[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 31 (Tuesday, February 24, 2015)]
[House]
[Pages H1103-H1108]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
MIDDLE CLASS ECONOMICS
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Zeldin). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 6, 2015, the gentleman from California (Mr.
Garamendi) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority
leader.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, about a month and a half ago, we heard
the President speak to us about the economy, about his goals for
America. He labeled his speech ``middle class economics,'' and tonight,
I want to pick this issue up once again.
We are here most every week discussing this issue, although last time
we were up here, we took up another important issue, Alzheimer's. But I
want to come back to middle class economics, why it is important. Well,
basically, it is important because it drives our economy.
The great majority of Americans want to be in the middle class, and
most of them are. Unfortunately, we have seen the decline of the middle
class, their ability to own a home, a car, to provide for their
family--but if the middle class is healthy, it will drive our economy,
and it will create jobs, so the focus on the middle class becomes very,
very important.
We can do this by strengthening their wages. If they are able to earn
more money, then they will buy the home, the car, and the economy will
grow, and other people will be able to enjoy the fruits of our economy.
I am going to focus on infrastructure in a moment, but I just want to
skip that over and go down to the other things.
Health care--who among us doesn't want to have a good health care
program, so that if we get sick or injured, we will be able to get to a
doctor, get to a hospital, get the care we need to get back on our
feet, and to once again be productive or, in our old age, be able to
enjoy our retirement?
So the affordable health care becomes really important, and here, we
[[Page H1104]]
have the Affordable Health Care Act as part of that.
Finally, we need to develop policies to grow the middle class, and
one such policy is infrastructure, which is the focus of tonight's
discussion. I want to just stay with this infrastructure issue for a
few moments, and then I am going to invite my colleague from Minnesota,
Rick Nolan, to join us here.
Let me talk about this also. The other theme, in addition to the
middle class economics, is the Make It In America theme that we have
been talking about for 4 years now. Trade, taxes, energy, labor,
education, research, and infrastructure, these are the elements that we
fold into our Make It In America agenda.
We talk about trade. There is going to be a lot of discussion about
that here in Congress over the next several months as the Trans-Pacific
Partnership comes up. Taxes, which we will pick up with the
infrastructure issue in a few moments--energy is also part of the
infrastructure issue.
Anyway, Make It In America means bringing the jobs back home,
employing Americans, doing the things that we need to do in this
country, whether it is the health care sector; the infrastructure;
building the roads, the bridges, and the like; or education. That is
the Make It In America agenda, and it is part of the middle class
economics. In fact, it is the key to it.
Why is infrastructure important? Well, there are certain things like
this, a collapsed bridge. This is on Interstate 5 in the State of
Washington. This is a bridge near the Canadian border. About 3 years
ago, it went into the river, collapsed--one of about 163,000 deficient
bridges here in the United States.
So, yep, we have got a problem. Are we going to be able to address
this problem? Well, we had better.
Actually, it is 156,000. I was a little bit overanxious there.
The American Society of Civil Engineers, who build these things, have
graded the American infrastructure, and I just want to go through it:
aviation, our airports, which I believe the Vice President, in
referring to LaGuardia, said even the developing countries have a
better airport than LaGuardia in New York City, aviation, a D; bridges,
C-plus--as I said, 156,000 deficient; dams, D; running water, D;
energy, D-plus; hazardous waste, D; inland waterways, D; levees, to
protect us from floods, D; our ports, a C; public parks and recreation,
C; our railroads, C-plus--whoa, a C-plus; our highways, a D; our
schools, that is where our kids are, a D; solid waste, we are doing
pretty well, that is a B; our transit systems, D; wastewater, a D.
Incidentally, in California, we are in the midst of a major drought,
and it is perfectly clear that the wastewater systems are inadequate.
If we were to also fund the recycling programs which could be connected
to the wastewater, we could, in southern California, over the next half
decade, create a million acre feet of new water as we recycle the water
from the fifth biggest river on the west coast of the Western
Hemisphere, the sanitation plants in southern California.
{time} 1930
So we have got some work out ahead of us.
Let me bring this home before I invite my colleague from the great
State of Minnesota to join us on this issue.
