[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 74 (Tuesday, May 2, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1454-S1456]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Solar Tariffs

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I rise in support of the CRA that we will 
be voting on soon. This vote presents a pretty simple choice: Do you 
stand with American manufacturers and American workers or do you stand 
with China and do you stand with our continuing to lose our industrial 
base?
  I fought my whole career for fair trade. One of my first and proudest 
votes was against the North American Free Trade Agreement, as a Member 
of the House. We saw what that agreement did to Vermont, did to Ohio, 
and did to Kansas--and Senator Moran just spoke. We saw what NAFTA did.
  These trade fights are not a new fight. Some years ago--about 20 
years ago--when I was a Member of the House, I wrote a book called 
``Myths of Free Trade.'' The book wasn't exactly a bestseller. I can 
live with that. But telling the truth on trade has not been popular in 
this town--by Presidents of both parties, majorities in Congress, and 
corporate leaders and CEOs who were lobbying Congress.
  Essentially, these trade agreements sold out American workers. These 
trade agreements were signed or, at least, negotiated by American 
Presidents and voted for by far too many Members of Congress, lobbied 
by the most powerful interest groups in Washington.
  I remember that during NAFTA--there were two things during NAFTA, 
particularly. One was that someone said that there were more corporate 
jets at National Airport than they had ever seen, because CEOs were all 
flying in to push for NAFTA--to get us to vote for NAFTA--because it 
was more money in their pockets because it was fewer dollars in 
workers' pockets. The other thing I remember was one of the--this was a 
two-party thing. Democrats were pretty bad. Republicans were actually 
slightly worse. But both parties were guilty, and Presidents from both 
parties--from Trump and all the way back to Clinton, since I came here.
  One of the Democratic leaders on this issue in the House said to me: 
You know, I hate these congressional recesses because when our Members 
go home and go to county fairs and start meeting with people, they 
decide that they don't think NAFTA is such a great idea.
  So every time we went home, this guy, who was a Member of Congress 
who was pushing for NAFTA, had more work to do because the more the 
public heard from workers--the more that Congressman heard from workers 
and

[[Page S1455]]

