding the 
     existence of a particular interest to silence the victim.'' 
     The judgment explicitly described how the prosecutor had 
     failed to collect key pieces of evidence that would have 
     helped clarify the motive for the crime. According to 
     DeJusticia's 2010 study, while 102 of the 271 court rulings 
     they analyzed identified the trade unionist's alleged 
     guerrilla ties as the motive for the killing, the judges 
     explicitly rejected the allegations in nearly half of those 
     judgments.
       Given the inadequacy of investigations, it is impossible at 
     this point to know how many killings were in fact motivated 
     by the victims' union activities. What is clear is that 
     without more thorough investigations, prosecutors will not be 
     able to determine with an adequate level of certainty whether 
     or not the crimes were related to the victims' participation 
     in their union. This is a serious problem in Colombia given 
     the tendency of some officials and commentators to downplay 
     anti-union violence by dismissing the attacks as isolated 
     crimes unrelated to the victims' union affiliation. And worse 
     still, if court rulings based on paramilitaries'

[[Page H6714]]

     testimony indicate that the victims were guerrillas, the 
     stigmatization is confirmed and the risks are worsened for 
     those who exercise union activity.


          Lack of Systematic and Contextualized Investigations

       With few exceptions, the sub-unit's prosecutors have not 
     pursued investigations that take into account the context of 
     crimes against other members of the victim's union from the 
     same region and time period, and have often neglected to 
     conduct serious inquiries into the victim's union activity at 
     the time of the crime.
       Instead, killings have generally been investigated in an 
     isolated case-by-case manner and without any serious effort 
     to determine how the crimes might form part of a broader 
     pattern of anti-union violence. As one top official within 
     the Attorney General's Office recently told Human Rights 
     Watch, until now, the sub-unit has treated each case as ``an 
     island.'' Similarly, in separate interviews, all three 
     current judges from the specialized courts that handle these 
     cases told Human Rights Watch that the cases brought to their 
     courts are investigated as isolated crimes. Victims' lawyers 
     also said that the sub-unit's failure to draw connections 
     between killings is one of the fundamental problems with the 
     investigations.
       This serious deficiency in the sub-unit's investigations is 
     also evident in the judgments in cases of anti-union 
     violence. According to DeJusticia's 2010 study, a 
     ``systematic approach'' to investigations--defined as taking 
     the general context of anti-union violence as the starting 
     point for the investigation--was reflected in five of the 271 
     court rulings handed down through March 2010.
       As a result of this investigative approach, prosecutors 
     have not been able to identify patterns of crimes that could 
     lead them to the individuals--including public officials and 
     employers--who may have ordered, instigated, or otherwise 
     colluded with armed groups in attacking trade unionists. As 
     one of the three special judges who handle cases of anti-
     union violence said, ``To know what's behind the crimes, if 
     there was a state policy or company policy or not, there has 
     to be a macro-investigation. [Prosecutors] have not done 
     that.'' Another judge specified that the piecemeal  
     investigations have impeded prosecutors from identifying 
     intellectual authors: ``It would make more sense to 
     analyze the historical context of the union and the 
     criminal organization that operates in the region. But in 
     reality, [the cases] come [to the courts] as isolated 
     victims. . . . The investigations have progressed very 
     little in providing the judges with the context. The 
     context would help identify intellectual authors.''
       This shortcoming is compounded by the sub-unit's failure to 
     consistently conduct a thorough inquiry into the context of 
     the victim's union activity at the time of the crime, which 
     limits prosecutors' ability to establish leads that could 
     help clarify the motive for the killing and identify 
     potential suspects. While some prosecutors do make an effort 
     to look into such activity, two judges we spoke with said 
     that such rigorous inquiries are not the norm. In our review 
     of 50 recent convictions in these cases, we found the 
     majority of the rulings did not refer to the victim's union 
     activity in the period leading up to the crime. (If the 
     prosecutors had investigated such activity, a reference to 
     this line of inquiry should at least appear in the judgment, 
     according to jurists consulted by Human Rights Watch.) Of the 
     judgments that did mention the victim's union activity at the 
     time of the crime, most references were general, suggesting 
     that no in-depth probe had been undertaken.


        Steps Your Office Has Announced To Advance Prosecutions

       Based on our meeting last June, we know that your office is 
     aware of the problems outlined above and has announced some 
     important initial steps that could help address them.
       In terms of increasing the quantity of cases investigated 
     and prosecuted by the subunit, we were encouraged by the 
     following measures announced by the Attorney General's 
     Office:
       The addition of 100 judicial police from the Directorate of 
     Criminal Investigation and Interpol (DIJIN) and planned 
     incorporation of 14 new prosecutors to the subunit;
       Your office's June 2011 memorandum instructing prosecutors 
     to prioritize cases of trade unionist killings committed 
     since 2007;
       Your office's April 2011 memorandum mandating the early 
     identification in all new homicide cases of whether the 
     victim was a union member, which should help ensure that in 
     the future the sub-unit can immediately open investigations 
     into these new cases:
       Your office's recent transfer of 35 cases of trade unionist 
     killings from 2009 to the sub-unit.
       Your office also has announced measures that could improve 
     the sub-unit's investigative methodology, such as:
       Providing instructions within the April memorandum for 
     prosecutors to take the urgent steps that will allow them 
     ``to determine the motives for the crime and the causal 
     relationship between the [homicide] and victim's condition as 
     a trade unionist'';
       Providing instructions within the June memorandum for 
     prosecutors to analyze cases of trade unionist killings based 
     on the region where the crimes occurred;
       Adding six analysts to the sub-unit who will help identify 
     links between cases in order to detect patterns of crimes 
     against trade unionists.
       In addition, the current coordinator of the sub-unit told 
     us in May that the sub-unit has adopted a new methodology 
     that involves grouping cases not only on the basis of 
     location, but also based on the victim's union and the 
     suspected responsible armed group.
       Yet, we are concerned that the new methodology has not yet 
     been effectively implemented. In separate interviews this 
     May, the prosecutors within the sub-unit appeared to have 
     very different understandings of how they were expected to 
     proceed with their investigations. Two prosecutors said that 
     the sub-unit had not in fact adopted a new methodology. 
     ``There is no policy that comes from the coordinators,'' one 
     told us. ``The methodology depends on each prosecutor. . . 
     Investigations are case-by-case. It would be important to 
     group [cases] by trade union, but it has not been done.'' 
     Other prosecutors mentioned the new investigative policy, but 
     said that it remains to be carried out in practice.
       Furthermore, your office's attempt to implement a 
     systematic approach is undercut by the sub-unit's limited 
     caseload and inefficient allocation of investigations among 
     prosecutors. As discussed above, the sub-unit is not 
     investigating the majority of reported trade unionist 
     killings. Consequently, cases from the same union, region, 
     and time period are often split between the sub-unit and 
     ordinary local prosecutors. And of those investigations that 
     have been assigned to the sub-unit, cases involving trade 
     unionists from the same organization and region have 
     generally been divided among the office's different 
     prosecutors.