Earlier today, I was reading an article in The Sacramento Bee about
the transportation systems in Sacramento. Let me just share some of
these thoughts with you.
In Sacramento, the average commuter spends 32 hours each year stuck
in traffic. This amounts to $669 of lost productivity. That is
literally wages that could have been earned if they weren't stuck in
traffic. For all of the commuters in the Sacramento area, which I
represent, that is $834 million of commuting time. For the truckers in
the area that are trying to pass through Sacramento on Interstate 5, on
Interstate 80 or Highway 50, it is $199 million of lost productivity.
There is another alternative. Down in Riverside, a southern
California city that I once represented when I was lieutenant governor,
they want to build a 13-mile streetcar system in the city of Riverside.
It would cost about $300 million. The economic analysis that was done
on that indicates that if they were to do it, there would be a 4-to-1
return on investment. Now, you tell me which investment banker on Wall
Street wouldn't want to have a 4-to-1 return on their investment. Well,
the city of Riverside could have a 4-to-1 return on their investment of
$300 million to build that 13-mile streetcar section. That is property
values and economic development.
This morning, The Wall Street Journal published an article in which
the American Society of Civil Engineers was quoted that between 2012
and 2022, in America, because of the insufficient infrastructure--and
remember, I just read you their GPA, mostly Ds--lost sales, $1 trillion
of lost sales. For the United States, the delays will cost $3.1
trillion. And to bring it home to a single company--a big company but,
nonetheless, just one company--United Parcel Service, UPS, all of those
big brown trucks that are out there, $105 million in lost revenue.
There is a solution. The President has put forward to us, the Members
of Congress, a 6-year, $478 billion transportation plan that will be
paid for--fully paid for with the current gasoline and diesel tax not
increased, keep it the same--and going out to those American
corporations that are stiffing the American taxpayer by hiding their
profits overseas. The President says: Bring those profits home; pay
your fair share of the taxes. So there is a fully paid-for proposal
before us here in the House of Representatives for a $478 billion, 6-
year transportation program.
Now, I think our Speaker represents an area in Ohio near Kentucky,
and I believe there is a bridge in that area called the Brent Spence
Bridge. It crosses the Ohio River between Kentucky and Ohio. It was
built for 80,000 cars a day, and now there are over 200,000 cars a day
that pass over that bridge--or try to pass over that bridge--creating a
monumental traffic jam and slowing down the entire economy in that
region.
By the way, don't ever walk or drive underneath the bridge because
the concrete in the bridge is falling off. They have a nice little
safety net over the road beneath it, so perhaps, therefore, you won't
be hit by a falling piece of concrete.
So the issue for us, the Representatives of the American public, is:
Are we willing to put together a full transportation program so that
these kinds of bridge collapses are pictures of yesterday, not the
pictures of tomorrow's future?
I would like to have the gentleman from Minnesota, Mr. Rick Nolan,
join us now. If you would come on down and join us, perhaps here on the
floor, and take one of the microphones.
Mr. Nolan, you have a fascinating history here in the House of
Representatives. You were here in the early seventies as a
Representative and then decided to go back to Minnesota and build a
business, a lumber manufacturing, a timber manufacturing business. It
was very successful. Then you came back to straighten us out, bringing
all of that history to us.
Welcome, Mr. Nolan. Thank you so very much for joining us this
evening as we talk about transportation and infrastructure in America.
Mr. NOLAN. Well, thank you.
The House historian tells me that my 32-year hiatus is the longest in
the history of the House of Representatives.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, you had an opportunity to learn about the
private sector and learn about the necessity of transportation; and I
think your business was dependent on that, both to get the materials to
your lumber mill and then to export.
Mr. NOLAN. Very much so.
I also built an export trading company and did a little business all
over the globe. People asked me what I sold. I like to tell them I
sold, well, just about everything except guns and drugs, which is where
all the real money was.
It was really quite an eye-opening experience to see how the rest of
the world does business, to get a better feel and understanding for the
importance of agriculture and a better feel and understanding of
agriculture as it relates to feeding a hungry world, but infrastructure
and its importance to building the middle class here in the country, to
laying the foundation for job growth and economic growth. And to come
back here again after those years in business and in community service,
I have got to be frank with you; I feel
[[Page H1105]]
much better prepared today than I ever was to serve my district and to
serve my Nation, and I am grateful to have the opportunity to be here.
