[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 49 (Thursday, March 16, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S820-S822]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               Lobbyists

  Mr. President, we spent the past month responding to two crises in 
the lives of Ohioans: one in East Palestine, a community on the 
Pennsylvania border, a community that rail traffic runs through almost 
hourly--daily, certainly--and one to our banking system.
  I want to explore both, but what happened in East Palestine, in Ohio, 
and what happened in the far west coast of our country, in the Silicon 
Valley in California, have one thing in common: They both follow the 
Wall Street business model--obsessed with short-term profits at the 
expense of everything and everyone else. They were aided and abetted by 
corporate lobbyists and the politicians who do their bidding, weakening 
rules meant to protect the people we serve.
  (Mr. BOOKER assumed the Chair.)
  Mr. President, a student of history is sitting in the Presiding 
Officer's chair, and we both know that for much of the history of this 
country for the last 150 years, two of the most powerful lobbyists, two 
of the strongest, most aggressive, most involved companies--the 
railroads and the banks--have far too often had their way. They have 
had their way with Congress. They have had their way with regulators. 
And always--always--workers in New Jersey and workers in Ohio pay the 
price.
  These two industries--railroads and banks--aided and abetted by 
corporate lobbyists who do their bidding, always, as I said, weaken 
rules meant to protect the people, the voters whom we were elected to 
serve, and now working people in Ohio and around the country pay the 
price.
  The Nation now knows East Palestine, a tight-knit community in 
Columbiana County, OH, about 5,000 people, in a county of about 100,000 
people. You can almost, from East Palestine, see the Pennsylvania-Ohio 
border. So Senator Casey has been very involved with this, too, with 
me, as has Senator Vance, the freshman Republican Member from Ohio.
  East Palestine is in Columbiana County. A few decades ago but in my 
lifetime, Columbiana County manufactured more than 80 percent of the 
cookware, of the ceramics in this country--plates and glasses and all 
those kinds of things. Eighty percent was made in that county, that one 
little county in Ohio.
  When I was there--I have been there a number of times; I am going 
back next Tuesday--in Columbiana County, I talked to the sheriff my 
last visit

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there. He said the last pottery closed just 2 or 3 years ago. So they 
once made 80 percent of all the cookware. Now, they essentially make 
zero.
  We have seen in my State, time after time, in my hometown of 
Mansfield, OH--when I was in junior high at Johnny Appleseed Junior 
High, and that was really its name--I went to school with the sons and 
daughters of electrical workers at Westinghouse, autoworkers at General 
Motors, steelworkers at Empire Detroit, machinists at Tappan stove, the 
sons and daughters of electricians and carpenters and sheet metal 
workers and plumbers and pipefitters and laborers and operating 
engineers.
  Those jobs essentially disappeared because this Congress and, Mr. 
President, down the hall in the House of Representatives--this Senate 
and this House of Representatives, aided and abetted by Presidents from 
George Bush, Sr., through Clinton, through George Bush, Jr., through 
Obama, through Trump--every one of those Presidents sold us out, sold 
our manufacturing workers out, because corporations lobbied Congress 
for trade agreements that made it easier for them to shut down 
production in Mansfield, OH, and Toledo, OH, and Lima, OH, and 
Defiance, OH, and Youngstown and East Palestine and move overseas so 
they could get cheap labor. That is what happened.
  At the same time our corporate executives sold us out, our country 
built up China--China manufacturing, China industry--so that now 
China's military is a threat to us, all because of corporate greed and 
all because of this Wall Street business model.
  So back to East Palestine. It is the kind of place that is too often 
forgotten or exploited or both by corporate America. Now, these 
Ohioans, because of this train running off the tracks because the $10-
million-a-year CEO of Norfolk Southern decided over the last 10 years--
their management--they cut 38 percent--more than a third of their 
workforce they laid off. When you lay off a third of your workforce and 
you are a railroad, what do you think happens? Of course they 
compromised on safety. Of course they didn't have enough workers 
inspecting track. Of course they weren't able to really detect ahead of 
time what happens with those wheel bearings.
  Believe it or not--and I almost can't believe this, but I have heard 
it enough times, I know it is true--the railroads want to be able, 
under the law, to have one operator on their trains. Now, these 
railroads are 200 cars, often. We had another rail derailment in 
Springfield, OH, since East Palestine--more than 200 cars. They want to 
have only one operator.
  So you are going to have one engineer, one human being run a train 
with 200 cars that is 2 or 2-1/5 or 3 miles long. That is all driven by 
corporate greed. It is driven by ``Let's lay off workers so we can 
report to Wall Street that our stock price went up, and then, as the 
CEO, when I do stock buybacks, I get more money.''
  Here is what happened. We know that when the train ran off the track 
in East Palestine, it spewed these chemicals into the air. We know 
about this. It makes citizens wonder: Is the water safe to drink? Is 
the air safe to breathe? Will the kids get sick? What happens to the 
value of my home? These are generally modest, older homes in a town 
that has been hit hard--all because of a train derailment caused by a 
corporate culture of cutting corners.
  Let me tell you a story, Mr. President. When I was in East Palestine, 
not last time but the time before--as I said, I am going again early 
next week. When I was last there, a woman in town who owns a small 
cattle farm 4 miles from town--she sells half a beef of cattle, half a 
beef every--every year or two, a number of local clients and a number 
of local friends buy her beef.
  She said to me: You know, since this derailment, I am starting to get 
calls from my friends saying, ``Is it safe to eat this beef? Is it safe 
to eat this now?''
  She says: I don't know what to tell them.
  Authorities don't know what to tell them, but you can bet those 
buyers are going to go somewhere else to buy this beef. They are not 
going to take the chance. So it is one thing after another.
  Again, Norfolk Southern chose to invest its massive profits in making 
its executives and shareholders wealthier. The company, as I said, 
followed the Wall Street business model and boosted its stock price by 
eliminating its workforce and cutting corners on safety.
  So Senator Vance and I--a Republican from Ohio and I, a Democrat from 
Ohio--have come together to introduce our Railway Safety Act to make 
trains safer as they go through communities like East Palestine. We are 
working with Senator Cantwell, the chair of the Commerce Committee, to 
move this legislation forward quickly.
  We know the train companies, the railroads, are already swooping in 
to lobby our colleagues to say: Oh, this is Big Government. You don't 
want these rules. You don't want these regulations.