                            Recommendations

       In order to build on your initial correctives and fully 
     address the problems identified in this letter, we believe it 
     is crucial to adopt the following measures:
       1) The sub-unit should investigate all reported cases of 
     killings, enforced ``disappearances,'' and homicide attempts 
     committed against trade unionists. In order to do so, we 
     recommend the Attorney General's Office:
       a) Transfers to the sub-unit all reported cases of 
     killings, enforced ``disappearances,'' and homicide attempts 
     against trade unionists that are currently assigned to local 
     prosecutors;
       b) Assigns to the sub-unit all future cases of killings, 
     enforced ``disappearances,'' and homicide attempts against 
     trade unionists.
       2) The sub-unit should implement a policy to conduct 
     systematic, contextualized and thorough investigations. The 
     policy should ensure that:
       a) Rather than treating each killing as an isolated case, 
     investigations also examine all other crimes against members 
     of the same union in the same region and time period to 
     identify possible connections and patterns of crimes that 
     could help to determine the motive for the killing, and 
     identify all the responsible parties;
       b) Prosecutors do not rely inordinately on paramilitaries' 
     confessions to resolve cases, but instead use this testimony 
     as a starting point to pursue a solid judicial investigation;
       c) Prosecutors conduct a thorough inquiry into the victim's 
     union activity at the time of the crime in order to collect 
     evidence that could help clarify the motive for the attack 
     and identify potential suspects;
       d) Prosecutors vigorously pursue leads that point to the 
     possible involvement of state agents and other actors in 
     crimes against trade unionists.
       3) Cases should be distributed among the sub-unit's 
     prosecutors based on the victim's union and the region where 
     the crime occurred.
       As we have pointed out on numerous occasions, overcoming 
     ongoing impunity for violence against trade unionists 
     requires confronting complex challenges. There is an enormous 
     amount of work to be done, and success will not be achieved 
     overnight. Yet we also believe that, if your office 
     rigorously pursues the measures we are recommending here, it 
     will be possible to make significant progress in prosecuting 
     these cases and transform the sub-unit into an effective 
     deterrent to future attacks on trade unionists in Colombia.

  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to say that 
Colombia has gone through incredible tragedy over the past several 
years. It has been absolutely horrible. And the suffering that my 
colleague from Worcester has just shown is very, very disturbing. But I 
think we should note that we have seen an 85 percent decline in the 
murder rate. In fact, there are cities in this country that have a 
higher murder rate than exist in Colombia today.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. DREIER. I yield myself an additional 15 seconds, Mr. Speaker.
  We also should make it very, very clear that it is safer to be a 
union member and union leader in Colombia because of the protection 
that's provided by the government than to be the average citizen. Let's 
solidify those gains, and that's exactly what these agreements will do.
  With that, I am happy to yield 2 minutes to a very, very thoughtful 
individual committed to the trade agenda,

[[Page H6715]]

my good friend from Hinsdale, Illinois (Mrs. Biggert).
  Mrs. BIGGERT. I thank the chairman for yielding to me.
  Mr. Speaker, today I rise with great enthusiasm because at long last 
the House and Senate are poised to act on the most bipartisan, 
economically compelling jobs bills of the Obama Presidency. By 
supporting this rule and ratifying these agreements, we are taking a 
huge step towards leveling the playing field for U.S. goods and 
services. And in doing so, we can create hundreds of thousands of good-
paying jobs right here in America.
  And thanks to the pending free trade agreements with Colombia, 
Panama, and South Korea, the tariffs on many American products will 
come down immediately, giving a massive boost to our economy at a time 
when we need it more than ever.
  All told, these fair trade agreements would support an estimated 
quarter-million American jobs and increase exports by $13 million. And 
my home State of Illinois will be among the first to benefit. 
Currently, Illinois ranks sixth in the Nation in terms of total 
exports; 109 companies in my district alone export abroad, and local 
exports support nearly 65,000 jobs in just DuPage, Cook and Will 
counties.
  These aren't just large manufacturers like Boeing, Navistar, and 
Kraft; they're also small businesses with a handful of employees. In 
fact, 90 percent of Illinois exporters are small businesses, exporting 
everything from computer chips to financial services.
  Already, trade with South Korea in my district alone supports 1,137 
jobs, and that number has the potential to rise dramatically after this 
week's agreements go into effect. Now imagine that impact multiplied 
hundreds of times across congressional districts throughout the Nation.
  Mr. Speaker, passing these agreements is one of the most common 
sense, low cost, and economically sound things that Congress can do 
right now to boost job growth. And now that the President has finally 
sent the agreements to Capitol Hill, we must act immediately. I urge my 
colleagues to support this rule.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 25 seconds to respond to 
the gentleman from California.
  In 2009 the number of total murders per capita in the U.S.A. was 5 
per 100,000. In Mexico, it was 18.4, and in Colombia it was 37.3. These 
are all government statistics.
  If 23 labor leaders and 29 civil rights leaders and 6 priests were 
targeted and murdered in Los Angeles so far this year because of their 
work in the community, I would like to think that the city or the 
gentleman from California would be up in arms about that. But that's 
the reality in Colombia.
  At this time I would like to yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
New York, the ranking Democrat on the Rules Committee, Ms. Slaughter.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I cannot state strongly enough I am vigorously opposed to the three 
free trade bills that we are considering today.
  On behalf of the businesses and workers of western New York, I 
implore my colleagues to vote against today's free trade but not fair 
trade bills and put an end to the era of giveaway trade.
  None of the free trade bills we voted on in the last 20 years, 
including these bills today, were designed to protect American 
manufacturing and American jobs. They were designed to protect 
multinational corporations operating in the towers of New York, London, 
and Shanghai. These companies could care less where their goods are 
made as long as we allow them to sell them all over the world. As 
American legislators, we have different responsibilities. We must care 
where goods are made. We must do everything we can to ensure they are 
made in the U.S.A.
  I think many people would be shocked to know that there is little in 
the current trade agreement to prevent our own trading partners from 
developing new regulations that we have done all these years making it 
harder for us to sell our goods in their countries. Using nontariff 
barriers, they could place a dozen arbitrary restrictions on American-
made cars, and they do in order to stop Chevy, Ford, and GM from being 
sold in South Korea. Do you know how many car dealers sell American 
cars in Korea? Twenty-six. I imagine most major cities in the United 
States have 26 car dealers who sell Korean cars in their city alone. 
There's something wrong with that picture. This is not free-flowing 
trade. We are restricted, but under these proposed free trade 
agreements, we can't do a thing to make sure that our companies are 
treated fairly. And they call it a good deal.
  Currently, nontariff barriers are playing a vital role in preventing 
U.S.-made cars from being sold in Japan. According to the American Auto 
Council, for every one car that the U.S. exports to Japan, Japan 
exports at least 180 vehicles to the United States. That's 1 to 180. 
U.S. auto exports to Japan were limited to 8,000 cars last year. That's 
all we could sell in all of Japan. The USTR says, A variety of 
nontariff barriers have traditionally impeded access to Japan's 
automobile and automotive parts market. Overall sales of U.S.-made 
vehicles remain low, which is a serious concern.
  But despite that, what they think with that hand, the government's 
left hand, the government's right hand is going to sign more trade 
bills that do exactly the same thing.

                              {time}  1750

  It is an action, as far as I'm concerned, that defies common sense. 
Instead of wasting our time voting for a bad trade bill, I have 
introduced a bill that will legally ensure a fair playing field for 
American manufacturers. It's H.R. 1749. The Reciprocal Market Access 
Act would require both the U.S. Government to consider tariff and non-
tariff barriers when negotiating a trade agreement with another country 
and not reduce our tariffs until that has been done. This approach 
would guarantee that American manufacturers have the same opportunity 
as foreign competition to sell their goods around the world.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
  Mr. McGOVERN. I yield the gentlelady 1 additional minute.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. If a foreign country is caught trying to stop the sale 
of American-made goods, we have a ``snap-back'' provision which will 
stop the free trade agreement.
  It's a no-nonsense approach. It is bipartisan in the House. It has 
been endorsed by Corning; Hickey-Freeman; Hart Schaffner Marx; Globe 
Specialty Metals; American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition; the 
AFL-CIO; the United Steelworkers; and the Auto Workers, even though 
they are the only union that will benefit somewhat by the Korean pact.
  Congress needs to wake up, and we need to make countries like China 
and Germany see who's going to dominate the green manufacturing for 
generations to come. We have just about lost that great thing we 
pioneered here. Over and over again we have waited and watched. And the 
most recent ones that trouble me so much is General Electric giving 
away the intellectual property on airplane engines to China and GM 
forced to give over the technology of the Volt to be able to sell 
there.
  Mr. Speaker, the time is now. We're not going to maintain a 
superpower status as long as all we can do is give each other haircuts 
and serve each other dinner. We've got to make things here at home so 
that our businesses can finally benefit by some fair trade.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds to say that free 
trade is fair trade. And it's interesting to note that the United Auto 
Workers supports the agreement that exists. I totally concur with my 
friend from Rochester in arguing, Mr. Speaker, that we must enforce the 
agreements that we have, including on intellectual property issues.
  With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 3 
minutes to the gentleman from California, the ranking Democrat on the 
Education and Workforce Committee, Mr. Miller.
  (Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California asked and was given permission to 
revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, Members of the House, 
one of our most important responsibilities as elected officials is to 
promote