I want to particularly thank you for calling this to the attention of
the American public, the importance of infrastructure, the importance
of infrastructure to the middle class in this country, and the
importance that it brings to the fulfillment of the American Dream.
The American Dream is not everybody becoming a billionaire or a
Pulitzer Prize winner. It is about contributing. It is about having a
good job. It is about having a living wage. It is about having
some money left over at the end of the week to take your family or your
best friend and go out and have dinner or maybe wet a line and go
fishing. And, quite frankly, that is what is getting away from us.
I want to thank you for bringing to the attention of people how
transportation and infrastructure and its degradation that is taking
place is related to, quite frankly, the demise and the decline of the
middle class in this country.
The simple truth is the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting
poorer, the middle class is getting crushed, and, simultaneously, our
infrastructure is falling apart.
The gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi), you, too, have a
background in business and public service and community service that
gives you a good grasp and an understanding for the importance of all
this.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, there is no doubt about the importance of it. If
you want to build good middle class jobs, a lot of those jobs are in
the infrastructure. It may be a hardhat job out there putting up the
steel and the concrete, the ironworkers or the cement masons or the
operators of the heavy equipment. All of those are really good middle
class jobs, no doubt about it, wherever they happen to be across the
Nation. But also, in the back office, somebody has to do the
accounting; somebody has to do the design work--the architects, the
draftsmen and -women that are involved.
So these jobs permeate the entire economy. And it is absolutely true
that if we can fund--that is, pass--a 6-year, robust transportation
bill that is fully paid for, Americans would go to work in middle class
jobs. That is the first effect: people will have jobs. And in building
the infrastructure, you then lay the foundation for future economic
growth.
You have seen this in your area. I was thinking about your call for
the family to be able to enjoy the fruits of life. And I am thinking
about you have got some heavy-duty hunting country up in your area. You
are out in the backwoods of Minnesota, if I recall.
Mr. NOLAN. I am. My nearest neighbor is a couple of miles away.
Mr. GARAMENDI. And in between are bear, deer, and fish.
Mr. NOLAN. We have bear. We have duck. We have grouse. We have good
hunting and darn good fishing, too.
You mentioned the fact that I had served many years ago, quite
frankly, back in the seventies. I like to tell people I was only 10
years old at the time.
When I first got back here, I said to a number of people: Perhaps you
knew my father when he had served here back in the seventies. And there
were always a couple of old-timers in the back that would laugh. And
everyone would say: Well, what is so funny about that? And they would
say: Well, it wasn't his father; it was him.
But I have got to tell you, it was quite different. It was quite
different than it is today. I had my staff do a little survey. We found
that in the terms I served before, there was an average of about 8,000
subcommittee, full committee, and conference committee meetings here in
the Congress. What that meant was that we got together 5 days a week in
our committees. And all the diverse elements that make up America were
all represented in those meetings, and that is how we found common
ground; that is how we came together; that is how we fixed things; that
is how we got things done.
And people have to be reminded, I think, that process is important to
good government. Because now we are faced with this gridlock; we are
faced with this terrible partisanship, the seeming inability to be
productive and to get things done. I think experts that study
governance here in America are saying now that this immediate last
Congress was the most unproductive in the history of the country.
Well, guess what. When we had 8,000 committee meetings in the past,
yes, maybe around 1,000 of them were just formal hearings or, you know,
you have got to give Jack Nicklaus a gold medal and do a
reauthorization of Peanut Butter and Jelly Week. Well, guess what. This
last session of Congress, we had about 1,000 of those meetings, and
most of them were quite informal.
As you recall, Mr. Garamendi, when we started the hearings about a
year ago in the Transportation Committee because we knew that the
transportation legislation needed to be reauthorized, we had everybody
come in before that committee; and, boy, we were laying the foundation
for a good reauthorization of a transportation and infrastructure bill.
You were there every day.
By the way, I want to commend you for the leadership that you have
shown on that committee in so many areas, in so many ways.
But we had everybody, as you recall, from the head of the national
Chamber of Commerce to the heads of all the labor unions, the truckers,
retail. Everybody came before that committee.
