[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 74 (Thursday, May 14, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2899-S2908]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
IRS BUREAUCRACY REDUCTION AND JUDICIAL REVIEW ACT
______
AMERICA GIVES MORE ACT OF 2015
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will
proceed to the consideration of H.R. 1295 and H.R. 644 en bloc, which
the clerk will report.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (H.R. 1295) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of
1986 to improve the process for making determinations with
respect to whether organizations are exempt from taxation
under section 501(c)(4) of such Code.
A bill (H.R. 644) to amend the Internal Revenue Service of
1986 to permanently extend and expand the charitable
deduction for contributions of food inventory.
Thereupon, the Senate proceeded to consider the bills en bloc.
Amendments Nos. 1223 and 1224
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Hatch
amendments, amendment No. 1223 to H.R. 1295 and amendment No. 1224 to
H.R. 644, are considered and agreed to.
(The amendment (No. 1223) in the nature of a substitute is printed in
the Record of May 13, 2015, under ``Text of Amendments.'')
(The amendment (No. 1224) in the nature of a substitute is printed in
the Record of May 13, 2015, under ``Text of Amendments.'')
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the time until 12
noon will be equally divided in the usual form.
[[Page S2900]]
The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, today, at this moment, we begin the debate
on one of the most important bills to come in front of the Senate this
year, to guarantee that Americans can find a more level playing field
as we compete in the world economy to show that Americans should not be
patsies for other countries that are cheating and altering records and
information they submit to trade authorities.
This is an opportunity to close an 85-year-old loophole that has
allowed us to import products produced by slave labor and child labor
and to fix our currency system so countries and their companies,
especially in East Asia and South Asia--mostly East Asia--cannot
continue to cheat and sell into our country with a bonus and penalize
us when we try to sell our products to their countries.
This body delivered one strong message this week which was
unprecedented. I can't think of the last time the Senate spoke with
such an emphatic voice on a trade issue. The simple message: We cannot
have trade promotion without trade enforcement.
We should not be passing new agreements while doing nothing, which
the Senate tried to do on Tuesday, but the Senate stood up and said no.
We should not be passing new agreements while doing nothing to enforce
existing laws and support American companies dealing with unfair
competition.
We need to stand up particularly for our small businesses, which are
always hurt to a much greater degree than large businesses. When a
large company in Cleveland, Toledo or Lima shuts down production and
moves overseas to Xi'an, Beijing or Wuhan, China, so they can get a tax
break from our government--amazingly enough, this body will not close
that tax loophole--and sell products back to our country, that
company's bottom line may be a bit better, but the supply chain for
those large companies--the companies in our communities in Lima,
Toledo, Mansfield, and Wooster--that sell to those big companies have
lost their biggest customers in far too many cases. Those businesses go
out of business, those workers get laid off, those plants close, and we
know what happens. That is why we especially need to stand up for those
small businesses that play by the rules and are drowning from a set of
imports from countries that manipulate their currency and practice
illegal dumping. Dumping is when companies subsidize water, capital,
land, labor costs or other inputs, such as energy, and sell under the
real cost of production into the United States--that kind of illegal
dumping.
It is one thing to talk about statistics, but I want to stop and
think about the costs of imports to our companies, communities, and
families.
In the State of Pennsylvania, as the Presiding Officer knows,
especially between Pittsburgh and Philly or Western Pennsylvania, the
area I am more familiar with because I represent the adjoining State,
we see time after time companies in small towns--when a company shuts
down in a place like Jackson, OH, or Chillicothe, OH, so often because
of the size of the town, both the husband and wife each lose their jobs
because they both work at that company, their entire family income is
wiped out, and they are likely to lose their home to foreclosure. We
know all of those problems that happen because we don't enforce our
trade rules. That is why I want us to stop and think about the real
costs to families, communities, and companies.
In Ohio, we have seen how dumping by Korean companies has hurt our
steel industry. Neither President Bush nor President Obama has stepped
up on trade the way each had promised in their campaigns, and neither
has stepped up the way that they should to preserve our workers, our
businesses, and our livelihoods. We both promised, on Korea,
thousands--that there would be tens of thousands of new jobs, billions
in increased exports for our companies. Yet the reality of the Korea
trade agreement was absolutely the opposite of that. We had major job
loss and a major loss in the import-export ratio because of that South
Korea trade agreement they pushed on the U.S. Congress, and the people
here too willingly passed.
Natural gas production has increased demand. I will explain Korea for
a moment. Natural gas production has increased demand for the world-
class tubular steel made in plants such as U.S. Steel in Lorain,
Youngstown, and Trumbull County. Tubular steel is the steel piping that
is particularly strong and durable. It is subjected to great pressure
and great heat as they drill for natural gas--in so-called fracking--or
they drill for oil.
Mr. President, 8,000 workers in 22 States make these Oil Country
Tubular Goods. Each one of those jobs supports another seven positions
in the supply chain. We know when we talk about manufacturing, it is
never just the manufacturing jobs, as important as they are, it is the
jobs in the entire supply that go into the assembly of the airplane or
the automobile or the steel production of Oil Country Tubular Goods.
These producers increasingly lose business to foreign competitors that
are not playing by the rules. Imports for OCTG, Oil Country Tubular
Goods, have doubled since 2008. By some measures, imports account for
somewhat more than 50 percent of the pipes being used by companies
drilling for oil and gas in the United States.
Korea has one of the world's largest steel industries, but get this,
not one of these pipes that Korea now dumps in the United States--
illegally subsidized--is ever used in Korea for drilling because Korea
has no domestic oil or gas production. In other words, Korea has
created this industry only for exports and has been successful because
they are not playing fair. So their producers are exporting large
volumes to the United States, the most open and attractive market in
the world, at below-market prices. That is clear evidence that our
workers and manufacturers are being cheated, and it should be
unacceptable to the Members of this body. It hurts our workers, our
communities, and our country. It is time to stop it.
I toured Lorain's best U.S. Steel plant in 2013 and saw the No. 6
quench and temper finishing line, which was part of a $100 million
expansion project.
The naysayers who talk about our country, workers, and businesses say
we cannot compete because we are not up-to-date or our workers are not
producing--all the whining from these naysayers who support these trade
policies is insulting to our workers, insulting to our communities, and
insulting to our small businesses. They say we are not modern enough.
Well, look at the investment. I have seen the $100 million investment
in Lorain, for instance, and what that means. The first time in the
history of steel production in this world, ArcelorMittal workers
created about 1 ton about 5 years ago. When they passed this threshold,
1 person-hour created 1 ton of steel. They are the most productive
steelworkers in the world, working in the most productive steel company
in the world.