[[Page H6716]]

and protect American jobs and values. When it comes to trade, jobs and 
values go hand-in-hand. To promote American jobs, we must promote 
American values. We do this by ensuring that our workers are protected 
from unfair competition with countries that keep wages artificially low 
by repressing essential democratic rights: the right to speak out, the 
right to organize, the right to bargain, the right for a better life 
without fear of reprisals.
  And so as we now consider the trade agreement with Colombia, what do 
you get when you exercise your rights in Colombia today? You get death 
threats and death squad activities against you and your families. 
Colombia is the most dangerous place on Earth for workers who dare to 
exercise their rights. During the last Colombian President's 8 years in 
office, 570 union members were assassinated. To date, only 10 percent 
of the thousands of killings over the last 25 years have been resolved.
  The problems here are undeniable. So I appreciate that the U.S. and 
the Colombia Governments have finally brought labor rights into the 
equation. They have agreed to a Labor Action Plan requiring Colombia to 
change some labor laws and to commit more resources to fight the 
violence and impunity.

  But that plan is fatally flawed. It only demands results on paper. It 
does not demand real change. Colombia could have a record year for 
assassinations and still meet the requirements of the plan. Sure 
enough, real change is yet to come to Colombia. Since President Santos 
took office last year, press reports indicate at least 38 trade 
unionists have been murdered--16 since the Labor Action Plan was 
announced.
  In mid-June of this year, I met with a Port Workers Union leader from 
Colombia in my office about his concerns with the free trade agreement. 
He told me that he was not provided protection and that the abusive 
cooperative system was still in place despite commitments made by the 
Colombian Government to remedy both. In July, I spoke directly to his 
concerns on the floor of the House. And 2 weeks later, this leader 
received death threats via text message. The message said, ``If you 
continue to create problems and denounce things, you will die in a 
mortuary union.''
  It's under these conditions that we are asked to approve this deal. 
If we approve the deal now, any incentive for Colombia to truly improve 
will vanish. Now is not the time to reward violence with impunity with 
the seal of approval from the United States. The deal with Colombia is 
neither fair nor free. Telling Colombian workers that if they speak out 
for higher wages, they will die--that's not freedom. Telling American 
workers to compete with that kind of repression--that's not fair to our 
workers or our values.
  Stand for American values, and reject the Colombia Free Trade 
Agreement.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield 2 minutes to one of our 
thoughtful, hardworking new Members, the gentleman from Fowler, Kansas 
(Mr. Huelskamp).
  Mr. HUELSKAMP. I appreciate the opportunity to visit with you on the 
floor today.
  Every day that goes by without these agreements is a missed 
opportunity. Hundreds of missed opportunities have passed because of 
years of delay, which is why we cannot afford to waste one more day. 
The fact is, today in South Korea, for example, beef costs nearly $24 a 
pound. Pork costs nearly $10 a pound. These facts can only work to the 
mutual benefit of both U.S. producers and Korean consumers.
  When America is starved for jobs and economic growth, agreements with 
Colombia, Panama, and South Korea present an occasion for Washington to 
address these challenges. Up to a quarter million new jobs and a 
hundred billion-dollar boost to the country's GDP are glimmers of hope 
in what is otherwise a bleak economic outlook. And not a dime of 
taxpayer money has to be spent to create good American jobs.
  For America to be part of the 21st-century economy, it is not enough 
to simply buy American. We have to sell American. America's safe and 
efficient ag, energy, and manufacturing production makes the U.S. an 
attractive trading partner. Americans can compete, and we can win.
  When the Ambassador of Vietnam to the United States toured a hog farm 
in my district in August, he was both impressed and astonished by the 
safety and cleanliness of our facilities. That signaled to me that 
America, and Kansas in particular, has much to offer the world.
  In sum, these agreements are an opportunity for a nation seeking more 
affordable and safe goods and an opportunity for our Nation to benefit 
with jobs and economic growth. I urge my colleagues to move quickly and 
join me in supporting this rule and the underlying agreements. We need 
the jobs, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 3 
minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).
  Ms. DeLAURO. I rise in opposition to this rule and the trade 
agreements underlying it--particularly the agreement with Colombia. 
Nothing is more important to our economy right now than creating jobs 
and putting America back to work. And yet we have now before us three 
NAFTA-style trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama 
that we know from experience will lead to more jobs being shipped 
overseas and greater trade deficits. In fact, the Economic Policy 
Institute has estimated this agreement with Colombia will result in the 
loss of 55,000 American jobs.
  The Colombia deal is particularly galling because it will do more 
than just destroy American jobs. It will bring into question whether 
our Nation continues to be a defender of human rights and workers' 
rights around the world. According to the International Trade Union 
Confederation, more unionists are killed every year in Colombia than in 
the rest of the world combined. Last year saw 51 murders. As the AFL-
CIO's Richard Trumka noted: ``If 51 CEOs had been murdered in Colombia 
last year, this deal would be on a very slow track indeed.''
  This year, we have seen 23 more men and women killed. Human Rights 
Watch reviewed these and hundreds of other cases of antiunion violence 
there and concluded that Colombian authorities have ``made virtually no 
progress in obtaining convictions for killings from the past 4\1/2\ 
years.''

                              {time}  1800

  In fact, in only 6 percent of the 2,860 trade unionist murders since 
1986 have there been any convictions. That means 94 percent of the 
killers are walking away. Worse, 16 of the murders this year have 
occurred after the labor action plan put forward by the administration 
and the Colombian Government was put into effect.
  This action plan is a fig leaf, pure and simple. It is not legally 
binding. It makes promises that the Colombian Government will step up 
its protections, but it demands no concrete results before this free 
trade agreement is implemented. According to the National Labor School, 
if Congress passes the free trade agreement, ``the limited willingness 
for change will be further reduced and the action plan will be turned 
into a new frustration for Colombian workers, in addition to causing 
other serious consequences.'' In other words, more violence--murders--
against trade unionists will be just the cost of doing business.
  We should not be sanctioning such a system of violence, terror, and 
abuse. We have a responsibility to protect the human rights defenders 
and working families in Colombia who are exercising, and only 
exercising, their fundamental rights. And we have a responsibility to 
stand up for our American working families who do not need to see any 
more good, well-paying jobs shipped overseas.
  I urge my colleagues to oppose this rule and this unconscionable 
agreement.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute to say that we are 
going to respond to some of these arguments that have been made.
  First, Colombia is not the safest place in the world. I'm the first 
to acknowledge that. There are terrible, terrible problems there. We've 
been dealing with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the FARC, 
the paramilitaries, and serious, serious problems that have existed in 
Colombia. No one is trying to whitewash or dismiss the serious 
challenges that exist there. But it's important to note that nearly 
2,000 labor leaders in Colombia, Mr. Speaker, have around-the-