I don't know if you recall. But I asked every one of them, I said: I
have three questions. And I remember the committee groaning, saying:
Gee, Nolan, you have only got 5 minutes. How are you going to do that?
I said: Question number one, is there anyone here on this committee
who disagrees with the notion that our infrastructure is badly in need
of repair and is falling down and dilapidated?
Nobody disagreed.
Second question, is there anybody here--of all that group that was
testifying--that disagrees with the notion that our ability to grow an
economy and create good jobs is dependent upon a good, strong
infrastructure?
Nobody disagreed, as you would recall.
And then lastly, I said: Is there anybody on this committee who
doubts that we need to find some new revenue to rebuild our
infrastructure?
And nobody disagreed.
And I said: Make a note of it, Mr. Chairman, because we have got to
write a bill here. And that is what we were there for.
You know as well as everybody else that the authorization for the
Transportation Committee to write a bill was pulled away from the
committee. Presumably, in the Speaker's office or someplace else, it
was decided that we should do a temporary reauthorization for 8 months;
and, as you recall, we borrowed money from people's private pension
funds.
{time} 1945
We are getting near that 8-month deadline again.
Mr. GARAMENDI. I think it is May 15.
Mr. NOLAN. May 15. So now working people's pension funds are short a
little money potentially, and we still haven't fixed the transportation
problem. So one of the things I want to do here tonight, and I know you
do as well, is to call upon the Speaker to let the committee do its
work. We have got a good committee. You know it as well as I do and
everybody else. There is a lot of goodwill in this Chamber among
Democrats, Republicans, conservatives, and liberals, and if we are
allowed to sit down in that committee and advance our ideas and argue
the merits of them, we will find that common ground. We will find a way
to get this country back on track with rebuilding our infrastructure.
That is what democracy is all about. Someone said to me the other day
here, and it almost broke my heart, when I was explaining this and they
said: Well, isn't it more efficient here by not using the committees? I
said: Yeah, of course, it is. The Nazis and the Communists would love
it. Democracy is a lot of hard work. There is so much goodwill in this
Chamber, and there are so many good men and women. We get along fine.
Mr. Speaker, let the process work. Let the committee do its job, and
we will get a good transportation bill, and we will rebuild this middle
class and rebuild our economy in a way that is fair to everyone.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, there is no doubt that if we were to pass--well,
we
[[Page H1106]]
don't have a choice. If we don't pass a bill in the next 2 months, 2\1/
2\ months, all public works, transportation programs, will come to a
screeching halt. There will be no more Federal money, and it will
simply stop. So we have got work to do. As you say, if the committee
could have its way, we could put together a good bill. There has been a
long history here of the transportation bill being a bipartisan bill.
We can do that.
If we don't--let me just go back through this. I get stacks and
stacks of paper, and this one caught my eye. It is entitled,
``Infrastructure Investment Creates American Jobs.'' I said: Well, that
is kind of a pretty good cover there. It has roads, bridges, ports, and
so forth. It is the Duke Center on Globalization, Governance &
Competitiveness. So it is the Duke University. Here they say:
Old and broken transportation infrastructure makes the
United States less competitive than 15 of our major trading
partners and makes manufacturers less efficient in getting
goods to market.
Underinvestment costs the United States over 900,000 jobs,
including more than 97,000 American manufacturing jobs.
Maximizing American-made materials when rebuilding
infrastructure has the potential to create even more jobs.
Relying on American-made inputs can also mitigate safety
concerns related to large-scale outsourcing.
I am with you, Duke--Duke University. I am from the west coast, and I
have problems with some of these east coast athletic teams, but, hey, I
am with them on this one. Infrastructure creates American jobs.
This is something that I have used over and over again. This is from
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics. He is the former
economics adviser for Senator John McCain when the Senator ran for the
United States Presidency. He put it this way:
For every dollar invested in infrastructure investment,
$1.57 is pumped back into the American economy with well
paying, middle class American jobs.
This is just really critically important. The question for us, and
the reason we are here on the floor and the reason we are talking about
this issue of middle class economics and now transportation, is that we
are up against another timeline here. We have got the transportation
cliff, we have got a bridge that is collapsed, and the question is:
Will this Congress provide a transportation bill that can bridge this
collapsed bridge and rebuild it? I think we can. I know we must.