The expansion project with Lorain's U.S. Steel plant was made
possible, in part, because we were able to crack down on Chinese steel
pipe imports that flooded the market with illegal and cheap products.
They made this investment because we won that trade case. Then, along
came Korea to again try to inflict the same damage on our producers and
our workers. It is clear that once again we need to ensure that other
Nations don't unfairly dump steel into the U.S. market.
Last year, I visited the same plant and joined in with workers,
managers, and union leaders to send one message: It is time for America
to stand up to these lawbreakers; pure and simple, strip it all away--
these countries are lawbreakers.
Here is the bad news: In January, U.S. Steel--in part because of
Korea's dumping--announced 614 temporary layoffs at the plant in Lorain
on Lake Erie. Those layoffs began in March.
I spoke on the floor before about one of the U.S. steelworkers I met,
Ryan, who has been out of work for weeks. He has four kids at home and
doesn't know when or if he will be back at work. Will his home be
foreclosed down the road if he can't go back to work? He has played by
the rules. He has been living a responsible life, by taking care of his
kids, paying his mortgage, engaged in the union and community as a
good, strong, productive worker. There are hundreds more like Ryan in
Lorain and around Ohio.
In March, Republic Steel in Lorain announced 200 temporary layoffs. I
say
[[Page S2901]]
``temporary'' because the company is hopeful that our government will
enforce trade rules and that the dumping of steel will abate a bit.
TMK is one of the largest producers of oil country tubular goods in
the world, with a facility in Brookfield, OH, north of Youngstown.
Since 2008, the company has invested $2 billion in their U.S.
operations. They are keeping up on technology and modernizing their
plant with very productive workers. But how do they compete with Korea
or China or other nations that are cheating?
Other companies make similar investments to stay on the cutting edge,
but instead of expanding production to keep up with increasing demand,
these companies operate under tighter and tighter margins and lay off
workers. Last week, TMK announced plans to reduce operating hours at
three of its facilities and completely idled another one.
I visited Byer Steel in Cincinnati. I spoke with Mr. Byer just
yesterday when I met with some steel company executives, many of them
from small businesses like his, where I first announced the Level the
Playing Field Act to his company in Cincinnati.
American companies--Byer, TMK, U.S. Steel, Republic Steel, so many
others--know firsthand that they are not in a fair fight. These
manufacturers across Ohio and all over our country suffer enough from
unfair trade practices distorting the market. It is their workers who
suffer even more. Think about what even a temporary layoff can do to a
family. They are facing mounting bills, facing mounting uncertainty.
They may have to start to turn to credit cards and payday lenders to
get by, and then the downward spiral begins.
I don't think too many in this body who are dressed like this and who
have good-paying jobs and titles and far too often an adoring staff end
up--we don't think much about this, but think about the laid-off worker
who has for 7 years--she and her husband have lived in Lorain, where I
used to live, which is an industrial city west of Cleveland--they have
lived in Lorain and paid their mortgage. They are involved in their
kids' activities in soccer and school and go to the programs at school.
They are living lives the way we hope they would. But then she loses
her good-paying, 18-dollar-an-hour job. She has a mortgage she meets
every month. She has bills she pays every month. Then she loses her
job. She faces the uncertainty of what happens next, and she faces a
sharply declined income. At some point, her kids understand their mom
lost her job and their dad's hours have been cut back. Then they face
the question--and this is what we don't think much about in this body,
people who dress like us and make good incomes and have good benefits
and have a staff who helps them--then she has to sit down with her kids
and say: We may lose our home because we can't keep up with these
bills. It is not because they speculated, not because they stole, not
because they are morally inadequate in some ways; simply because they
lost their job.
My State--and the Presiding Officer's State is not too far behind
this, I don't think--my State for 14 years in a row had more
foreclosures than the year before. That is not because Ohioans are
irresponsible; it is because Ohioans have lost so many of these
manufacturing jobs. They were paying their bills and meeting their
obligations and raising their kids, and then all of a sudden they
couldn't.
So they have to face their 12-year-old daughter and say: Honey, we
are going to have to move. We can't afford to keep this house anymore.
I don't know where we are going to move. I don't know what school you
are going to go to. I am sorry.
I don't think people around this place think very much about the
human face of these kinds of decisions. That is why this is so
important.
We can do something about this. When jobs are lost due to cheap,
flooded, illegal imports and at the same time we aren't increasing our
exports, we need to do all we can to stop this practice and protect our
workers.
The other side will say we are increasing our exports. We are a bit,
but the imports are much higher in almost every one of these cases.
That is why we need to pass this Customs bill that incorporates the
Level the Playing Field Act to crack down on foreign companies that are
cheating. We welcome competition. We are a competitive country. We
succeed in competing among ourselves and around the world. But it has
to be fair; it has to be a level playing field. That is why the Level
the Playing Field Act, title V of this Customs bill, is so very
important.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time during the
quorum calls be equally divided between the parties.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BROWN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. UDALL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. UDALL. Thank you, Mr. President.
PATRIOT Act
Today, I rise to express my longstanding concerns about the PATRIOT
Act and in particular section 215, which is set to expire on June 1. A
major use of this section--the bulk collection of Americans' phone
records--has just been ruled illegal by the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the Second Circuit. If we didn't already have enough concern about
reauthorizing section 215, this decision should raise alarm bells. Yet,
the majority leader is asking us to act quickly to reauthorize this law
unchanged for another 5 years.
Without significant reforms to the law, I cannot support an extension
of any length of time, and I urge my colleagues to listen to the court
and listen to the numerous oversight groups from within the
administration and the millions of citizens who are saying that
Congress needs to rethink whether this program is violating our rights
in the name of keeping us safe.
Ben Franklin was very fond of saying, ``Those who give up liberty in
the name of security deserve neither.'' That is where we are today.
Congress passed the PATRIOT Act over a decade ago after the 9/11
terrorist attacks. Our Nation was devastated. Our security was at
stake. But this legislation was hasty, it was far-reaching, and it
undermined the constitutional right to privacy of law-abiding citizens.
It still does.
I have made my opposition clear in the years since 2001. The major
advocates of this law--primarily former President Bush and his key
national security officials--used a potent combination of fear and
patriotism to drive this bill through. I was one of only 66 Members to
vote against the PATRIOT Act in the House of Representatives. I also
voted against the reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act in 2006 and the
FISA Amendments Act of 2008.