[[Page H6717]]

clock bodyguards protecting them. And in Colombia, it is safer to be a 
unionist than it is the average citizen.
  So I'm not saying that things are perfect. No one is making that 
claim. But when we've seen an 85 percent decrease in the murder rate 
since 2002, when we've seen more murders take place--tragically--in 
some of our cities than have taken place in some areas of Colombia, 
that is something that has to be seen as progress.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Thornberry). The time of the gentleman 
has expired.
  Mr. DREIER. I yield myself an additional 15 seconds, Mr. Speaker, to 
say that I believe we can, in a bipartisan way, work to address these 
very important issues. And we are going to do just that. We are going 
to ensure that this kind of agreement effectively addresses these 
problems.
  My friend, Mr. Farr, and I have sat together in the Office of the 
Fiscalia in Colombia, in Bogota.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has again expired.
  Mr. DREIER. I yield myself an additional 15 seconds.
  We have sat and painstakingly, with several other of our colleagues, 
Democrats and Republicans alike, gone through these pending cases to 
bring about a resolution on this issue; and in just a few minutes, I'm 
going to be yielding to my friend, Mr. Farr, to talk specifically about 
this and the challenges we have.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to my very 
good friend, the chair of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, who 
represents what she calls the gateway to the Americas. I think Los 
Angeles comes pretty close to that too. But Miami, Mr. Speaker, is the 
gateway to the Americas, and they are very ably represented by our 
colleague from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen).
  Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. I thank the esteemed chairman of the Rules 
Committee for highlighting what a transformation Colombia has made in 
recent years, thanks to the strong leadership from the top down to the 
cop on the beat.
  If the American people are listening to this debate, they would think 
that Colombia is a war zone equal to Iraq and Afghanistan. And I 
believe that those Members have not gone to Colombia in many a year.
  But I rise in strong support of the free trade agreements with 
Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. I thank my good friend from 
California for his strong leadership on these three trade deals that 
we've been waiting so many years, Mr. Speaker, for them to be sent to 
Congress. I am pleased that at last we have the chance to vote on them, 
because their passage will mean American businesses will finally have a 
competitive level playing field.
  And to give you just one example, American industrial exports to 
Panama--one of our sister countries to south Florida, we have so many 
Panamanian Americans living in our area--now face tariffs as high as 81 
percent, but almost all of these will be eliminated thanks to this 
trade agreement.
  By the administration's own estimates, Mr. Speaker, the U.S.-South 
Korea free trade agreement alone will generate around 70,000 new 
American jobs. And as the Rules Committee chairman pointed out, south 
Florida is indeed the gateway to Latin America.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
  Mr. DREIER. I yield my friend an additional 30 seconds.
  Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you.
  We will see significant benefits in south Florida, and not just for 
large companies but for small and medium-sized ones as well.
  Let's talk about Colombia. Flower importers in the area estimate that 
they will save $2 million per month in duties that they now are paying 
on imports from Colombia.
  And also, we should point out how important these trade agreements 
are, because these three allies are of great importance to our national 
security. You can't ask for better partners for peace and making sure 
that we have democracy in the region than South Korea, Colombia, and 
Panama.
  I thank the gentleman for the time, and I'm pleased to support the 
rule.
  Mr. McGOVERN. I yield myself 20 seconds.
  Mr. Speaker, if Colombia is so safe, then why do 2,000 labor leaders 
need round-the-clock protection? I mean, if Colombia is so safe, why 
are there nearly 5 million internally displaced people and over 1 
million Colombian refugees in neighboring countries? It is because 
they're fleeing the violence and civil unrest.
  Mr. Speaker, at this point I would like to yield 3 minutes to the 
gentleman from Maine (Mr. Michaud).
  Mr. MICHAUD. I want to thank my friend for yielding to me.
  This rule makes in order three NAFTA-style free trade agreements, one 
with Korea, one with Panama, and one with Colombia, all of which I 
oppose. But I want to focus my remarks today on the trade agreement 
with Colombia because it hits so close to home for me.
  You will hear from Members that feel passionately about Colombia from 
their experience in that country. They support the free trade 
agreement, and I respect their perspectives. But there are some of us 
who feel just as passionately about our brothers and sisters who are 
killed in Colombia just because they are members of a union, and we 
oppose the agreement.
  I am a proud, card-carrying member of the United Steelworkers Union. 
I've been a member of the union for over 39 years and served as vice 
president of Local 152. Workers in Colombia are being killed for the 
exact same thing.
  Since January, 23 unionists have been assassinated. Fifty-one were 
killed last year, more than the rest of the world combined. Just for 
carrying a union card like mine, nearly 3,000 workers have been killed 
in Colombia over the past 25 years.
  The administration's Labor Action Plan is intended to address some of 
the decades-old problems of violence against unionists and the lack of 
impunity for their perpetrators, but it falls far short from doing so:
  First, there has not been meaningful collaboration with the Colombian 
unions to make sure the action plan is being implemented thoroughly;
  Second, the Attorney General's office, according to Human Rights 
Watch, hasn't made any progress in investigating the murder cases over 
the last 4 years. Ensuring that murder investigations are conducted and 
completed and the real killers are brought to justice is a critical 
component of protecting our union brothers and sisters in Colombia. So 
far, the government hasn't done it; and
  Third, employers continue to force workers into collective pacts so 
they cannot form unions.
  By passing this FTA, Congress is blessing this lack of rights and 
this longstanding trend of violence. We are choosing to stand in 
solidarity with a government that can't protect its own people instead 
of the people who need the protecting.
  I urge my colleagues to think about the fact that if they had a card 
like this and if they were a leader in a union in Colombia, they would 
be a target. We should not reward this country's disregard for basic 
rights within an FTA.
  I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the rule and vote ``no'' on 
the Colombian free trade agreement.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to say that it's 
obvious that Colombia is not a safe place. I'm not claiming that at 
all. There have been murders that have taken place and it still is a 
very dangerous spot. But it's important to note that a Mr. Gomez, who 
is the leader of one of the three main labor organizations in Colombia, 
has said that the labor agreements included in this package are the 
single greatest achievement for social justice in the last 50 years of 
Colombia's history.

                              {time}  1810

  We still have a long way to go, Mr. Speaker. We still have a long way 
to go, but progress is being made.
  With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 2 
minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).
  Mr. DeFAZIO. This is momentous. We're finally talking about jobs on 
the floor of the House of Representatives. And the United States of 
America is

[[Page H6718]]