My fear--my fear--Mr. Nolan, is that we have become really, really
good at something we used to play when I was a kid, and it is called
kick the can. We have become really good at kicking the can down the
road rather than just coming to grips with the reality that we have to
have a long-term transportation bill.
There are many reasons for it. These are long-term projects, and over
the last I guess almost 7 years now we have not had a long-term bill.
The longest one has been a 2-year bill that passed 2 years ago, and
that doesn't give the planners enough time to plan these long-term
projects or the assurance that the money, the Federal money, will be
there; $478 billion, 6 years, fully paid for, doesn't increase the
gasoline or diesel tax but requires American corporations that have run
away from their obligation to this Nation by hiding their profits
overseas to bring those profits back and tax them accordingly.
That is the President's plan. It is all there for us. Can we do it? I
don't think we have any choice. I think we have to do it, Mr. Nolan. I
don't know how you feel about it from Minnesota, but I know in
California that we are in the midst of a major drought, and this is
going to be the fourth year of a major drought in California, and it
has been at least 30 years since there have been any major water
infrastructure investments in California. Our economy in California is
paying dearly for it. About one-third of the rice fields in my district
are fallow. If you go further south into the San Joaquin Valley it is
probably about the same percentage. Cantaloupes, cotton, and other
kinds of row crops, tomatoes, are not being planted.
We have to have in California investments in our water
infrastructure. One of the things that my Republican colleague--and Mr.
Nolan, you spoke about bipartisanship--my Republican colleague from my
area, Mr. LaMalfa, he and I are going to introduce tomorrow a piece of
legislation to build a very large, offstream reservoir called Sites
Reservoir. It is about 1.8, 1.9 million acre-feet of water. If that had
been built a decade ago, the drought would still be very difficult.
There would be a lot of trouble and a lot of lost opportunity. But at
least we would have a very significant amount of water available stored
in that reservoir to help us along. So we are going to do that. That is
a major infrastructure program, and we will see if we can participate
here at the Federal level with the participation that the State of
California voters have already approved, a $7.6 billion bond act in
which there is money for storage, both aquifer, underground, as well as
surface storage, probably including the Sites Reservoir.
So there are things we can do. And this is a piece of legislation, we
will present it to the Congress and the Senate and hopefully it will
move along. Mr. Nolan, I am sure that you have projects up in your area
that are important, and perhaps you would like to pick up here.
Mr. NOLAN. I sure do, Mr. Garamendi. I think the fact that our
bridges are falling down could not be more evidenced than in Minnesota,
where we had the catastrophic collapse of the I-35 bridge, which killed
a number of people and did obviously irreparable damage to their lives
and many others.
Mr. GARAMENDI. This was the bridge across the Mississippi in
Minneapolis?
Mr. NOLAN. Yes. Very tragic. I have got several thousand bridges in
my district alone, and several hundred of them have been certified as
obsolete and in disrepair, in need of repair, and, of course, there are
thousands and thousands of those bridges across the country. I held
three transportation hearings back in Minnesota here recently, and the
unanimity of agreement on what needs to be done is really quite unique.
I mean, generally, if you get 50 people in a room in Minnesota you will
have at least 40, 45 opinions.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, in California, you would have 150 opinions if
you had 50 people.
Mr. NOLAN. Well, everybody agreed, as you pointed out, we need a
long-term plan so that you can plan accordingly, and then do it
responsibly in the most efficient and economical way. Everyone came up
and said that we need it for our economic growth and our business, and
they understand that, as you were pointing out earlier, good
infrastructure is the foundation, it is the foundation for every single
successful economy in this world. I have said to people on occasion: If
you don't want to pay any taxes, you can move to Zaire. I think they
have about 2 miles of roads and no taxes, but you had better bring a
little army with you to protect you.
So the other thing, of course--it has become real apparent--is the
congestion. You must see that. We are seeing it in Minnesota. People
are spending endless hours sitting in their cars trying to get to and
from work, time that they could have used to sleep in an extra hour,
get home in time for dinner with their family.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Work with the kids on their homework.
