[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 23]
[Senate]
[Page 32295]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


 AMENDMENT TO S. 671, THE MISCELLANEOUS TRADE & TECHNICAL CORRECTIONS 
                              ACT OF 2003

  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, today I seek recognition to discuss an 
amendment to S. 671, the Miscellaneous Trade and Technical Corrections 
Act of 2003. My amendment will strengthen our domestic dress shirt 
manufacturers and the pima cotton growers. My amendment is a technical 
correction that levels the playing field by correcting an anomaly in 
our trade laws that has unfairly advantaged foreign producers and sent 
hundreds of jobs offshore.
  The amendment reduces duties levied on cotton shirting fabric, fabric 
that is not made in the United States. Currently, U.S. law recognized 
this lack of fabric availability and granted special favorable trade 
concessions to manufacturers in Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, the 
Andean region, and Africa. The U.S. has allowed shirts to enter this 
country duty-free from so many other countries, while we have failed to 
reduce tariffs on those manufacturers that stayed in the U.S. and were 
forced to compete on these uneven terms. My amendment will correct this 
inequity.
  This amendment also recognizes the need to creatively promote the 
U.S. shirting manufacturing and textiles sectors, and does so through 
the creation of a Cotton Competitiveness grant program, which is funded 
through a portion of previously collected duties.
  Our country has experienced an enormous loss of jobs in the 
manufacturing sector. It is critical that our domestic manufactures be 
able to compete on a level playing field. In the case of the domestic 
dress shirting industry, the problem is our own government imposing a 
tariff of up to 11 percent upon the import of fabric made from U.S. 
pima cotton. My amendment is a concrete step that this Congress can 
take to reduce the hemorrhage of U.S. manufacturing jobs.
  One group of beneficiaries of this amendment is a Gitman Brothers 
factory in Ashland, PA. The Ashland Shirt and Pajama factory was built 
in 1948 and employs 265 workers. This factory in the Lehigh Valley 
turns out world class shirts with such labels as Burberry and Saks 
Fifth Avenue that are shipped across the U.S. These workers and their 
families deserve trade laws that do not chase their jobs offshore. This 
amendment enjoys the support of the domestic shirting industry, UNITE, 
and the pima cotton associations.
  I offer this legislation on behalf of the men and women of the Gitman 
factory in Ashland, the domestic dress shirting industry, and the pima 
cotton growers, so that for them free trade will indeed be fair trade 
as well.

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