In 2011, I opposed once again the extension of three controversial
provisions of the PATRIOT Act: roving wiretaps, government access to
``any tangible items,'' such as library and business records, and the
surveillance of targets that are not connected to any identified
terrorist group.
Back in 2001, I said on the House floor that I was unable to support
this bill because it does not strike the right balance between
protecting our liberties and providing for the security of our
citizens. I went on to say: The saving grace here is that the sunset
provision forces us to come back and to look at these issues again when
heads are cooler and when we are not in the heat of battle.
That is exactly what we should do. To govern in a post-9/11 world, we
have to strike the right balance, to fight terrorism without trampling
our Constitution. We can do both. The Bill of Rights was established
immediately following a war. Our Founders knew the tension between
freedom and security. Our Nation was founded on the right of individual
liberty, in stark contrast to the long tradition of total sovereign
authority of most other governments.
I strongly believe we should not force through a reauthorization of
the PATRIOT Act without a hard look at the long-term ramifications of
the law. We must look at how the law is being used for things such as
the collection of all Americans' phone records. We must consider
whether that use is necessary
[[Page S2902]]
to keep us safe and whether it is in line with the Constitutional
rights we are sworn to uphold.
I urge our colleagues not to be swayed by the false argument that
this provision must be reauthorized urgently, that we will be
vulnerable to attack if we let it expire--another false argument.
Here is the reality. This provision is being used to sweep up the
phone calls of all Americans across this country. Yet there is zero
conclusive evidence that it has kept us safe from attack.
What we do have, however, is ample evidence that the PATRIOT Act,
section 215, has been used to violate the privacy of everyday
Americans. I believe it has violated the Constitution. I certainly
agree with the Federal court of appeals which last week ruled that the
bulk phone record collection goes far beyond what Congress intended
when the law was passed.
We have a decade of hindsight. Let's be honest in this debate and
let's be thorough. The entire law bears careful scrutiny. Senators Lee
and Leahy have introduced the USA FREEDOM Act to reform the law while
reauthorizing the expiring provisions. I commend their efforts, but I
think we can go even further.
The House also overwhelmingly passed its version of the USA FREEDOM
Act just yesterday. It deserves Senate consideration. Congress has a
duty for robust oversight, to ensure real constitutional privacy rights
are upheld. I pushed for this from when I was in the House. I advocated
then for the creation of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight
Board, also called PCLOB.
In June 2013, after details about NSA's bulk collection program were
made public, I led a bipartisan call for the PCLOB to conduct an
independent review. Their review assessed the impact of NSA's spying
program on Americans' constitutional rights and civil liberties. The
Board concluded what many Americans had feared: One, that the spying
program is an unconstitutional intrusion on their privacy right, and,
two, that it has almost no impact on safety.
The Board's oversight role is crucial. Its independent evaluation of
section 215 demonstrates why. It has an important job, and it requires
more support so it can do its job. That is why yesterday Senator Wyden
and I reintroduced the Strengthening Privacy, Oversight, and
Transparency Act, or SPOT Act. Our bill, with bipartisan cosponsors in
the House, would strengthen the Board. This is key to real oversight,
and it should be included as part of any reauthorization of the PATRIOT
Act.
The SPOT Act extends the Board's authority to play a watchdog role
over surveillance conducted for purposes beyond counterterrorism. It
also allows the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board to issue
subpoenas without having to wait for the Justice Department to issue
them. It makes the Board member's positions full-time.
Finally, it makes the Board an authorized recipient for whistleblower
complaints for employees in the intelligence community, so they can
take concerns to an independent organization, one that understands the
intelligence community. I know we must protect the Nation from future
attacks. But there must also be balance. We cannot give up our
constitutional protections in the name of security. To do so does not
protect our Constitution nor does it increase our security.
We need to have a serious debate about these issues and allow
Senators to offer amendments. This is important to the American people,
to our security, and to our liberties. Congress cannot just leave town
and leave this work undone.
I voted against the PATRIOT Act and the FISA Act amendments, because
they unduly infringed on the guaranteed rights of our citizens. I
believe that time has shown that to be true, and the time has come to
correct it. We all value the work of our intelligence community. Their
efforts are vital to our Nation's security. But I believe these
amendments are crucial.
We can protect our citizens and their constitutional rights. We acted
in haste before. It was a mistake then. It would be a mistake now to
approve a straight reauthorization of that law. We need to take the
time this time to get it right.
I see Senator Wyden is on the floor.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, today the Senate is formally kicking off
the trade debate here in the Senate. What I intend to do, starting
today and in the days ahead, is to come back to what I think needs to
be the central statement of this discussion; that is, the NAFTA
playbook. The playbook for trade in the 1990s is gone. It is a new day
in trade policy.
So I have summarized why the trade promotion act is not the trade
policy of the 1990s and is not the North American Free Trade Agreement.
What we are going to do today is essentially start with the question of
how vigorous trade enforcement ought to be at the forefront of
America's trade policy in 2015 and beyond, and how our new approach on
enforcement is different than the policy of the 1990s.
The reality is, we can pass trade agreements full of lofty goals and
principles. You can amass all of the enforcement ideas you might want,
but it does not do any good if you do not have real enforcement tools
and you make sure that they are not locked in a shed.
In my view, that has been happening for way, way too long. The status
quo on trade enforcement simply no longer does the job. As I have
listened for many months to Senators on both sides of the aisle, I
believe there is widespread recognition that our approach to trade,
particularly trade enforcement, has to change, because without that
change, we are not going to have the best possible path to creating
more good-paying jobs for our people in a modern and globally
competitive economy.
The bottom line is that those trade policies in the 1990s did very
little--really nothing--to ensure strong enforcement of our trade laws
to protect the American worker from the misdeeds of trade cheats. This
bill is designed to take on the universe of aggressive tactics that our
competitors have used. It upgrades trade enforcement laws to meet
today's challenges.
What we have seen in recent years is that there are some overseas who
play cat-and-mouse games with our Customs agents, using shell
companies, fraudulent records, and sophisticated schemes. Then they
bully--bully--American businesses into relocating factories and jobs or
surrendering valuable intellectual property. Too often our companies
are spied on, and trade enforcers may, in effect, be victimized by
those who steal secrets and dodge accountability.
Our competitors often mask their activities by obscuring paper trails
and perpetrating outright fraud. Now, our challenge--and I know my
colleague the Presiding Officer has seen this as a member of the
Finance Committee--is to get out in front of these schemes that I have
just described. The enforcement legislation before the Senate is about
guaranteeing that the United States has a queen on the chess board, no
matter what competitive tactic it faces.