Mr. NOLAN. Of course, you mentioned the collapse of the bridge. The
other thing they want to see is some bipartisanship. I would like to
remind our colleagues, as well as the folks back home, because you and
I were there, and we were part of a couple of the few instances where,
in the last session of Congress, the process was allowed to work. It
was cumbersome, and it was contentious, but at the end of the day, we
came together, and we passed a good, bipartisan farm bill. You and I
were part of that.
Mr. GARAMENDI. You were on the committee.
Mr. NOLAN. As well as our colleagues here on both sides of the aisle,
and then we were allowed on the water resources bill, and we were able
to put together a good bill. Not everybody got everything they wanted,
but everybody was a part of it. They had a chance to advance their
ideas. We had open rules. If you want to have an amendment or a good
idea, you got a chance to advance it and get a vote on it. People want
to see more of that as well.
Then there is one thing that doesn't get mentioned very often, and I
don't
[[Page H1107]]
mind bringing it up, and a number of my folks back home brought it up.
And that is--you mentioned the cost of not doing anything. Well, that
would be devastating for America. It would be just devastating for our
economy. I pray to God that would never happen. But our hope is, of
course, it will be done in a responsible way that solves the problems
and fixes these things. But there is a little factor. I have about a 5-
mile dirt road to my farm, and I went through two front ends on my new
pickup truck until it became part of a local effort to pave the roads.
My road got paved. That was 10 years ago. I am still driving the same
pickup truck, and I haven't lost any front ends.
You know the old saying, you pay me now or you pay me later. Boy, I
tell you, these potholes and these washboard roads and bridges falling
down, there is a heavy price to be paid for not fixing, maintaining,
and upkeeping our roads and our bridges.
Mr. GARAMENDI. There is no doubt about it--you can ruin your car real
fast. That 5-mile road was a county road, I assume, it was not your
personal road?
Mr. NOLAN. No, no. It was not my personal road. No, no, no. It was a
combination county and township. But it helped to have been on the
township planning committee.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Whatever it took, you got it done.
A couple of things that I think are also important as we go about
this infrastructure, and that is: Who is going to provide the material?
I want to give you an example of why it is important that we honor the
Buy America laws that exist today. We have had Buy America requirements
in laws for almost 50 years now, and those requirements simply say that
if it is our taxpayer money or your taxpayer money, then it should be
used to buy American-made products and materials.
Now, out in California, we have the San Francisco Bay Bridge. This is
about a--what do we have here--$3.9 billion project. Excuse me--it is
not $3.9 billion; it is about $6 billion. It is $3.9 billion over
budget. This project replaces the old San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge
connecting the two cities across the bay that collapsed during the 1989
earthquake. The bridge went out to bid, and the contractor said: I can
use Chinese steel, and it will be 10 percent cheaper if we use Chinese
rather than American-made steel. So the State waived the Buy America
requirements. They didn't use them. They went out and bought Chinese
steel.
Well, they got 3,000 jobs in China and overbudget and poor material.
In fact, today it is reported in the California newspapers that one of
the major bolts, which is a 25-foot bolt, and I don't know, it must be
several inches across, that holds down the main pier to the bridge is
cracking. So we have a problem here.
{time} 2000
Now, New York is undertaking a bridge across the Hudson River. It is
called the Tappan Zee Bridge, and it is made with American steel.
American steel is being used. The total cost is $3.9 billion--notice,
that is the cost of the overrun in California. There are 7,728 American
jobs, and it is 100 percent made in America.
When we go about this infrastructure, I want to make very, very sure
that we maintain the Buy America requirements. We can do it.
I am going to put up one more placard here. This is one of my
favorites. This is a brand-new 100 percent American-made electric
locomotive for the Washington, D.C., to Boston Northeast corridor.
About 70 to 80 of these will be made.
In the American Recovery Act--you remember the stimulus bill--
somebody wrote in $700 million for Amtrak to buy new locomotives, and
they said: 100 percent American-made.
General Electric looked at it, other companies looked at it, and a
German company looked at this $700 million or so and 70 to 80
locomotives, 100 percent American-made, and they go: We can do that.
So Siemens, a major international German company, had a manufacturing
plant in Sacramento, and they set about to make 100 percent American-
made locomotives. They built double the size of their factory, hired
several hundred new workers, and they went out across the United States
to find all the parts.
