[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 9 (Tuesday, January 16, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H399-H401]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
A BETTER DEAL FOR AMERICA
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2017, the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, with all the things that are happening in
Washington, it is pretty easy to feel concerned and to lose faith in
what it is that we are doing here. It is language, questions of racism,
questions of tax policy, winners, losers.
Mr. Speaker, I decided today to be optimistic, to be upbeat, and to
say: Hey, there really are things that we can do if we just put our
minds to it and begin to work together.
Before I start these sessions on the floor, I always like to ground
myself in what is it that I would like, and that I would like my
colleagues, to accomplish. I always turn to Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
who brought us through the Great Depression and the Great War. Etched
in the marble at his memorial here in Washington, D.C., are these
words: ``The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the
abundance of those who have much . . . .''
I probably ought to repeat that.
``The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the
abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for
those who have too little.''
I always want to start with that because it grounds me as I look at
the multiple opportunities we have here to do just this: add more to
those who have much.
For example, the tax bill that passed just before Christmas and was
signed into law clearly does more for those who have much. Well over 80
percent of the $1.5 trillion--actually, far more than that--that were
involved in the tax giveaway went to the superwealthy and America's
major corporations.
But I said I was going to be positive and I didn't want to drag all
of us down further in that tax scam, but what I really want to talk
about is what we can do to add for those who have too little. So let me
start with that.
My Democratic colleagues and I have been talking for the better part
of 6 months now about a better deal for America, things that we can do
to improve the lot of everyday Americans so we can provide enough for
those who have too little. We all know that middle class America has
stalled out over the last 20 years. So we set up a series of policies,
programs, and legislation to improve the situation for working men and
women of America, for those who clearly have too little and those who
are struggling every day to meet their mortgage, keep their kids in
school. So it is really about investing in America and making it in
America, a series of programs and policies.
I am not going to talk about all of those tonight, but I want to
focus on this one: making it in America and investing in America.
Before I go on to explain more about it, the rest of the program,
really, is this: better jobs, better wages, and a better future.
So when we talk as Democrats about a better deal, a better deal for
America, we are really talking about these three fundamental things:
better jobs, better wages, and, therefore, a better future for
Americans.
{time} 1930
There are many different ways that this can be done. One of the
principal ones is this: those of you who follow this--and I suspect
there are very few of you--but if you have been following these floor
sessions that I and others have been doing for the last, in this case,
6 years, we developed this little placard: ``Make It In America.
Manufacturing Matters.'' It is pretty fundamental.
Over the years, we have looked at the hollowing out of the great
manufacturing centers of America. Some people like to say it is the
Rust Belt. Well, the Rust Belt is coming back, and it can come back,
roaring back, if we pay attention to the policies that create
manufacturing opportunities.
The President has talked about this, but, unfortunately, the policies
that actually have emanated from the administration, in many cases,
harm the manufacturing sectors--I am the ranking member of the Coast
Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee--maritime, ocean, inland
waterways, the great Mississippi, the Ohio River system, the Great
Lakes of America; and, of course, the coasts; the harbors, New York
Harbor; Charleston; the harbors in Florida and across the Gulf Coast;
in California, the great harbors of San Diego, Los Angeles, Long Beach,
and the San Francisco Bay Area; and further North, Oregon and up into
Washington.
These maritime opportunities are enormous. And, unfortunately, we,
far too often, ignore those opportunities. And so on the Coast Guard
and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee of the Transportation and
Infrastructure Committee, we are trying to focus on ways in which we
can actually rebuild the great American maritime industry.
If you go back in the history of this Nation, back to its very
earliest days, in the early policies of George Washington and Alexander
Hamilton, they set out policies to encourage the maritime industry. By
the way, for those of you who really want to know where the first
inheritance tax came into being, it was John Adams. He actually put the
inheritance tax in place to build a frigate for the U.S. Navy. So it
goes way, way back.
That takes me back to tax policy, and I said I wouldn't deal with
that too much, but it is hard to ignore the fact that it was a very bad
tax bill for the working men and women. One of the reasons it was a bad
tax bill is that we need to build our infrastructure. There is going to
be a lot of talk here in the next several weeks about the President's
infrastructure plan--$1 trillion infrastructure plan. Good idea. Let's
do it.
What was that movie? That famous line? ``Show me the money.'' It
disappeared. It disappeared in that tax bill. Where did it go? It went
to the superwealthy. Maybe they will build the infrastructure. I am
sure the top 1 percent, the top 10 percent, would be
[[Page H400]]
happy to build a road if, of course, they could charge a fee to get the
people who use the road to pay that fee. But that doesn't make much
sense.
I will take you back to Alexander Hamilton and George Washington.
They put into America's public policy, in the very first Presidency, a
road-building policy, and it has, more or less, been with us over the
years where the public pays for this in fees and services. But the
money disappeared. It is gone. It is gone in the tax cut. It is not
there. $200 billion will be discussed over the next several weeks.