That starts with a proposal I first offered years ago called the
ENFORCE Act. Now, the North American Free Trade Agreement did nothing
to stop foreign companies that cheat and evade duties by concealing
their identities and shipping their products on untraceable routes.
That is the way it used to be. That is why this legislation is not
the North American Free Trade Agreement. The ENFORCE Act is going to
give our Customs agents more tools aimed at cracking down on the
behavior I have just outlined. Another major upgrade, something else
that did not exist during those NAFTA days, is what I call an unfair
trade alert. The new alert system would set off the warning bells long
before the damage is done, when American jobs and exports come under
threat.
One of the big fears we hear today is that our enforcers are
incapable of stopping the trade cheats before it is too late. By the
time somebody in Washington catches on to the newest unfair threat to
undercut an American business, the plant has been shuttered, the
factory lights are out, and the workers' lives have been turned upside
down. In a lot of cases, if you are talking about the small towns that
dot the landscape of Oregon and elsewhere, that abandoned facility
might have been the beating heart of an entire community.
[[Page S2903]]
The slow pace of action in Washington, DC, should never be the reason
Americans lose their jobs. The unfair trade alert--that was not part of
the 1990s; that was not part of NAFTA. It is going to be part of our
current policy today, helping our companies, helping our workers get
there before it is too late.
Next, the Congress is going to lay down clear priorities for our
trade enforcers, priorities that are centered on jobs and economic
growth. There is going to be more accountability and follow-through
baked into our enforcement system. In years past, trade debate in the
Congress used to come down to a simple transaction of trade promotion
authority for trade adjustment assistance.
What I said in developing this package of bills and what more than a
dozen protrade Democrats said on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week was
that the Senate needed to aim higher. The status quo was not good
enough. In particular, it was not good enough in terms of enforcing the
laws that are on the books. My guess is that in Pennsylvania and
everywhere else--because I certainly hear it in Oregon--people say--
particularly those of us who are protrade and want to tap these global
markets: I hear you are talking about new trade agreements. How about
enforcing the laws that are on the books?
What I started this morning--and I will be back again and again
between now and the end of this debate--is to talk about why this is a
very different approach than the approach taken in the 1990s. Tough,
robust, effective enforcement of our trade laws is right at the core of
a new and modern trade policy. It is a major part of what I call trade
done right. It is how you guarantee that trade gives everybody in
America a chance to get ahead.
Those are propositions, in my view, that deserve strong, bipartisan
support in the Senate, and I strongly urge my colleagues to support
this trade enforcement law package.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Democratic side have
20 minutes of the debate time remaining prior to noon.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I also ask unanimous consent to be able to
equally divide the time spent in quorum calls.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. WYDEN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Rubio). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Freedom for Austin Tice
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I wish to spend a few minutes this morning
talking about a young man who can be described in many ways and one who
has earned many accolades: decorated Marine Corps veteran, award-
winning journalist, Houston native, and seventh-generation Texan. But
most importantly, this young man, Austin Tice, is better known as a
friend, brother, and son to loving and caring parents.
Almost 3 years ago, Austin decided to pause his law school studies to
spend the summer in Syria as a freelance journalist. He was frustrated
by the lack of reporting on Syria's civil war, a war that has claimed
the lives of more than 300,000 people by some estimates--and that is
just within the borders of Syria--and has displaced millions more who
are living in refugee camps both in Syria and in surrounding countries.
This huge refugee crisis affects many neighboring countries, such as
Jordan, Turkey, and Lebanon, and has tremendous potential to
destabilize the entire region.
As a strong believer in freedom of the press, Austin wanted to let
his fellow countrymen know what was going on in that part of the world.
As a former Eagle Scout and Marine Corps captain, Austin's typical can-
do attitude led him to decide that he should go to Syria himself and
report on the civil war, and that is exactly what he did. Well, as with
most things he tried, Austin proved to be very successful. While he was
reporting from Syria, his work was published in the Washington Post,
McClatchy news, and other outlets.
In August 2012, just days before he was planning to leave Syria, he
was kidnapped, and no one has heard from him since. We still don't know
for sure who his captors are. Sadly, we know very little. One thing we
do know is that his parents, Marc and Debra Tice, and his entire family
have worked tirelessly to locate him and to bring him home safely.
This week marks the 1,000th day of Austin's captivity. I really can't
begin to imagine the toll this ordeal has taken on Austin's family, but
I have to say I so greatly admire the courage and conviction of his
parents, who said earlier this week in a statement:
We have desperately missed Austin for over 1,440,000
minutes--each new minute fuels our resolve to find him and
bring him safely home.
While we often mark the number of days someone has been missing, it
is important to remember that to the family and friends of someone who
has been kidnapped, even the minutes that pass are almost unbearable.
Austin's family is not just counting the days he has been gone and all
the milestones he has inevitably missed, they are counting the minutes
too.
Austin Tice has a family who is waiting for him, missing him, and
laboring to find any piece of information that will lead to information
about his whereabouts, while longing for his freedom. I join the Tice
family in encouraging the Federal Government to do everything we can to
possibly secure Austin's safe return home.
I also say once again to his family: We haven't given up. We will
continue to stand by you, and we will never give up until we find your
son and bring him safely home.
This week, we pass another milestone, this time of 1,000 days that
Austin has been separated from his family. I join the Tice family in
their hope that someday soon we will be able to add another milestone
to this story, one that marks the day of his safe return to so many who
love and miss him.
Today, our thoughts and prayers are with the Tice family, and I stand
ready and I daresay all of us stand ready to do whatever we can to
encourage and facilitate the return of this Texan, veteran, brother,
and son.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, today the Senate will vote on two pieces of
important trade legislation. Both of these bills have been in the works
for some time. They were among the four trade bills we reported out of
the Senate Committee on Finance last month, and as a principal coauthor
of both bills, I am very glad we found a way to get them to this point.
The first bill we will be voting on is the Trade Preferences
Extension Act of 2015. This bill will reauthorize and improve three of
our trade preference programs: the generalized system of preferences,
or GSP; the African Growth and Opportunity Act, or AGOA; and tariff
preferences for Haiti. I want to take a few minutes to talk about each
of these programs individually, starting with the GSP.
The GSP promotes trade with developing nations by providing for
nonreciprocal duty-free tariff treatment of certain products
originating in those countries. The program helps beneficiary countries
advance their economic development and encourages them to move toward
more open economies and eliminate trade barriers to U.S. exports.