They are now building 100 percent American-made locomotives, a major
infrastructure project, great for American jobs, great for the future.
This is one of the first ones that came off the lot.
Now, my final point and then I want to turn this back to my colleague
from Minnesota. Today, on the east coast, Amtrak is going out to bid
for 28 new high-speed train sets to travel between Washington, D.C.,
and Boston at maybe half again as fast as the current trains, so you
can zip between the two cities--Washington, D.C., and New York--in, I
don't know, 2 hours or less. They want--Amtrak--wants a waiver from the
Buy America provisions, and I am saying: No way, period.
This is American taxpayer money that is going to be used. You are
going to buy America, we are going to make those train sets in America,
and we can do it. Yes, we can--si se puede.
We can do it. We can build these things in America and create good
middle class jobs in America, just like Siemens is doing in Sacramento
when they are making 100 percent American-made locomotives in
Sacramento.
This is an opportunity for us as we build our infrastructure, as we
put together the surface transportation plan, as we take the Water
Resources Reform and Development Act. Keep in mind and always keep in
place the Buy America provisions, so that your tax money is used on
American-made equipment and employing Americans making those things.
I am sure this is important up in your area, as well as it is in
Sacramento, California, on the edge of my district, Mr. Nolan. I know
it is important to me, and I think it is important to Americans, that
we use our tax money to buy American-made products that are employing
Americans.
Mr. NOLAN. Well, indeed, it is. I represent Minnesota's Iron Range,
the largest iron mines anywhere in the United States. We are dependent
upon a good, strong market for U.S. steel and for Minnesota-made
taconite and processed iron ore.
I was so delighted to join you and others recently in petitioning the
U.S. Department of Commerce and the International Trade Commission to
curtail the importation of cheap Korean steel.
The market for steel in America is very, very good. The problem is
that American steel is only providing about 70 to 75 percent of it.
Close to over 30 percent of it is being foreign steel that is brought
in. Foreign steel that, by the way, is subsidized by the foreign
governments.
Our steelworkers, iron mineworkers, can compete with anybody in the
world, anybody in America, quite frankly, we can compete with anybody,
but it has got to be fair trade. If they have government-subsidized,
below market cheap steel coming in here, that is unfair trade.
Guess what, there is about a dozen steel mills left here in America,
and there is about 50,000 workers here. If we don't find a way to
curtail the importation of this cheap, subsidized steel, we are going
to put all 12 of those steel companies out of business, we are going to
put 50,000 steelworkers out of business and countless thousands of
mining processors and workers in this country.
If we are talking about the middle class, we better start insisting
on fair trade in this country, insisting--as you have so eloquently
pointed out here--the significance and the importance of making it in
America with U.S. steel when we are talking roads, bridges, railroads,
pipelines, and all the rest.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, here it is, the San Francisco Bay Bridge built
with Chinese steel. They built a brand-new, one of the most advanced
steel mills, making one of the most advanced types of steel in China--
3,000 Chinese jobs, zero American.
Then the Tappan Zee Bridge in New York, American steel--probably some
of that iron ore from your district goes into making that steel.
Mr. NOLAN. Oh, it did, no doubt.
Mr. GARAMENDI. No doubt about it.
Mr. NOLAN. And do you know what, John, I found in international
trade, when it comes to quality, American steel is considered to be the
best quality.
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Now, what is the importance of that? Well, it might be the difference
between a bridge falling down or standing; it might mean the difference
between a pipeline breaking and polluting a wetland versus not doing
that.
There is an economic reason here, there is a reason for the middle
class, there is a reason for our economy, there is a reason for safety,
there is a reason for health, there is a reason for environment, there
are so many good reasons to make it in America, John.
Mr. GARAMENDI. You were just singing my song there. This Bay Bridge,
why was it $3.9 billion over? Because the steel was unsatisfactory. It
was low quality, it had cracks in it, it didn't meet the requirements,
they had to go back and redo the welds--many, many issues. You are
absolutely correct about quality, as well as about the jobs in America.
We are going to make it in America. We have an opportunity here.
Can I take up one more issue?