number one. Let's have a little enthusiasm. We're number one. We're 
number one, and we want to make certain that we continue that status.
  What are we number one in? We are number one in exporting jobs to 
foreign lands over the last 20 years. Every day we lose 1,370 
manufacturing jobs because of our failed trade policies. And guess 
what? These agreements are duplicates of all failed past trade 
agreements.
  Now, the chairman of the committee says we're going to have lengthy 
debate, and we will dispel misinformation. Well, the first 
misinformation is that we're having any lengthy debate here on the 
floor of the House; 4\1/2\ hours for three trade agreements, 270 
minutes, boy, a lot of time. Not exactly like we're burning the 
midnight oil around here, or even working 5 days a week. Couldn't we 
have a little more time?
  Fast Track would have allowed for 20 hours on each of the two Fast 
Track agreements and who knows what? So that would have been 40 hours. 
No, we're going to have 165 minutes by the proponents to dispel the 
misinformation, and 105 by those of us who are opposed to these job-
killing trade agreements. That's fair, 165 on their side and 105 on our 
side because our arguments are honest, and theirs aren't. But that's 
the way things break around here. That is lengthy debate.
  Let's talk for a minute about Colombia. You know, in Colombia, the 
average income is $3,200. Think of all the U.S. manufactured goods 
those Colombians are going to buy with $3,200 of income. Whoa, 
thousands of Americans go to work.
  Does that remind you of the myth about NAFTA?
  No, this is about yet one more platform to get and access abused 
labor, unorganized labor under Colombian law to send goods back to the 
United States of America.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. McGOVERN. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. I thank the gentleman.
  And then there's the issue of, yes, we will get some more agriculture 
exports, insignificant to our industry, won't employ any Americans, may 
employ some more people who are in this country to harvest the crops.
  But it will cut dramatically into the principal form of employment in 
Colombia. There'll be a 75 percent drop potentially in rural employment 
in Colombia. And where will they turn?
  The noted economist Joseph Stiglitz says they will turn from 
traditional farming and farming for their own economy to growing coca. 
So not only are we going to facilitate the collapse of their 
agricultural economy, like we did in Mexico; we're going to facilitate 
the drug lords with this crummy agreement.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to say to my 
friend that we have been debating this issue since the negotiations 
began in 2004. Time and time again on this House floor, we've had very 
rigorous debates on these agreements. And I will acknowledge, we do 
have problems with job creation and economic growth.
  What this measure does, Mr. Speaker, is it eliminates the barrier for 
union and nonunion workers and farmers in this country to have access 
to new markets.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. DREIER. I yield myself an additional 30 seconds, Mr. Speaker.
  On August 15, because we had done nothing, our Colombian friends 
negotiated a free trade agreement with the Canadians, with our good 
friends to the north, the Canadians.
  And guess what, Mr. Speaker. In literally 1 month, there was an 18\1/
2\ percent increase in Canadian wheat exports to Colombia. This is the 
kind of opportunity that we've been prevented from having, and we've 
been debating this for 5 years. It's high time that we vote, and that's 
exactly what we're going to do, after hours of debate, both tonight and 
tomorrow.
  With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 25 seconds to respond to 
the gentleman from California.
  He mentioned a labor leader, in his remarks before, as saying how 
wonderful the Labor Action Plan was. I should point out to him that 
last Monday, on October 3, that same labor leader joined in a press 
conference with other Colombian unions to express his frustration with 
the Colombian Government's failure to implement the Labor Action Plan.
  I also would point out that the Colombia Labor School also has issued 
a long statement about how the Colombian Government has failed to enact 
the Labor Action Plan.
  I don't care what the Canadians do. In the United States of America, 
we're supposed to respect human rights.
  Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 3 minutes to the 
gentlelady from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. I thank you, Congressman McGovern, for your tireless 
commitment to promoting human rights around the world.
  I rise in strong opposition to this rule and to the three pending 
free trade agreements. The Bush-negotiated Colombia, Panama and South 
Korea FTAs expand the NAFTA-style trade model that has proven 
destructive to the American economy and harmful to the workers in the 
United States and abroad.
  Instead of considering a jobs bill, we are instead voting on trade 
deals that the Economic Policy Institute estimates will eliminate or 
displace an additional 200,000 American jobs. In particular, I believe 
we should not extend additional trade privileges to Colombia without 
seeing significant progress on human rights.
  And it is not sufficient just to say, well, Colombia is a dangerous 
place to live. Colombia has a longstanding legacy of serious abuses; 
and despite some positive rhetoric by the Santos administration, we 
have yet to see a tangible improvement.
  The recently agreed-to Labor Action Plan includes language to prevent 
and punish abuses against labor leaders and trade unionists, but it is 
not legally binding or included in the FTA before us today. We need to 
see results before granting preferential trade treatment.

  Under this agreement, if violence and impunity continue, the U.S. 
will have no mechanism for holding the Colombian Government accountable 
to the promises in the Labor Action Plan.
  Mr. Speaker, the fact is that human rights abuses are not just a 
thing of the past in Colombia. Recently published statistics show that 
Colombia is still the deadliest place in the world to be a trade 
unionist, with 51 murders in 2010, 25 trade unionists have been 
murdered so far in 2011, and 16 since this Labor Action Plan went into 
effect. And this cycle of violence is going to continue because the 
Colombian Government has made little progress toward prosecuting 
perpetrators and ending impunity.
  The bottom line is this: The Labor Action Plan and the Colombia FTA 
reward promises, not progress. Mr. Speaker, the consideration of any 
trade deal with Colombia is inappropriate until we see tangible and 
sustained results. As AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka has said, and 
think about this, he said, ``We have no doubt that if 51 CEOs had been 
murdered in Colombia last year the deal would be on a very slow track 
indeed.''
  I strongly urge my colleagues to join me in opposing this rule and 
the three underlying trade agreements.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to say that my 
friend from Illinois is absolutely right: Colombia is not a safe place. 
But we have seen an 85 percent reduction since 2002 in the murder rate 
among trade unionists. It's not perfect and it still is a very 
dangerous place, but that is progress.
  I'd also like to say to my friend from Worcester--and I appreciate 
the fact that he didn't say it--Mr. Gomez is still supportive of the 
Colombia-U.S. free trade agreement that he mentioned in his remarks. 
And I think that he voiced frustration over the implementation of 
agreements. That's something that takes place in a free society. That's 
something we see here regularly and there regularly. Implementation of 
this will help with that enforcement.
  With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, at this point it is my privilege to yield 
2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the 
Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Levin.
  (Mr. LEVIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)

[[Page H6719]]