Where are you going to get $200 billion in this year's budget? More
than $150 billion disappeared now in the tax scam. So maybe they can
find it somewhere. The military wants another $50 billion, and, of
course, there are healthcare services, and there is a need for
education and so forth.
So here is what we can do without going into the budget bill, without
trying to find new money, but, rather, to use a public policy that was
first enunciated and written into law when the Arctic opened. Do you
remember the North Slope of Alaska back in the 1960s, when the U.S.
Government decided to allow oil drilling on the North Slope of Alaska?
It was written into that law that allowed for the pipeline to be built
from the North Slope down to Valdez in southern Alaska, that all of the
oil that would come through that pipeline would have to be on American-
built ships with American sailors.
And guess what? Ships were built, mariners were hired, and oil was
put on those tankers and shipped into the American ports. Later, that
oil was shipped offshore to Japan. And over the years, the petroleum
industry was able to whittle away at that requirement of American ships
built in America with American mariners. And so today, there is no
requirement that any oil developed in the United States, any natural
gas developed in the United States and exported, be on American-built
ships.
So what does it mean? It means that ships are coming into our ports
to take a strategic national asset, our oil and our natural gas. It is
being put on a foreign-built ship with foreign sailors, foreign
mariners who come and go, who don't pay taxes in the United States;
ships that are not built in the United States with American steel,
American-made engines, and all of the electronics and pumps, and all of
the other equipment, not made in America.
So here is the deal. What if we decided to go back to the future?
What if we decided the future ought to be like the past, and this
strategic national asset be used to rebuild our shipyards, to employ
our mariners, to give us in the United States the ability to build
commercial ships of all sizes, and, at the same time, enhance the
productivity of our shipyards as they build our U.S. Naval vessels and
our Coast Guard vessels?
What if we were to do that? Well, we would employ thousands of people
in the shipyards; our steel companies operating, taking ore from the
North, bringing it to the steel mills, manufacturing that steel for the
shipyards, the engines that go into those ships--which, by the way, are
maybe about a quarter of the size of this room. I mean, huge diesel
engines--and all of the other pumps and all of the other equipment,
what if we were to do that? Why not? What would that mean? Well, let's
see. We could make it in America, or they could continue to be built in
China, Korea, India, but not in America.
Here is the deal: all we need to do is to write a law. All we need to
do is to go back and copy the law that was written in the 1960s that
required that the oil from the North Slope of Alaska, coming down the
pipeline to Valdez, be on American ships. That is all we have to do.
And if we were to do that, wow, we would employ thousands of people in
our shipyards. We would have thousands of men and women on those ships
across the oceans delivering a strategic national asset to far places
in the world, to Japan, to China, and to beyond.
It is possible. Our work here is to have a better deal for America, a
better deal for Americans, policies that lead to the employment of
Americans, policies that help to rebuild our steel industry, that bring
strength back into our shipyards so that we can provide the jobs.
We are not talking about minimum-wage jobs here. We are talking about
jobs that are at the higher echelon of the middle wages, of middle
America. We are talking about skill sets, welders, pipefitters,
steamfitters. We are talking about engineers who design these ships. We
are talking about marine architects. We are talking about the financing
of these.
We are talking about thousands upon thousands of jobs spread out
across America, and all we need to do is to go back, visit the past,
bring it forward into law, and make sure that a strategic national
asset is used to bring jobs to America.
It would be nice if 100 percent of that oil and gas were on American-
built ships, but, frankly, the American shipyards don't have the
capacity to do it. Now and probably never would they have the capacity
to build all of the ships that are necessary. Right now, at a facility
in Texas, the Sabine Pass, a company called Cheniere Energy is shipping
natural gas taken from the ground in the United States, brought to
Texas, put on ships that are taking that natural gas all around the
world--most of it going to Asia.
That natural gas could also go to Europe, and if we were to work out
a deal with the European Union and the countries in Europe, we would
use that natural gas as a strategic asset to put in place in those
countries of Europe that now have to depend upon gas from Russia. And
let's understand this. Russia is using their natural gas as a lever
against the European Union and against the Europeans as we try to build
our relationship with Europe.
So how many ships are being used? Probably when that one export
facility in Texas is up and operating at its full capacity, it will
take over 100 LNG tankers to meet the demands of that one export
facility. Now, it happens that there are five--maybe six, but certainly
five--new export facilities that are being licensed around the United
States: one in Maryland, not too far from Washington; another in
Oregon; and others in other parts of the coastal areas of the United
States.
So how many ships? We don't know for sure. But I do know this: if,
over the next 10 years, we were to require that just 15 percent--well,
let's make this over the next 20 years--that just 15 percent of the
expected export of LNG were to be on American-built ships, we would, in
American shipyards, build at least 25 ships. And these are not small,
little tugboats. We are talking about major oceangoing LNG tankers.
Now, for the crude oil, if just 10 percent of the crude oil were on
American-built ships, by 2032, we would have 31 ships built here in
America. So we are talking well over 50 ships built in the United
States. To put this in context, major, deep-draft ships built in
America's shipyards over the last 3 years, the average number of ships,
deep draft--these are big ships--built in American shipyards has been
in the range of 10 to 12 ships.