The GSP does more than provide assistance in the developing world; it
also assists hundreds of businesses here in the United States. Across
our country, manufacturers and importers benefit by receiving inputs
and raw materials at a lower cost. Approximately three-quarters of U.S.
imports under GSP are raw materials--parts and components--or machinery
and equipment used by U.S. companies to manufacture goods here at home.
Unfortunately, because the program expired in 2013, many U.S.
businesses
[[Page S2904]]
have had to deal with high tariffs on these imports for the last 2
years. As an example, last year alone, without the GSP program in
place, American companies paid over $600 million in tariffs. Businesses
in every State have been affected by the expiration of GSP and have a
vested interest in the renewal of the program. There are businesses in
my own home State of Utah and around the country that have been left
with difficult decisions about downsizing, hiring freezes, and employee
layoffs in the absence of GSP. Today, with the passage of this bill, we
will take a long-overdue step toward solving these problems.
Also included in the preferences bill are provisions for the long-
term renewal of the AGOA Program, which encourages African countries to
further develop their economies by lowering U.S. tariffs on their
exports. Since AGOA was enacted in the year 2000, trade with
beneficiary countries has more than tripled, with U.S. direct
investment growing more than sixfold in that time.
This program has helped create more than a million jobs in Sub-
Saharan Africa. I worked with my colleagues on the Committee on Finance
to craft reauthorization language that will improve on AGOA's past
success, to remove obstacles to trade in Sub-Saharan Africa and allow
both that region and our job creators here at home to benefit from
expanded market access.
I share many of my colleagues' belief that benefits under AGOA should
go to countries making good-faith progress toward meeting the program's
eligibility criteria. For example, I am very concerned that officers in
the Republic of South Africa recently indicated they will attempt to
renegotiate commitments made under the General Agreement on Trade in
Services to require foreign-owned companies to relinquish 51 percent
ownership and control to South Africans.
South Africa also developed a draft policy that proposed changes to
intellectual property rights laws which contained significant
shortcomings, including inadequate protections for patents, trademarks,
and copyrights. These are three areas I take a tremendous interest in,
among so many other things around here. I hope very much that as they
redraft this policy, it will include recognition of how important
protection of intellectual property is to supporting economic growth.
But it is not just South Africa. For example, I understand other
beneficiaries under the program continue to impose barriers and
limitations to cross-border data flow or otherwise limit digital trade.
Because of these concerns, we thought it was important to create a
mechanism under the AGOA Program which would allow for benefits to be
scaled back if a country is found to not be making good-faith progress
on these and other issues. That new tool is included in the bill, and
we expect the administration to use this tool aggressively,
particularly in the case of South Africa.
The legislation also includes new consultation and notification
requirements, keeping Congress informed of beneficiaries' progress.
There are new mechanisms for stakeholders to petition the
administration to raise awareness about potential eligibility
violations. The bill will require these petitions to be taken into
account when determinations are made regarding a beneficiary's status
and in regular reporting.
I know the AGOA Program has a lot of support here in Congress among
Members of both parties. I think we were able to craft a bill that not
only provides for the long-term extension of the program the
administration was seeking but also responds to some very serious
bilateral trade challenges we are facing today. With these changes, we
have created a more flexible program we believe will spur greater
development and economic integration and opportunity in the region,
while better serving the needs of our job creators here at home. I
believe it deserves strong support.
Finally, the preferences bill would also extend preferential access
to the U.S. market for Haiti. Haiti is one of the poorest economies in
the Western Hemisphere. The Haiti preference program supports well-
paying, stable jobs in a country saddled with poverty and unemployment.
I hope this extension will encourage continued economic development and
support democracy in Haiti.
This is a strong preferences bill. I expect a strong vote in favor of
passing it later today.
Next, the Senate will vote on the Trade Facilitation and Trade
Enforcement Act of 2015, which includes important provisions to
reauthorize and modernize the operations of Customs and Border
Protection, or CBP, and significantly improve intellectual property
rights protection in the United States and around the world.
The Customs bill will facilitate the efficient movement of
merchandise destined for the United States by formalizing in statute
programs such as the Centers of Excellence and Expertise. It will also
ensure that U.S. customs and trade laws are uniformly implemented
nationwide and help ensure that the private sector and CBP work
together.
With this bill, we will also ensure that the automated commercial
environment and the international data system are completed so that
trade documentation can finally be submitted electrically and importers
will no longer be required to submit the same information to numerous
government agencies.
In addition, the bill will modernize the drawback process by moving
from a labor-intensive paper-based system to an electronic claims
process that will significantly free up resources in the private and
the public sector, and it will increase the de minimis level from $200
to $800, reducing needless burdens on small businesses importing into
the United States.
Additionally, the bill strengthens our trade remedy laws and our
ability to respond to imports that pose a threat to the health or
safety of U.S. consumers.
When drafting this customs legislation, I was particularly interested
in beefing up our enforcement of intellectual property rights. The bill
includes the strongest possible provisions with regard to intellectual
property rights and intellectual property rights enforcement. For
example, our bill will establish in law the National Intellectual
Property Rights Coordination Center to coordinate Federal efforts to
prevent intellectual property violations. It will also significantly
expand CBP's tools and authorities to protect intellectual property
rights at the border by requiring CBP to share information about
suspected infringing merchandise with rights holders.
Our bill will provide CBP with explicit authority to seize and
forfeit devices that violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act--an
act I put through a number of years ago--and require CBP to share
information with rights holders who are injured by these unlawful
devices.
The bill contains provisions to establish a process for CBP to
enforce copyrights while registration with the copyright office is
pending and to significantly improve CBP's reporting requirements to
hold the Agency more accountable for its enforcement efforts with
regard to intellectual property.
The bill will strengthen CBP's targeting of goods that violate
intellectual property rights, improve CBP's cooperation with the
private sector and with foreign customs authorities on enforcement, and
require an educational campaign at the border. I am particularly fond
of that last part. At my insistence, the bill includes provisions that
will require all versions of the Customs Declaration Form that everyone
fills out when they enter the United States to contain a warning that
importation of goods that infringe on intellectual property rights may
violate criminal and/or civil law and may pose serious risks to health
and safety. I am not sure most Americans appreciate the danger that
counterfeit products can pose, as they often are not built to the same
standard of the protected product. So I hope making people more aware
of these dangers will help us make sure we are doing all we can to keep
Americans safe.