                              {time}  1820

  Mr. LEVIN. The Bush administration negotiated three seriously flawed 
FTAs. The key flaw in the South Korea FTA was that it violated a 
fundamental principle of sound, overall trade policy: two-way trade. It 
locked in one-way trade for Korea in the automotive sector, the source 
of three-quarters of the American trade deficit with Korea. Last year, 
urged by congressional Democrats, the Obama administration negotiated 
specific provisions opening up the Korean market for automotive 
products made in America.
  These vital changes would not have happened if, as the Republicans 
continually insisted, the FTA had passed as originally negotiated. The 
Panama FTA as originally negotiated by the Bush administration failed 
to carry out another key provision of sound trade policy, incorporating 
international standards on worker rights. Congressional Democrats and 
the Obama administration successfully worked with the Panamanian 
Government to correct these flaws, and it also took the necessary 
concrete steps to change its role as a tax haven.
  The Colombia FTA, as originally negotiated, fell far short of 
addressing the longstanding concerns about the specific challenges in 
Colombia to worker rights and the persistence of violence and impunity. 
The Obama administration and the new Santos administration undertook 
the important steps of discussions on these issues, culminating in an 
action plan relating to labor rights. Unfortunately, there remains 
serious shortcomings in the plan's implementation. What's more, giving 
in to congressional Republican insistence, there is completely lacking 
any link in the implementation bill to the action plan, necessary to 
assure its present implementation and future enforcement actions under 
the FTA.
  In view of those conditions, I oppose the Colombia FTA.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire of my good friend and Rules 
Committee colleague, the gentleman from Worcester, how many speakers he 
has remaining on his side?
  Mr. McGOVERN. We have the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott), 
and then I will close.
  Mr. DREIER. I have a couple of speakers. How much time is remaining 
on each side, Mr. Speaker?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from California has 7\1/4\ 
minutes remaining. The gentleman from Massachusetts has 4\1/4\ minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Then I will reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I mentioned the bipartisan nature of this, 
and to stress that, and being the only one who will yield time to 
Democrats who are in support of these agreements, I am happy to yield 
2\1/2\ minutes to my very good friend and a man with whom I have spent 
time in Colombia on numerous occasions and will in just a few weeks, 
the gentleman from Carmel, California, a Peace Corps volunteer who 
served four decades ago in Colombia and knows about it as well as 
anyone, Mr. Farr.
  Mr. FARR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for yielding. I look forward to 
this debate.
  As was said, I lived in Colombia, and I have a different perspective 
than a lot of people. First of all, I think we have to put in 
perspective that the Latin American market is important to the United 
States. If you take Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia, just three countries, 
they equal the entire European trade, and they exceed the trade with 
Japan and China. It's a very important market.
  Colombia is a country that you have heard a lot about, particularly 
on crime. And as you remember, there is big, big drug production and a 
lot of crime, particularly paramilitaries who have killed a lot of 
labor leaders. But what has not been stated is that Colombia is one of 
the few countries in the world that keeps track of crimes against 
people who happen to be unionists, not necessarily that they are killed 
because they are unionists, but because they are killed and they happen 
to be a member of a union. So they have this data. We don't do that in 
the United States.
  Colombia has set up a separate ministry just to handle labor crimes 
and put those judges, prosecutors, investigators, and everybody in 
place in every single one of the departments or states in Colombia. We 
don't do that in the United States.
  Colombia has created a protection system for unionists, including 
people who want to form unions, who want to advocate for unions, 
teachers, and retirees of unions who may be threatened because of their 
activity in unions. We don't do that in the United States. They have 
all set up a hotline, full disclosure, and you can do that anonymously. 
You can either email in or you can call in anonymously to the 
government reporting any labor violations. We don't do that in a 
national way here in the United States. So there are a lot of issues 
here that we ought to recognize when we're talking about Colombia.
  But I think most of all we've got to talk about this in terms of 
American jobs. We sell a lot of things that we make here in America to 
Colombia. Let's take Caterpillar, for example. Canada has just adopted 
a free trade agreement. Europe is about to adopt a free trade agreement 
with Colombia. And we're not going to have one. That means our goods 
are going to be more expensive in Colombia. They're not going to buy 
from us. We're going to lose the market share. Caterpillar will be out 
of business. They'll be buying that heavy equipment from Europe, 
they'll be buying it from Brazil, and they'll be buying it from 
Canada--countries that have entered into a free trade agreement.
  Let's preserve American jobs and let's think about American jobs. 
This is a huge exporter. In my district alone, it's the number one 
country in Latin America that we export produce to. So it's an 
important country to us.
  Let the debate begin. The debate can't begin without passing the 
rule.
  Mr. McGOVERN. I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Washington from the Committee on Ways and Means, Mr. McDermott.
  (Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to revise and extend 
his remarks.)
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, in my district, one out of three or maybe 
one out of four people make their job some way in relationship to 
foreign trade, either directly through the seaport or through the 
companies that operate in my district, or the agricultural sector of 
eastern Washington. Now, all of us in Seattle know that trade is not 
bad if it's done right, and that's really the issue that we're debating 
here tonight under this rule which I support.
  Two of the agreements that we have before us, Korea and Panama, are 
examples of doing it right. The Bush administration went in and signed 
agreements that were flawed, and, in fact, were held up, and then were 
renegotiated and are, in my opinion, a good place for the trade issue 
for these two countries. We rejected those flawed agreements because we 
wanted to do it right.
  Now with these new rewritten agreements, we have some real change. In 
Panama's case, it is no longer a tax haven. It was the best tax haven 
on the face of the Earth before. Now we have a trade agreement, we have 
an implemented tax agreement that will make it transparent and no 
longer will that happen.
  Unfortunately, Colombia is a glass that you could hold up and say, is 
it half full or half empty? There clearly have been problems, for many 
of us who have been resistant to this for a long time, and I will 
resist that particular one tonight because, and most importantly, 
Colombia has moved. They've made beautiful speeches. Speeches don't 
change anything. My old friend, Ronald Reagan, who I admired greatly, 
said ``trust but verify.'' And when the Republicans refused to put into 
this trade agreement that the work action plan would be included, they 
sent the message ``we're not serious.'' And that's why you're going to 
get so much opposition.
  I urge the adoption of the rule, and we'll debate the issues later.
  Mr. DREIER. At this time I'm happy to yield 2 minutes to a very, very 
strong free trader, a bold and courageous friend from New York City, 
Mr. Meeks.
  Mr. MEEKS. Mr. Speaker, I feel a sense of urgency about passage of 
the FTAs before us. Urgency because while we have been waiting on the 
passage of the agreements, South Korea has

[[Page H6720]]

moved forward on trade with Europe, and Colombia and Panama are moving 
forward on several bilaterals of their own with Canada, China, and 
others.
  And trade is never just about economics. It's also about our 
relationships with other nations, our allies. It's about strengthening 
the rule of law, and it's about deepening ties. A recent report by the 
Council on Foreign Relations said it well, ``Trade has been and remains 
a major strategic instrument of American foreign policy. It binds 
together countries in a broad and deep economic network that 
constitutes a bulwark against conflict.'' But let me also talk 
specifically about the Colombia free trade agreement.

                              {time}  1830

  Many of my colleagues have talked today about the violent past in 
Colombia and of the remaining vestiges of that past. Having traveled 
extensively in Colombia over the last decade, I can tell you personally 
that Colombia is not what it used to be. It's far from it. Even if it 
is not where it wants to be just yet, there has been major progress in 
Colombia, and this has been with a tremendous amount of cooperation 
with and between our great nations. The agreement with Colombia 
certainly has its many economic benefits for America. We are leveling 
the playing field for American business.
  Beyond that, what I want to emphasize right now is a role that the 
agreement plays in strengthening the rule of law, specifically as it 
relates to labor. The agreed-upon action plan between the Obama 
administration and the Santos administration brings about important 
changes that labor groups in Colombia have sought to solidify for 
years. In fact, several labor organizations in Colombia made public 
statements about the importance of the action plan. One of Colombia's 
major labor federations lauded the action plan, signifying that, if one 
of the results of the FTA is the advancement of labor and is an 
increase in the guarantees to exercise freedom of association, then the 
FTAs are welcome. Moreover, the federation and others have stated that 
this action plan will continue to fight against impunity.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. DREIER. I yield the gentleman an additional 15 seconds.
  Mr. MEEKS. I am pleased to say that just last month, the Obama 
administration announced that Colombia has fully complied with its 
commitments under the Labor Action Plan that was set for completion in 
mid-September. At the same time, the State Department also notified 
that Colombia is meeting statutory criteria relating to human rights 
that call for the obligation of U.S. assistance funds for the Colombian 
Armed Forces.
  Let's pass this agreement.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, Congress was right in refusing to take up 
the Colombia FTA when it was signed in 2006. Supporters of the FTA now 
talk about those years as Colombia's dark past, but they supported the 
FTA then just as they do now. The House was right to block the FTA in 
2008. Supporters then extolled the virtues of the Uribe government, but 
Colombia's new Attorney General has revealed mind-boggling corruption 
in every agency of Uribe's government. Criminal acts were the norm.
  I believe the Santos government is Colombia's best chance to bring 
about much needed reforms and institutional change. I want him to 
succeed, but goodwill is not enough. We have had promises before. We 
need time to see if good intentions result in concrete change on labor 
and human rights.
  This is Tito Diaz. He was the mayor of El Roble in Sucre. In 2003, he 
denounced the links between public officials and paramilitaries. For 
this, he was tortured and murdered. His body was found strung up like a 
crucifix and shot 11 times--his fingernails ripped out, his knees 
bludgeoned, and his mayor's I.D. card taped to his forehead.
  His son, Juan David, carried on his father's work, leading the 
victims' movement in Sucre. He survived four assassination attempts but 
finally fled the country. Others took his place. Since 2006, five more 
victims' rights leaders in Sucre have been murdered--two this year.
  This is the reality for Colombia's human rights defenders, 29 of whom 
have been killed this year; 51 priests murdered in the past decade, six 
so far this year. In this violent reality, Colombian workers attempt to 
exercise their rights.
  I ask my colleagues to think about the lives of all the brave labor 
leaders, human rights defenders, religious and community leaders. Do 
not turn your backs on them. Demand concrete change on the ground 
before approving the Colombia FTA. You know that that is the right 
thing to do. If the United States of America stands for anything, we 
ought to stand out loud and four-squared for human rights. Let's 
remember that as we deliberate on the Colombia FTA. It is just wrong to 
rationalize, or explain away, the human rights situation in Colombia. 
We are better than that. We should demand more on behalf of the workers 
and the human rights defenders in Colombia.
  Vote ``no'' on the rule, and vote ``no'' on the Colombia FTA.