Eight of those are for the U.S. Navy; maybe three have been for the
commercial fleet. So we are talking about the potential for a very
significant expansion of work in American shipyards if we were to write
just a couple of lines of law to require that, beginning in 2022, just
1 percent of the natural gas be on American-built ships. That would
bring three ships in. And then they would ramp it up over time,
increasing the percentage: 3 percent by 2026, 10 percent by 2034--that
would be 16 ships--and 15 percent by 2040. So that would be 25 ships
built in America carrying LNG, liquified natural gas.
For crude oil, let's start at 1 percent. That would be three ships; 4
percent by 2026, 12 ships; 8 percent by 2029, 24 ships; and 10 percent
by 2032, and that would be 31 ships. This is the art of the possible.
What does it mean for America? It means good middle class jobs.
I will give you another example. This is a locomotive, an electric
locomotive built in Sacramento. Some 70 of these locomotives were built
for the railroads for Amtrak here in the East on the Eastern corridor.
It took probably more than 1,000 jobs in Sacramento, California, to
build these locomotives. One hundred percent American made.
{time} 1945
How did that happen? Do you remember back in the Great Recession in
2009, Congress--Democrats, without Republican support--put in place the
stimulus bill, the American Recovery and
[[Page H401]]
Reinvestment Act? Some $800 million were set aside to provide
locomotives for the East Coast, for the Eastern corridor.
Most companies said: We don't build locomotives anymore.
So General Electric and GM just waved off the possibility. But in
Sacramento, there was this German company called Siemens that was
building light railcars, transit cars and the like, at a newly
established plant in Sacramento, California.
They looked at it and said: $800 million, 100 percent American made.
We are a German company, but we are operating in America. Do you want
100 percent American-made locomotives, the wheels, the electrical
engines, the electrical motors, all of the electronics? That German
company said: Bring it on.
$800 million, they signed the contract, and they produced 70, 100
percent American-made locomotives.
So what is the point? The point is, maybe 1,000, maybe a little less,
middle class jobs in Sacramento, California, and you can bet that steel
wasn't made in California. It came from the Midwest. You can bet that
those wheels were made outside of California. The electric motors came
in from the East and the Midwest.
So this opportunity was spread out all across America. It is exactly
the same if we were to require that our liquified natural gas, a
strategic American asset, were exported on American-built ships, and
the same for the oil that comes from the Bakken up in the North and the
Middle American States.
All of that is the art of the possible. So we are all about doing
this. We are all about making it in America.
I will take a couple of seconds, and I am going to give you one more
example. For those of us in northern California and anybody who wants
to tour San Francisco and the San Francisco Bay Area, you will see a
fabulous new bridge spanning the bay from Oakland to San Francisco. It
is a beautiful bridge.
However, it was a bridge that was built with Chinese steel. It was
supposed to be 10 percent cheaper, so they went for the cheap, but they
wound up with the crud. They wound up with steel that had weld problems
and that had quality problems. It ultimately wound up to be way, way
over the budget, and 3,000 jobs and a brand new, high-tech, most
advanced steel manufacturing plant perhaps in the world was built in
China. No jobs in America, no new steel mill in America, but there was
in China. That is what happens when you buy foreign.
I guess New Yorkers were a little smarter than my California
colleagues. So in New York, they wanted to build a new bridge called
the Tappan Zee Bridge. They said: We are going to make it with American
steel. It costs $3.9 billion, under budget, and there were 7,728
American jobs.
It makes a difference. Public policy makes a difference. If you want
jobs in America, then you set about to give Americans a better deal.
Public policy and laws, that is our work. We are your Representatives.
We ought to be representing you, not the Chinese steel mills. We
ought to be representing you, not the shipbuilders in Japan or Korea.
We should be representing you, the American people, the people who are
working in the shipyards of America.
The children of today's shipbuilders need an opportunity to continue
the work of their fathers and their grandfathers in America's great
shipyards.
I will tell you this: our public safety, the security of America,
depends upon the U.S. Navy. The U.S. Navy depends upon shipyards for
their ships. The more commercial ships we build in the shipyards, the
more competition there will be to build naval ships.
So here it is, a better deal. This is what we Democrats are offering.
We are offering a better deal. We are going to focus directly on better
jobs.
Tonight, we have talked about American manufacturing. We talked about
making it in America. We talked about making ships in America once
again. We are talking about high-paid, middle class jobs in American
manufacturing, whether it is the shipyard or whether it is where these
great engines are manufactured, wherever it may be in the United
States.
So better jobs, better wages from these high-quality jobs, and,
therefore, a better future for America.
So here, while we spend all of our time wondering what the next tweet
will be from our President, I want us also to think about the art of
the possible, about legislation that provides Americans with a better
deal.
We will talk more about this in future days, but, right now, I want
us all to think about what we can do for America so that we will have a
better deal for the working men and women of America.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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