[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 14110-14111]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



THE TRADE ADJUSTMENT ASSISTANCE FOR WORKERS, FARMERS, COMMUNITIES, AND 
                           FIRMS ACT OF 2001

  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Madam President, I rise today to lend my full 
support to the Trade Adjustment Assistance for Workers, Farmers, 
Communities, and Firms Act of 2001, which I introduced today along with 
Senators Bingaman, Baucus, and Daschle. I particularly want to 
congratulate Senator Bingaman on all the hard work and dedication that 
he has shown on this issue over the past several months in crafting 
this piece of legislation, which is so critical to American workers and 
their families.
  Improving and expanding TAA is a priority for us, and we hope it will 
become a priority for Congress and for the President as well. This bill 
is not just a reauthorization but an improvement to our current TAA 
program--and not a moment too soon. Earlier this week, the Chairman of 
the Federal Reserve told us our economic outlook remains troubling. We 
know that means there will be more and more workers and families who 
will need to turn to TAA for help to rebuild their futures.
  In addition to reauthorizing TAA for an additional five years, this 
bill makes substantial improvements to the TAA program as a whole. The 
bill extends possible TAA benefits for an additional 26 weeks, provides 
wage insurance for many displaced workers over 50, and expands coverage 
for secondary workers and workers whose jobs were lost when companies 
shifted their operations overseas.
  Given the massive legacy cost issue facing our steel companies, I 
particularly wanted to take action to provide health care and child 
care benefits for workers who have lost their jobs due to imports. At 
my urging, the bill contains several health care provisions, including 
a refundable tax credit for 50 percent of COBRA benefits and a 
provision that links TAA beneficiaries to child care and health 
benefits that they are entitled to under TANF.
  As we expand coverage and benefits available under TAA, however, we 
still have to remember what's really important in this debate: TAA 
cannot substitute for a good job, and too many good jobs are being lost 
due to our current trade policies. That's what we really need to focus 
on, although we still need TAA because there will always be workers who 
need it.
  As Governor of West Virginia in the 1980's and later as a U.S. 
Senator, I have seen firsthand the devastation that import surges have 
wrought on manufacturing communities. I have walked the streets of 
Welch, knowing that one in four people I met that day were unemployed. 
I have been to Weirton and Wheeling and seen the impact of the recent 
surge of dumped and subsidized steel imports on the economic landscape 
and the collective psyche of those communities as thousands of 
steelworkers, as well as workers whose jobs depend on those steel 
companies staying open, have been laid

[[Page 14111]]

off. I have seen jean factories in Elkins and Phillippi, a shoe plant 
in Marlington, a glassworks in Huntington, and a shirt factory in 
Morgantown, close down because of foreign competition, throwing 
hundreds of people--many of whom had never held another job--out of 
work.
  Many of the unemployed are in their 20's and 30's with young children 
to support. Others are in their 40's and 50's and have held the same 
job for more than 20 years. A few may never find work again. For those 
who do, it will be at a vastly reduced salary with fewer benefits. And 
as plants continue to close down, who knows if the health care and 
pension benefits that were guaranteed by their employers and which 
those workers thought they could depend on will still be there for them 
when they retire?
  It makes me angry that we as a Nation have not done nearly enough to 
help those who have been dislocated from foreign trade, through no 
fault of their own, particularly when our trade policies led to their 
unemployment. Instead, we have provided a TAA program for which many of 
our workers do not qualify and which provides too little assistance for 
workers to retrain so that they can adequately provide for their 
families. That is just not right.
  At the same time, our foreign trade partners continue to engage in 
unfair and illegal trade practices that throw more and more Americans 
out of work. For years, the relative market shares of the top Japanese 
steel firms has never varied by more than 1 percent, regardless of 
changes in the marketplace, because they have a cartel. Russian 
steelworkers often do not receive wages. New uneconomic steel capacity 
continues to come on line around the world, often partially funded by 
loans from international financial institutions that receive U.S. 
Government funding.
  Yet our steelworkers, glassworkers, and others in the manufacturing 
sector of our economy are forced to compete on the same playing field 
with these countries, whose producers are heavily subsidized or who 
have benefitted from a long legacy of indirect government assistance or 
toleration of anti-competitive activities. Such practices have allowed 
foreign steel companies to stay in business long after they would have 
shut down if they were located in the United States. How are our 
workers supposed to compete with that, no matter how efficient they 
are?
  It is no wonder that people in this country are beginning to wake up 
to our trade policies and wonder just what we are doing and what 
principles, if any, we are using to guide them. You should not need to 
have an MBA from Harvard in order to get a good job, with good wages 
and benefits, in this country.
  If this Administration wants to negotiate more trade agreements, 
without dealing with the impact that trade has on our steelworkers and 
workers in other sectors of our economy who built this country into the 
economic super power that it is today, then it will fail miserably.
  This bill is a good step forward. I urge my colleagues in Congress to 
help us pass it and the President to sign it into law. But it is only 
the beginning. We simply cannot ignore the fact that with trade, a 
rising tide does not always lift all boats. Our laws are not the laws 
of nature, but rather, the laws of mankind. We cannot say that 
dislocation through trade is inevitable and just throw up our hands, 
leaving millions of American workers behind. We have an obligation to 
them and to their families, to craft trade policies that are to their 
benefit and which help them prepare for the future. It is an obligation 
that we simply cannot ignore.

                          ____________________