Mr. NOLAN. Well, I am going to depart, but I really want to thank you
for this session here and bringing it to the attention of our
colleagues and people all across this country that care about America,
care about good-paying middle class jobs, and want to see us do what we
have got to do here to come together, fix this thing, and continue the
great progress that America has enjoyed.
A big part of being an American is paying it forward, and now, it is
time for us to step up and do what we have to do for the next
generation.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Nolan, I thank you so very much. The folks in the
northern Minnesota area are blessed to have you return after a 32-year
hiatus. You came back with a fire in your belly, and you are ready to
go.
Mr. NOLAN. Well, I am honored and thrilled and glad to be here.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you so very much for joining us this evening.
I want to bring up just one more issue, and then we will call it a
night. America is blessed with a lot of energy. We have seen a
resurgence of American energy here in the United States. We have seen
us go from an importing Nation--we can be an exporting Nation.
One of the things that the American gas industry wants to do is to
export a strategic national asset, that is our natural gas. It has
allowed us to have one of the lower energy prices in the world.
That has allowed for a resurgence of manufacturing in the United
States. There are other factors. Clearly, the ability to have low-
priced natural gas is one of the ingredients in the resurgence of
American manufacturing.
Now, the gas industry wants to import a lot of gas so they can get
two or three times more for the gas overseas. I want to be really
careful here, I don't want to drive up the price of natural gas, but if
we are going to export this strategic national asset, then we ought to
consider two other strategic issues for the United States.
One of them is the merchant marines. These are the American sailors
and American ships. Our military is absolutely dependent on the
merchant marines. We ship a lot of things through the air on the big C-
5As and the C-17s, but it is a small percentage of what we need if we
go to Iraq or any other part of the world with our military. The
merchant marines have historically, from the very earliest days of this
Nation, been one of the key strategic assets in the United States.
A third strategic asset is the U.S. Navy and the shipyards that build
the naval ships. Those shipyards are absolutely critical. If we didn't
have them, would we go to China to have them build our aircraft
carriers and our submarines? I don't think so. The shipyards are a
strategic asset, absolutely essential for American defense.
You have got these three things: the natural gas, a strategic asset;
the merchant marines; and the shipbuilding.
Here is a key to American jobs, and that is, if we are ever to export
natural gas, it will be done in liquefied natural gas. You take the
natural gas, you compress it into a liquid, and you put it on an LNG--
liquefied natural gas--ship. This is an example of one liquefied
natural gas ship.
Sometime this year, a company--Cheniere--located in Texas will begin
exporting LNG from a facility in Texas. They will need about 100 ships
to export the full capacity of that LNG export facility. My sense of
this is let us use that export of a strategic national asset to build
and to grow the other two strategics.
We should require that any LNG shipped from the United States be
shipped on American-made tankers with American crews, thereby lifting
up the ability of our Nation to grow its economy and to maintain its
strategic defense industries--shipbuilding and the merchant marines--at
the same time we ship and export a strategic asset.
What does it mean? It means that the shipyards in America in the next
two decades would be busy. American workers would be in those
shipyards, they would be making the ships, so it would be the
shipbuilders.
You can imagine what could happen in the ports around the United
States--in Baltimore, in the south coast, along the gulf coast, and in
California, San Diego, up in Washington, and even San Francisco--an
opportunity to build our economy with, once again, infrastructure, a
different kind of infrastructure, this is moving infrastructure, the
great ships that will be all across the oceans of this Nation and in
the harbors around the United States, American ships, American-built
ships, American sailors, exporting American liquefied natural gas.
Si se puede--yes, we can. We can make it in America. We can rebuild
the American economy. We can focus on middle class economics with the
infrastructure systems that we must build, the foundation for future
economic growth, and the foundation for American jobs today.
Make it in America, build America, build our ports, our water
systems, our highways, our bridges, our airports, our sanitation
systems. Let us have the American Society of Civil Engineers come back
with an A-plus rating when they look at our airports, an A-plus rating
when they look at our rail lines, our transit lines, when they look at
our transit systems, when they look at our waste disposal systems. We
don't want to be a backwater.
This is America. We are the people that can build for the future. All
it takes is the Senate and the House to pass a 6-year surface
transportation bill and infrastructure bills that are fully funded,
that provide the foundation for middle class jobs, middle class
economics, putting Americans back to work, and building this Nation's
future.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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