In addition to enhancing protection at our borders, our Customs bill
will provide USTR with additional tools to improve the protection of
intellectual property rights by our trading partners overseas in order
to stop infringing goods at the source. For example, the bill will
establish a chief innovation and intellectual property negotiator, with
the rank of ambassador, to ensure
[[Page S2905]]
that intellectual property rights protection is at the forefront of our
trade negotiation and enforcement efforts and to enhance USTR's
accountability to Congress on these issues. On top of that, the bill
will give USTR more tools to increase enforcement for trade secrets and
to ensure that countries that consistently fail to protect intellectual
property meet specified benchmarks for improvement.
I am a big fan of this bill. It includes a number of my top trade
enforcement priorities, and I am very glad we will get a chance to vote
on it today. Of course, it is not perfect. Some of the amendments that
were added in committee leave me with some reservations. Most notably,
the bill now contains provisions that purport to deal with currency
manipulation that are, in my view, very problematic. One provision sets
up an avenue for a countervailing duty investigation or review to
determine whether some measure of a currency manipulation is
effectively a subsidy, either ``directly or indirectly'' to a country's
exports. If the government finds that the manipulation is, once again,
either ``directly or indirectly,'' an export subsidy, sanctions can
follow. This provision is problematic for a number of reasons.
First of all, it is likely not compliant with our existing
international trade commitments. It would effectively require the
imposition of trade sanctions that, under the language of the
legislation, could be based on presumptions without support. And it
will almost certainly invite retaliatory trade sanctions from our
trading partners, who will argue, and in fact have already argued, that
actions taken by the Federal Reserve Board constitute currency
manipulation.
While the authors of the currency manipulation provision in the
Customs bill may believe that there is a clear delineation between
monetary policies used primarily for domestic economic stabilization
and policies used to gain a trade advantage, there is not.
When Japan engages in quantitative easing to boost its economy and
inflation expectations, sometimes at the very urging of U.S. officials,
is that manipulation?
When the Federal Reserve engages in quantitative easing, with part of
the expected benefit being downward exchange rate pressure and boosted
exports, is that manipulation, or just domestic stabilization?
Is Germany's persistent trade surplus somehow partially caused by
ongoing quantitative easing activities at the European Central Bank?
And, with respect to detection, despite the intent of the authors of
this provision, accuracy is evidently not a concern.
I am sure that everyone--or at least those who support this
provision--has looked at the recent exchange rate assessments for 2013
from the International Monetary Fund External Sector Report.
For Japan, one IMF method suggested 15-percent yen overvaluation,
while another method suggested 15-percent undervaluation. Yet under the
currency manipulation provision in this bill, IMF models and methods
are what we are supposed to use to set trade sanctions.
For South Korea, the two IMF methodologies suggested undervaluation
between around 7 percent and 20 percent. So when we want to set a
punitive countervailing duty, what are our authorities supposed to do?
Should they assume that South Korea benefited from currency
undervaluation of 7 percent or 20 percent or some random number in
between? Who knows.
This provision, unfortunately, simply won't work, since it assumes
the existence of accurate knowledge and abilities to determine some
fundamental equilibrium exchange rates that the IMF and the economics
profession simply do not have.
Under the questionable provision of the bill that allows for
investigation of currency undervaluation and potential ensuing trade
actions, I believe the authors of the provision were overly heroic and
mistaken in their belief about the precision of currency valuation
methodology. The provision would appeal to models and methodologies, as
described in IMF documents.
The problem is that even the IMF does not use those models and
methodologies to make definitive judgments about appropriate currency
values, which are inherently some of the most difficult things for
economic models to identify. It would not be difficult for our trading
partners to use precisely the same models and methodologies to make
countervailing cases against Federal Reserve monetary policy, resulting
in retaliatory trade sanctions and perhaps defensive currency
interventions.
This is a clear road to trade wars and currency wars replete with
competitive devaluations. Such a road is paved by the offending
provision in the Customs bill, which basically gives our trading
partners a template for their own accusations about currency
manipulation and ensuing trade sanctions. This is problematic.
And while Senators in this Chamber would like to simply decree that
our monetary policies are just domestic economic stabilization, while
foreign monetary policies that may look similar are manipulation, such
self-evaluations will not be acceptable in international trade and
agreements.
I understand the desire among many of my colleagues to address
currency manipulation, and I want to work with them on this issue. But
I am convinced that the currency manipulation provision in the Customs
bill simply will not work, and, when tried, it will simply give
ammunition to our trading partners to consider engagement in trade
wars, currency wars, competitive devaluations, and beggar-thy-neighbor
monetary policies. This isn't what we should be shooting for with our
Nation's trade policy.
In addition to the currency language, there was another provision
added during the markup that would require employers to report
occupational classification data to State agencies when filing their
quarterly wage reports. This is an entirely new burden that would be
placed on employers throughout the country, added to all the other
reporting burdens they already face, and would require brand new
systems for reporting and collecting information. And in the end, it is
not readily apparent just how valuable this new collected information
will be.
According to CBO, this new requirement would cost employers
throughout the country more than $200 million between 2016 and 2020.
Now, that may not seem like much compared to the numbers that get
thrown around here in the Senate. But when we are talking about small
businesses who struggle from month to month to cover their payrolls, it
is a burden that, at least to me, doesn't appear to be necessary.
So once again, I am concerned about this provision and the impact it
might have. However, despite the reservations I have about the flawed
currency manipulation concepts and language and the unfunded mandate on
employers, I believe it is important that we vote to move the Customs
bill forward. Overall, this is a very good bill. A lot of work has gone
into it, and I know that it reflects the priorities of a number of our
colleagues and Members here in the Senate, including myself. That being
the case, I plan to vote in favor of passing this legislation later on
today, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.
Once again, I am very glad to see that we are making progress on
moving these bills through the Senate. I wish to thank all of my
colleagues--particularly those on the Finance Committee--who worked so
hard on these bills to get them to this point.
These are important votes we are going to take today. I expect that
both of these bills will receive broad bipartisan support, and I hope
they will.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Remembering the Victims of the Amtrak Train Derailment
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, before I address the matter at hand, I
want to say that our hearts go out to the families of the men and women
who lost their lives as a result of the Amtrak derailment last Tuesday.
There are many still fighting injuries, and our thoughts and prayers
are with them and their loved ones.
This was a commuter train. I have ridden it personally hundreds of
times,
[[Page S2906]]
and it is one my colleagues have ridden.
It was a train full of people on their way home--to their families,
to their loved ones, to the things they like to do. So our thoughts go
out to all of them.