    A Brief History of the Victims' Rights Movement (MOVICE) in the 
                     Department of Sucre (Colombia)


                         Eudaldo ``Tito'' Diaz

             1. Biographical Note on Eudaldo ``Tito'' Diaz

     Summary
       Eudaldo ``Tito'' Diaz was the mayor of El Roble 
     municipality in Sucre Department, Colombia. He was killed for 
     denouncing the links between public officials and 
     paramilitary death squads. On the 5th of April 2003, Mr. Diaz 
     was disappeared, tortured for five days and murdered. His 
     body was found, strung up like a crucifix. He had been shot 
     eleven times, his fingernails ripped out and his knees 
     bludgeoned. On his forehead, the assassins had placed his 
     mayor's identity card, as a warning to others who would speak 
     out against the paramilitaries and public officials who 
     supported them.
     Background
       Eudaldo ``Tito'' Diaz was the mayor of El Roble 
     municipality in Sucre Department, Colombia. He was killed for 
     denouncing the links between public officials and 
     paramilitary death squads. After speaking out, he was sacked 
     and his security detail was withdrawn. He knew that his 
     actions carried a high price: ``they are going to kill me'' 
     he said, at a televised public meeting on February 1, 2003, 
     at which he spoke out about the corruption and threats. The 
     meeting was attended by former president Uribe and then 
     governor of Sucre, Salvador Arana Sus, whom Mr. Diaz had 
     publicly denounced. Two months later, on April 5, 2003, Mr. 
     Diaz was called to a meeting by governor Arana, colonel 
     Norman Leon Arango (the former Police Chief of Sucre), Alvaro 
     Garcia Romero (former Senator, sentenced for his role in the 
     Chengue massacre and for his links to paramilitaries), Jaime 
     Gil Ortega (former Inspector General of Sucre), Guillermo 
     Merlano Martinez (former Inspector General of Sucre) and Eric 
     Morris Taboada (former governor of Sucre during 1997-2001, 
     sentenced for his links with paramilitary groups). On his way 
     to that meeting, Mr. Diaz was disappeared, tortured for five 
     days and murdered. On April 10th, his body was found, strung 
     up like a crucifix. He had been shot eleven times, his 
     fingernails ripped out and his knees bludgeoned. The ulcer in 
     his stomach showed that he had been deprived of food and 
     water. On his forehead, the assassins had placed his mayor's 
     identity card, as a warning to others who would speak out 
     against the paramilitaries and politicians who supported 
     them.
       Mr. Diaz' son, Juan David, carried on his father's work. He 
     has survived four assassination attempts and received over 20 
     death threats. The day his father was killed, he received his 
     first death threat. Soon after, governor Arana was named 
     ambassador to Chile by president Uribe. Mr. Arana is 
     currently serving a 40-year sentence for Mr. Diaz' murder. At 
     least 12 of the witnesses in the case have been killed.

       2. Prosecutions for Assassination of Eudaldo ``Tito'' Diaz

       Salvador Arana Sus, former governor of Sucre, sentenced to 
     40 years for forced disappearance, aggravated homicide with 
     political motives, and promotion of illegal armed groups. He 
     had been appointed by former president Uribe as ambassador to 
     Chile 2003-2005.
       Angel Miguel Berrocal Doria alias ``El Cocha,'' a 
     paramilitary, sentenced to 37 years for homicide.
       Rodrigo Antonio Mercado Pelufo, alias ``Cadena,'' head of 
     the paramilitary group Heroes de los Montes de Maria, 
     sentenced in absentia to 40 years for aggravated homicide and 
     simple kidnapping.
       Emiro Jose Correa alias ``Convivir'' and Jose Tomas Torres 
     alias ``Orbitel,'' known paramilitaries who allegedly carried 
     out governor Sus' instruction to kill Mr. Diaz, were absolved 
     in 2011. Diana Luz Martinez, former director of the La Vega 
     prison, who allegedly enabled the paramilitaries to leave the 
     prison where they were detained in order to carry out the 
     assassination, was absolved of all charges.
       The paramilitaries Edelmiro Anaya, alias ``El Chino,'' 
     Carlos Verbel Vitola, alias ``Caliche,'' Wilson Anderson 
     Atencia, alias ``El Gafa'' and Jhon Ospino, alias ``Jhon'' 
     are also under investigation. Coronel Norman Leon Arango, 
     then police chief of Sucre, has been formally linked to the 
     assassination.

[[Page H6721]]

             3. Members of MOVICE Assassinated (Nationwide)

       Thirteen members of MOVICE have been assassinated since the 
     movement was created in 2005. Five of those were in the 
     Department of Sucre:
       1. Garibaldi Berrio Bautista, MOVICE Sucre, 10 April 2007
       2. Jose Dionisio Lozano Torralvo, MOVICE Sucre, 12 August 
     2007
       3. Carlos Burbano, MOVICE Caqueta, 8 March 2008
       4. Luis Mayusa Prada, MOVICE Arauca, 8 August 2008
       5. Walberto Hoyos, MOVICE Choco, 14 October 2008
       6. Carlos Rodolfo Cabrera, MOVICE Arauca, 28 November 2008
       7. Carmenza Gomez Romero, MOVICE Bogota, 4 February 2009
       8. Jhonny Hurtado, MOVICE Meta, 15 March 2010
       9. Nilson Ramirez, MOVICE Meta, 7 May 2010
       10. Rogelio Martinez, MOVICE Sucre, 18 May 2010
       11. Oscar Maussa, MOVICE Choco, 24 November 2010
       12. Eder Verbel Rocha, MOVICE Sucre, 23 March 2011
       13. Ana Fabricia Cordoba, MOVICE Antioquia, 7 June 2011

  I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. DREIER. I yield myself the balance of my time.
  I'd like to get the debate back to where it was. We have before us 
four pending issues. We have trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, 
South Korea, and we have the very important trade adjustment 
assistance.
  Mr. Speaker, our fellow Americans are hurting. Job creation and 
economic growth is something that Democrats and Republicans alike are 
talking about. I was listening to the words of one of the protest 
leaders up in New York. This guy was saying that the protests are about 
economic and social justice, and he said working class Americans can no 
longer be ignored.
  Now, this measure that is before us, according to the International 
Trade Commission, will create 250,000 new jobs here in the United 
States of America. I argue that, if we had had these agreements in 
place, the pain that so many of our fellow Americans are feeling at 
this moment would not be as great as it has been because, for half a 
decade, these agreements have been languishing, waiting to be 
considered.
  The last two speakers I yielded to happen to be Democrats. I am very 
proud of having worked closely together with Sam Farr and Gregory Meeks 
on these agreements. There are lots of other people who have been 
involved and who have worked tirelessly for years. Over the last two 
decades, I've had a working group that I started with former Ways and 
Means Committee Chairman Bill Archer, going all the way up now to 
working with Dave Camp and Kevin Brady and Wally Herger and others. 
There have been many people who have been involved in working with 
this. Democrats have joined with our bipartisan trade working group 
because there are Democrats and Republicans who want us to get back to 
the bipartisan approach to our global leadership role. They want to 
open up markets around the world for the United States of America; and 
with the passage of these three agreements, we're going to have access 
to $2 trillion of economic activity and to 97 million consumers.
  Mr. Speaker, we need to support this rule. We're going to have debate 
going into this evening, and we're going to have debate throughout the 
day tomorrow. Let's support the rule.
  With that, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the 
previous question on the resolution.
  The previous question was ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the resolution.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 281, 
nays 128, not voting 24, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 771]

