[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 17]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 23462]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




   CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 4520, AMERICAN JOBS CREATION ACT OF 2004

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                         HON. JERRY F. COSTELLO

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, October 7, 2004

  Mr. COSTELLO. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 4520, 
the American Jobs Creation Act.
  I believe that this bill does some good things. It repeals the 
Extraterritorial Income (ETI) program that was causing significant 
sanctions to be placed on a wide range of U.S. products and was hurting 
our world-wide trade efforts.
  In addition, I strongly support the ethanol provisions that were 
included in the bill. This bill extends the ethanol tax credit, which 
is vitally important to our Illinois farmers, through 2010. It creates 
a $1/gallon tax credit for agribiodiesel and a 50c cents tax-credit for 
biodiesel through 2006, and it ensures that the credits for ethanol do 
not impact the Highway Trust Fund.
  However, I cannot support this bill because I believe it will provide 
more incentives to multi-national companies to ship jobs overseas, 
rather than keep them here, where American workers need them most. This 
bill includes 24 provisions that encourage shipping jobs overseas and 
provides $36 billion in additional tax benefits for offshore operations 
of U.S. corporations.
  I also am concerned that this bill did not include language that 
would make tobacco products subject to FDA regulations, a concept that 
had strong bipartisan support, while including some special interest 
tax-breaks that are not germane to this bill.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in voting no on this 
legislation in order to send it back to the Conference Committee to 
address the critical problem of outsourcing American jobs.

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