It will be our job as lawmakers to analyze why this happened, how we
could have prevented it, and how we can best move forward to ensure
such a tragedy is not repeated. Some of this is already underway. But
the more pressing task in this moment of tragedy is for us to show
solidarity with the victims and their families, and recognize their
contributions--however large or small--to our national story.
New York lost a few native sons and daughters:
Abid Gilani, a senior vice president of Wells Fargo and a father of
two.
Rachel Jacobs, an industry leader in her field, was heading home to
her husband and 2-year-old son as CEO of a new job at an educational
software company.
Jim Gaines, a software architect for the Associated Press, a beloved
member of the staff, who was heading home to Plainsboro, NJ, to see his
wife, 16-year-old son, and 11-year-old daughter.
We lost Dr. Derrick Griffith, a dean of student affairs at Medgar
Evers College in Brooklyn, just a stone's throw away from where I live.
He spent his entire adult life working to improve urban education.
And we lost a young man named Justin Zemser, who lived in Rockaway,
in my old congressional district, and was studying at the U.S. Naval
Academy. He was a tremendous young man--and I know that because I
nominated him to the Naval Academy.
He was a valedictorian, an earnest big brother and mentor to two
children with autism, as well as being captain of the varsity football
team. His family mourns his loss and so does America. He would have
done so much for our country.
Today, let us remember them. Tomorrow, let us work together so that
their loss is not in vain.
Mr. President, I rise to urge my colleagues to support the Customs
bill before this body, particularly because of the strong language it
contains on the crackdown on currency manipulation.
I have spoken many times on this subject in the Finance Committee and
here on the floor because I am passionate about finally passing
enforceable mechanisms for dealing with this malicious trade tactic.
Why? Because I am deeply concerned by the plight of the middle class in
today's economy, where globalization and free-trade agreements have
accelerated a downward pressure on middle-class wages and forced entire
industries to relocate to low-wage countries.
And I believe currency manipulation is one of the most significant
emerging trade challenges this country faces, because it directly
impacts wages and it directly impacts jobs.
As this Congress is soon to reengage on a fast-track for a massive
free-trade agreement, now is the time to think deeply and
comprehensively about our country's trade policy and how it impacts the
broad middle of our economy.
To me and many of my colleagues, it does not make sense to move
forward on the one hand with a blank check for free trade without
passing strong worker protections on a parallel track. The global
economy is a rough sea. We should not pass a trade package that forces
the American worker to navigate those waters with a leaky boat and a
deflated lifejacket.
So to me and to many of my colleagues, this Customs bill and the
currency manipulation issue is unquestionably germane to the larger
debate on trade. If the goal of TPP is to lure countries away from
China, it makes perfect sense that, as part of the overall effort with
TPP, we also go after Chinese currency manipulation, as well.
But beyond the question of relevance to this debate--which I believe
is dispatched easily--this bill is substantively good trade policy. It
contains several smart, balanced, effective measures to create a level
playing field with our international trading partners.
First and foremost, currency manipulation is finally attacked head-
on. Companies have asked me about this. CEOs of major companies have
said to me: We cannot compete if we have one hand tied behind our back,
which currency manipulation does.
Mr. President, may I ask my colleague a question, the ranking member?
How much time do you wish?
Mr. WYDEN. I thank my colleague. I will be very brief.
Mr. SCHUMER. How much time is left for the minority?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Eight minutes.
Mr. SCHUMER. Seven?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Eight.
Mr. SCHUMER. Would you please notify me when I have taken 3 more
minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Yes.
Mr. SCHUMER. Big companies have been hurt. Small companies have been
hurt. We have lost millions of jobs because of currency manipulation,
which makes the exports from China and other countries about 33 percent
cheaper and imports from America to China 33 percent more expensive.
I would say this: China seems to feel they can get away with any kind
of trade misdeed, whether it is stealing intellectual property by cyber
security or any other means, whether it is keeping out the best of
American products, which they do until they can learn how to make them
themselves in their protected market and then fight us everywhere else.
This currency bill will finally be the first real shot across the bow
to China that you cannot keep getting away from it. Their unfair trade
practices hurt us in low-wage industries that were very important--
shoes, clothing, toys, furniture. Those industries have already
suffered. But if we do nothing, it will be the cream of American
industry where our innovation and hard work is lost to China through
unfair means, currency and other, whether it is tech or
pharmaceuticals. Talk to the CEOs of these companies, and they will
tell you China does not play fair. Talk to them, and they will tell you
that the Chinese shrug their shoulders at what we have done up until
now. We must do something--if not in the TPA bill, alongside it--that
shows China once and for all they cannot get away with it. I fear that
if we do not, in 10 years we will be saying the same thing about the
industries that we say today. The customs measure, currency measure is
bipartisan. The currency measure passed our committee with an
overwhelming bipartisan vote, 18 to 8, and was supported by our ranking
member, which I most appreciate. It passed the Senate in 2011 with 63
votes. It passed the House of Representatives with 348 votes. And a
year and a half ago, in 2013, 60 Senators sent a letter to the
President imploring the inclusion of enforceable currency provisions.
In conclusion, we have to think about the big picture when it comes
to trade policy. If we move the ledger on one side, opening up our
markets in foreign markets, we better make sure we adequately move the
ledger on the other side to protect our workers, curb unfair deceptive
practices, and give our small businesses the ability to compete in a
global economy.
The fate of middle-class wages, middle-class jobs, and the very
economy of this country hang in the balance. I urge my colleagues on
both sides of the aisle to support the bill.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, before the Senator leaves the floor, I wish
to also note that Senator Schumer has provided leadership on another
very important enforcement issue. He introduced the committee to
something a number of years ago known as honey laundering. What this
involved was, in effect, we set up a sting operation. In particular,
with respect to Senator Schumer's constituents and his interest in
tough enforcement of the trade laws, the Chinese, as my colleagues will
recall, were found guilty of unfair trading practices. In effect, they
would just ship honey through other countries, such as Indonesia.
I want my colleague to know I am going to continue to work with him
on a variety of issues.
Mr. SCHUMER. I thank the Senator. If I might, I thank the Senator for
the great job he has done under very difficult circumstances. I think
everyone on both sides of the aisle appreciates Senator Wyden's
intelligence, his bipartisanship, and his steadfastness.
[[Page S2907]]
Mr. WYDEN. I thank the Senator.
I am going to wrap up as we move to this first vote in a few minutes
and come back to what this debate is all about. We are starting, of
course, with the issue of trade enforcement, but the big challenge is
to show this country that we are putting in place a modern trade
policy, a trade policy that sets aside once and for all the NAFTA
playbook of the 1990s. This overall package will usher in a new and
modern American trade policy. It must start with a tough, robust,
effective trade enforcement package, many of the details of which I
have outlined here this morning.