from the public--the less they liked this agreement. Workers from Ohio 
and around the country watched the people who are supposed to represent 
them and stand up for them sell out to corporations again and again.
  Let me tell you a real quick story. I grew up in Mansfield, OH, an 
industrial city at the time that was roughly halfway between Cleveland 
and Columbus. I worked on a family farm nearby through most of my teen 
years. But I remember walking the halls at a school called Johnny 
Appleseed Junior High. In Johnny Appleseed Junior High, I walked the 
halls with the sons and daughters of electrical workers at 
Westinghouse, autoworkers at General Motors, rubberworkers at Mansfield 
Tire, and machinists at Tappan Stove; and with the sons and daughters 
of trades people, laborers, electricians, insulators, sheet metal 
workers, plumbers, pipefitters, and operating engineers.
  Those kids had a chance in life. Those kids had a pretty good solid 
middle-class life because their parents carried a union card. They had 
that advantage. We were a country where management would sit down with 
workers, and they would negotiate. Management would do well, not the 
kind of $10 million-a-year CEO salaries as today, but they would do 
well. But workers would do well and be able to buy a car and a decent 
home and send their kids to Mansfield OSU or North Central Technical 
College or whatever.
  By the time I got to Mansfield High School, you could see those jobs 
starting to be lost. By the time, years later, when I represented 
Mansfield in the legislature, so many of those jobs were gone because 
those companies were using words like--first, they moved south for 
cheap labor. Then they moved to Mexico. Then they moved to China.
  Those companies were moving their production overseas in the name of 
``efficiency.'' Efficiency is always business school speak for lower 
wages: We want more efficiency. Actually, we really want lower wages, 
but we can't say that in public.
  Corporations searched the globe for cheap labor. First, they shut 
down production in Mansfield, OH, and Toledo and Dayton. Then they 
moved to Alabama and Mississippi. Wages were low, and the unions were 
not particularly active there because the governments in those States 
kept them out, and the businesses kept them out. Then those wages 
weren't cheap enough, and that is when they started going overseas.
  They lobbied for tax breaks and bad trade deals always in search of 
lower wages. And, you know, Wall Street would reward them over and 
over.
  Norfolk Southern I pay attention to because of their irresponsibility 
and greed and what they did to a community in my State. Every time they 
lay off workers--Norfolk Southern laid off a third of its workforce in 
the past 2 years. Every time they lay off workers, their quarterly 
earnings report gets a little better, and their profits get a little 
better.
  What does Wall Street do? Wall Street rewards them with a higher 
stock price. Then what happens is those CEOs and top executives are 
able to cash in, in a bigger and bigger way, with stock buybacks and 
other ways.
  So look at where we have ended up because of this corporate-
dominated, corporate-ridden trade policy. An Ohioan invented the light 
bulb. Today, 99 percent of LED bulbs are made in China. On the west 
coast, an American invented the semiconductor. Today, 90 percent of 
them are made overseas. We cannot and will not make that mistake again 
with the technologies that power our economy over the next century.
  We have heard a lot of talk in the Senate over the past year about 
supporting manufacturing and innovation so we can better compete with 
China. Senator Cornyn is on the floor. He and Senator Casey are working 
on a really important bill on corporate outsourcing that I hope we 
pass, and it will absolutely matter. It is why, in the end, we passed 
the CHIPS Act, to bring semiconductor production back home where it 
belongs.
  We passed a bipartisan infrastructure bill. I worked with Senator 
Portman, the other Senator from Ohio, on that and on a number of other 
bills that rebuild our bridges and roads.
  We passed the Inflation Reduction Act to make sure we lead the world 
in new renewable energy technologies, like solar.
  But, now, suspending those solar tariffs is antithetical to the good 
work we did. We take four steps forward and, today, move three steps 
backward. That is not the progress we need.
  President Biden has talked about how we are essentially--and I have 
been talking to him about this, and he has been repeating it--that we 
are burying the term ``Rust Belt'' in my part of the country. You can't 
say you want American manufacturing to lead the world and then allow 
Chinese companies, subsidized always by their government, to skirt the 
rules and dump solar panels in the United States.
  We have in my State--I believe it is still--the largest solar 
manufacturing company in America. First Solar employs 2,000 workers in 
Northwest Ohio. These workers are ready to lead the world in this 
industry. They just need a level playing field.
  We know China cheats. The Chinese Government, as they have for 
generations--unfortunately, American politicians helped them do it, and 
American corporations helped them do it, and we build up the Chinese 
military that now we are concerned with.
  China illegally subsidizes industry, from steel to solar. They have 
been doing it for years. They are always coming up with new ways to 
cheat. It is sort of a Whac-A-Mole problem, where we stop this 
cheating, and then it goes somewhere else. We stop that, and it goes 
somewhere else.
  We put tariffs on their illegally dumped products, and they move some 
aspect of production to other nearby countries to get around those 
rules. They move to Cambodia, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam, and wherever 
they can find to cheat and to ignore the rules.
  Blame them--and I certainly do--but we have allowed it. We have 
allowed it because American politicians, Presidents of both parties, 
and far too many people in this Chamber--I would certainly say the 
Presiding Officer is an exception to that--far too many people in this 
body have gone along with it as corporate America has lobbied and 
lobbied and lobbied aggressively.
  This isn't just a guess. The administration's own Commerce Department 
conducted an independent investigation. They released preliminary 
results in December. And surprise, surprise, they found that, yes, four 
leading Chinese solar cell manufacturers are dodging U.S. tariffs by 
routing some of their operations through Southeast Asia.
  We can't let them keep doing it.
  That is what this vote today is about. It has real consequences for 
our leadership in my State in manufacturing and for American leadership 
in one of the leading energy industries of the future.
  To my colleagues who say we must allow these Chinese imports for the 
time being in order to fight climate change, I disagree. Nobody in this 
body is more concerned and more active in terms of understanding 
environmental issues. As a senior in high school, I started the first 
Earth Day in Richland County in 1970. My commitment is absolute.
  But when people say this is about climate change, surely, it isn't. 
It is about ceding our leadership to other countries, and it will not 
result in long-term success.
  American workers must know we have their backs. They need to know 
they aren't a little side issue: We are for workers, except when we are 
doing this; we are for workers, except when we are doing that.
  If you believe in the dignity of work, if you put workers at the 
center of our economic policy, it makes things better. We have seen how 
dangerous it is when we cede American leadership to other countries in 
key industries like semiconductors. Now we play catch up.
  American workers have proven they can make these solar panels. It is 
not a hypothetical. Americans are manufacturing solar panels that can 
power our economy right now, today. They need a level playing field.
  How are businesses going to expand and scale up production if they 
are constantly dealing with a flood--I mean a flood, one after another 
after another wave--of illegally subsidized imports? It comes down, as 
the Presiding Officer knows, to whose side are you on? Do you stand 
with workers in Ohio or stand with the Chinese Communist Party? Do you 
stand with the American solar industry or do you stand

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with the solar industry in a country that cheats time after time?
  It is that simple. If you love this country, you fight for the people 
who make it work.
  I ask my colleagues to join me in standing up for workers in Ohio and 
around the country.