  They want to have one engineer per train. They don't want to tell the 
State of Ohio when they bring hazardous material in. They don't want to 
pay for training hazmat workers, firefighters.
  In East Palestine, 1 fire chief is paid; 22 firefighters, 23 
firefighters are volunteers. They don't have the training and they 
don't have the equipment to fight these kinds of hazardous material 
fires.
  So the railroads continue to fight against the rules. They have, 
unfortunately, too many people in this body who say: I am against 
government regulations. I don't trust government.
  Well, you shouldn't trust the railroads, for sure.
  So, Mr. President, that is what has happened in East Palestine, OH, 
when a company has that kind of influence over workers, over 
communities, over Congress, and over the regulators in Washington.
  It is the same story with Silicon Valley Bank. Let's scroll back a 
little. For as long as we have had big banks, they have had too much 
power in town. That is how we got the financial crisis of 2008 that 
wiped out worker savings and permanently set back an entire generation 
of young Americans. But, of course, Wall Street didn't change its ways 
from 15 years ago. Wall Street banks spent the ensuing years lobbying 
to roll back the safeguards Congress passed in the wake of the banking 
crisis of 15 years ago.
  The now-defunct Silicon Valley Bank spent hundreds of thousands of 
dollars pushing for exemptions for banks like theirs. In fact, the 
CEO--I believe his name is Greg Becker--of Silicon Valley Bank was here 
lobbying for weaker rules, saying: My bank is safe. I don't need any 
rules or regulations.
  Well, it kind of didn't work that way. He talked about the ``low-risk 
profile of our activities and business model''--the ``low-risk profile 
of our activities and business model.'' ``Low-risk profile'' is what he 
said. We know, actually, it had nothing to do with that. We know what 
he wanted. He wanted to maximize profit, risk be damned. And look what 
happened: The paychecks of thousands of Ohioans and people from New 
Jersey and California and all were at stake last weekend because of the 
Silicon Valley executives, because of their greed, because of their 
arrogance, and because of their incompetence.
  When we let executives in big corporations run the economy, workers 
and their families always, always pay the price. Whether it is the 
greed of Silicon Valley executives, whether it is the greed of Norfolk 
Southern, whether it is the greed of the big drug companies or the 
greed of Big Oil or the incompetence of Norfolk Southern or the Silicon 
Valley or Big Pharma or Big Oil--all of that.
  There is a pretty simple question at stake in everything we do in 
these jobs. It is, whose side are you on? Do you stand with corporate 
lobbyists, or do you stand with communities like East Palestine? Do you 
stand with the Silicon Valley venture capitalists, or do you stand with 
small businesses? Do you stand with Wall Street, or do you stand with 
workers?
  It is the same fight over and over. We know we need to respond to 
this latest in a long line of financial industry failures. We know we 
need to respond to this long line of abuses by the railroads in terms 
of safety.
  I hope my colleagues will put partisanship aside, as Senator Vance 
and I are doing on rail safety, to stand with the people whom we serve.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The senior Senator from Ohio.

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