It is time also--and this will be part of our early work--to upgrade
and renew our trade preference programs. The businesses and workers who
rely on these programs are waiting for this Congress to act.
The first of these proposals enhances and extends the African Growth
and Opportunity Act, referred to as AGOA. This has been the core of a
close economic partnership between our country and a host of African
nations for more than a decade. The proposal before the Senate will
update that partnership in a way that is positive for all involved.
Back in the 1990s--once again returning to this theme, the NAFTA
era--the United States had no meaningful trade policies to help African
nations facing profound economic hardship climb back from the brink.
This renewal of the AGOA law takes the program to the next level. AGOA
will be simpler for businesses to use. There will be less redtape to
worry about. African countries will be encouraged to zero in on
strategies that can make the program more effective. It will be easier
for the United States to crack down on the bad actors and verify that
countries stay strictly in line with the criteria for eligibility. Most
importantly, the proposal gives all concerned--workers, businesses,
countries, and investors--a decade of certainty.
I am a real fan of this program. I believe it works for our country,
for Sub-Saharan Africa, and it ought to be a cornerstone of our
economic policy in the region.
The second part of this package of programs renews the program known
as the generalized system of preferences. This is an economic win-win
because it is a shot in the arm for developing countries, and it is a
major boost for American manufacturers, including hundreds of them in
my home State. One of those businesses in Oregon is Stackhouse Athletic
in Salem, which will not only be able to create new jobs, they will be
able to offer health benefits to their workers.
The extension of GSP will save American businesses an estimated $2
million a day by reducing tariffs. The GSP program expired nearly 2
years ago. As a result, businesses in my home State of Oregon paid an
extra $4.9 million in tariffs. Renewing GSP would correct that issue
and support as many as 80,000 jobs with manufacturers, ports, farmers,
and retail stores. That program would be extended by this legislation
through 2017.
Finally, the Senate has an opportunity with this legislation to
reaffirm our economic commitment to Haiti, one of our closest and most
disadvantaged neighbors in the world. In my view, Senator Nelson of
Florida has done very important work in this area. He has been our
leader on this issue, and there is bipartisan understanding that now is
the right time to extend the Haiti trade preferences to line them up
with AGOA. These Haiti preferences also did not exist in the NAFTA era.
Together, they support as many as 30,000 jobs in that country, and they
help to drive investment and lift Haiti's economy in the long term.
I am confident the Senate will come together to extend this package
of preference programs because they make economic sense for America,
and they strengthen our ties with the developing countries around the
world.
I urge my colleagues to support this legislation with our first vote.
I will close by saying that today we begin to turn the corner on a
fresh, modern trade policy for the times, a policy very different from
the trade policy of the 1990s, the NAFTA era. Let's begin this effort--
begin this effort--for a new 21st-century trade policy by passing the
legislation we will be considering shortly, both parts.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. CRAPO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the clerk will now
read the bills, as amended, for the third time.
The amendments were ordered to be engrossed, and the bills to be read
a third time.
The bills were read the third time.
Vote on H.R. 1295
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The bill having been read the third time, the
question is, Shall the bill, H.R. 1295, pass?
Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk called the roll.
Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the
Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Cassidy) and the Senator from Alaska (Mr.
Sullivan).
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Fischer). Are there any other Senators in
the Chamber desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 97, nays 1, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 178 Leg.]
YEAS--97
Alexander
Ayotte
Baldwin
Barrasso
Bennet
Blumenthal
Blunt
Booker
Boozman
Boxer
Brown
Burr
Cantwell
Capito
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Coats
Cochran
Collins
Coons
Corker
Cornyn
Cotton
Crapo
Cruz
Daines
Donnelly
Durbin
Enzi
Ernst
Feinstein
Fischer
Flake
Franken
Gardner
Gillibrand
Graham
Grassley
Hatch
Heinrich
Heitkamp
Heller
Hirono
Hoeven
Inhofe
Isakson
Johnson
Kaine
King
Kirk
Klobuchar
Leahy
Lee
Manchin
Markey
McCain
McCaskill
McConnell
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Moran
Murkowski
Murphy
Murray
Nelson
Paul
Perdue
Peters
Portman
Reed
Reid
Risch
Roberts
Rounds
Rubio
Sanders
Sasse
Schatz
Schumer
Scott
Sessions
Shaheen
Shelby
Stabenow
Tester
Thune
Tillis
Toomey
Udall
Vitter
Warner
Warren
Whitehouse
Wicker
Wyden
NAYS--1
Lankford
NOT VOTING--2
Cassidy
Sullivan
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 60-vote threshold having been achieved,
the bill, H.R. 1295, as amended, is passed.
Under the previous order, the motion to reconsider is considered made
and laid upon the table.
Vote on H.R. 644
The bill having been read the third time, the question is, Shall the
bill, H.R. 644, pass?
Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There is a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the
Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Cassidy) and the Senator from Alaska (Mr.
Sullivan).
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 78, nays 20, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 179 Leg.]
YEAS--78
Ayotte
Baldwin
Barrasso
Bennet
Blumenthal
Blunt
Booker
Boozman
Boxer
Brown
Burr
Cantwell
Capito
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Cochran
Collins
Coons
Crapo
Donnelly
Durbin
Enzi
Ernst
Feinstein
Fischer
Franken
Gillibrand
Graham
Grassley
Hatch
Heinrich
Heitkamp
Hirono
Hoeven
Isakson
Kaine
King
Kirk
Klobuchar
Lankford
Leahy
Manchin
Markey
McCaskill
McConnell
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Murkowski
Murphy
[[Page S2908]]
Murray
Nelson
Paul
Perdue
Peters
Portman
Reed
Reid
Risch
Roberts
Rounds
Sanders
Schatz
Schumer
Scott
Sessions
Shaheen
Stabenow
Tester
Thune
Udall
Vitter
Warner
Warren
Whitehouse
Wicker
Wyden
NAYS--20
Alexander
Coats
Corker
Cornyn
Cotton
Cruz
Daines
Flake
Gardner
Heller
Inhofe
Johnson
Lee
McCain
Moran
Rubio
Sasse
Shelby
Tillis
Toomey
NOT VOTING--2
Cassidy
Sullivan
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 60-vote threshold having been achieved,
the bill, H.R. 644, as amended, is passed.
Under the previous order, the motion to reconsider is considered made
and laid upon the table.
____________________