                               YEAS--281

     Adams
     Aderholt
     Akin
     Alexander
     Amash
     Amodei
     Austria
     Bachus
     Barletta
     Bartlett
     Barton (TX)
     Bass (CA)
     Bass (NH)
     Benishek
     Berg
     Berman
     Biggert
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (UT)
     Black
     Blackburn
     Blumenauer
     Bonner
     Bono Mack
     Boren
     Boustany
     Brady (TX)
     Brooks
     Broun (GA)
     Buchanan
     Bucshon
     Buerkle
     Burgess
     Butterfield
     Calvert
     Camp
     Campbell
     Canseco
     Cantor
     Capito
     Cardoza
     Carney
     Carter
     Cassidy
     Castor (FL)
     Chabot
     Chaffetz
     Coble
     Coffman (CO)
     Cole
     Conaway
     Connolly (VA)
     Cooper
     Costa
     Cravaack
     Crawford
     Crenshaw
     Cuellar
     Culberson
     Davis (CA)
     Davis (KY)
     Denham
     Dent
     DesJarlais
     Deutch
     Diaz-Balart
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Dold
     Dreier
     Duffy
     Duncan (SC)
     Duncan (TN)
     Ellmers
     Emerson
     Eshoo
     Farenthold
     Farr
     Fincher
     Fitzpatrick
     Flake
     Fleischmann
     Fleming
     Flores
     Forbes
     Fortenberry
     Foxx
     Franks (AZ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Gardner
     Garrett
     Gerlach
     Gibbs
     Gibson
     Gingrey (GA)
     Gohmert
     Goodlatte
     Gosar
     Gowdy
     Graves (GA)
     Griffin (AR)
     Griffith (VA)
     Grimm
     Guinta
     Guthrie
     Gutierrez
     Hall
     Hanabusa
     Hanna
     Harper
     Harris
     Hartzler
     Hastings (FL)
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayworth
     Heck
     Hensarling
     Herger
     Herrera Beutler
     Himes
     Hirono
     Hoyer
     Huelskamp
     Huizenga (MI)
     Hultgren
     Hunter
     Hurt
     Inslee
     Issa
     Jackson (IL)
     Jenkins
     Johnson (GA)
     Johnson (IL)
     Johnson (OH)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Johnson, Sam
     Jordan
     Kelly
     King (IA)
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kinzinger (IL)
     Kline
     Labrador
     Lamborn
     Lance
     Landry
     Lankford
     Larsen (WA)
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Latta
     Levin
     Lewis (CA)
     LoBiondo
     Lofgren, Zoe
     Long
     Lucas
     Luetkemeyer
     Lummis
     Lungren, Daniel E.
     Mack
     Manzullo
     Marchant
     Marino
     Matheson
     Matsui
     McCarthy (CA)
     McCaul
     McClintock
     McCotter
     McDermott
     McHenry
     McKeon
     McKinley
     McMorris Rodgers
     Meehan
     Meeks
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Miller (MI)
     Miller, Gary
     Moran
     Mulvaney
     Murphy (PA)
     Myrick
     Neugebauer
     Noem
     Nugent
     Nunes
     Olson
     Owens
     Palazzo
     Paulsen
     Pearce
     Peterson
     Petri
     Pitts
     Platts
     Poe (TX)
     Pompeo
     Posey
     Price (GA)
     Quayle
     Rangel
     Reed
     Rehberg
     Reichert
     Renacci
     Ribble
     Rigell
     Rivera
     Roby
     Roe (TN)
     Rogers (AL)
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Rokita
     Rooney
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roskam
     Ross (AR)
     Ross (FL)
     Royce
     Runyan
     Rush
     Ryan (WI)
     Scalise
     Schiff
     Schilling
     Schmidt
     Schock
     Schrader
     Schwartz
     Schweikert
     Scott (SC)
     Scott, Austin
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Sewell
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Sires
     Smith (NE)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Smith (WA)
     Southerland
     Stearns
     Stivers
     Stutzman
     Sullivan
     Terry
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (PA)
     Thornberry
     Tiberi
     Tipton
     Turner (NY)
     Turner (OH)
     Upton
     Walberg
     Walden
     Webster
     West
     Westmoreland
     Whitfield
     Wilson (SC)
     Wittman
     Wolf
     Womack
     Woodall
     Yoder
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)
     Young (IN)

                               NAYS--128

     Ackerman
     Altmire
     Andrews
     Baca
     Baldwin
     Barrow
     Becerra
     Berkley
     Bishop (NY)
     Boswell
     Brady (PA)
     Braley (IA)
     Capps
     Capuano
     Carnahan
     Carson (IN)
     Chandler
     Chu
     Cicilline
     Clarke (MI)
     Clarke (NY)
     Clay
     Cleaver
     Clyburn
     Cohen
     Conyers
     Costello
     Courtney
     Critz
     Crowley
     Cummings
     Davis (IL)
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     DeLauro
     Doggett
     Donnelly (IN)
     Doyle
     Edwards
     Ellison
     Engel
     Fattah
     Filner
     Fudge
     Garamendi
     Gonzalez
     Green, Al
     Hahn
     Heinrich
     Higgins
     Hochul
     Holden
     Holt
     Honda
     Israel
     Jackson Lee (TX)
     Jones
     Kaptur
     Keating
     Kildee
     Kissell
     Kucinich
     Langevin
     Larson (CT)
     Lee (CA)
     Lewis (GA)
     Lipinski
     Loebsack
     Lowey
     Lujan
     Lynch
     Maloney
     Markey
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCollum
     McGovern
     McIntyre
     McNerney
     Michaud
     Miller (NC)
     Miller, George
     Moore
     Murphy (CT)
     Nadler
     Neal
     Olver
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor (AZ)
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Peters
     Pingree (ME)
     Price (NC)
     Quigley
     Rahall
     Reyes
     Richmond
     Rothman (NJ)
     Roybal-Allard
     Ruppersberger
     Ryan (OH)
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Sarbanes
     Schakowsky
     Scott (VA)
     Scott, David
     Serrano
     Sherman
     Shuler
     Slaughter
     Speier
     Stark
     Sutton
     Thompson (MS)
     Tierney
     Tonko
     Towns
     Tsongas
     Van Hollen
     Velazquez
     Walz (MN)
     Waters
     Watt
     Waxman
     Welch
     Woolsey
     Yarmuth

                             NOT VOTING--24

     Bachmann
     Brown (FL)
     Burton (IN)
     Frank (MA)
     Giffords
     Granger
     Graves (MO)
     Green, Gene
     Grijalva
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Kind
     Napolitano
     Nunnelee
     Paul
     Pence
     Perlmutter
     Polis
     Richardson
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Visclosky
     Walsh (IL)
     Wasserman Schultz
     Wilson (FL)

                              {time}  1900

  Mr. CUMMINGS, Ms. TSONGAS, and Messrs. GARAMENDI, COHEN, and CROWLEY 
changed their vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''

[[Page H6722]]

  Ms. ZOE LOFGREN of California and Messrs. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of 
California and SMITH of New Jersey changed their vote from ``nay'' to 
``yea.''
  So the resolution was agreed to.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
  Stated against:
  Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 771, had I been 
present, I would have voted ``nay.''

                          ____________________