[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 18151-18155]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    CONGRESSIONAL PROGRESSIVE CAUCUS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2013, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Pocan) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. POCAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of the Congressional 
Progressive Caucus to talk about the engine of our economy--the 
American worker. The American worker is known for their ingenuity, 
their work ethic, their drive, and their ability to get things done 
faster, better, and more efficiently than our competition. But also, 
unfortunately, the American worker is working harder than ever and they 
still aren't getting ahead.
  The obstacles facing our workforce have never been greater. Too many 
people are still unemployed or underemployed, too few possess 21st 
century skills needed by employers, and the workforce protections 
fought for by generations are under attack like never before.
  But tonight, the Congressional Progressive Caucus would like to focus 
on two issues promoting worker fairness: First, we want to ensure that 
we value and respect work through a fair wage; and second, we want to 
ensure that our country pursues fair--not free, but fair--trade deals 
that ensure American workers can compete on a level playing field.
  Mr. Speaker, we are now in the biggest sales season of the year. 
Having already passed Black Friday and Cyber Monday, businesses are 
relying on the sales of the next month for their yearly profits. But a 
major problem faces our retailers this season. Too many people, many of 
them employed by retailers themselves, do not make enough money to 
purchase the consumer goods that drive our economy.
  It has been 4 years since minimum wage workers have received a pay 
raise. Since that point, incomes of the top 1 percent have grown more 
than 31 percent, while CEO pay is 354 times that of the average 
employee. Meanwhile, the minimum wage, in its real value, is at 
historic lows. Adjusted for inflation, the 1968 minimum wage was at 
$10.60 an hour in 2013 dollars, according to the Bureau of Labor 
Statistics' Consumer Price Index. The minimum wage today is only $7.25. 
That comes out to approximately $15,000 a year for an individual and 
$30,000 a year for a family with two parents. The typical big business 
CEO, who got a 16 percent raise in 2012, got paid $15.1 million. That 
person will make more in a couple of hours than a full-time minimum 
wage worker will make in an entire year.

                              {time}  1815

  Making $15,000 a year working full time is simply not enough to get 
by in the United States. Think about the cost of rent, food, 
transportation. These costs keep going up, but the minimum wage does 
not. Is there any wonder why tomorrow Americans across the country will 
strike at food stores for a livable wage.
  I joined one of these food strikes earlier this year in Madison, and 
I was inspired by the encourage of workers when they spoke out and took 
the risk of losing their job in order to talk about the low wages they 
were receiving. Something is wrong when in the richest country in the 
world, full-time workers have to strike because they can't afford their 
basic living expenses. When millions of Americans who work hard and 
play by the rules can't support themselves or their families, when they 
live in poverty, we face an economic crisis. Consumer spending goes 
down, deficits go up, and the gap between the small group of the very 
rich and the large group of the very poor grows even wider.
  Mark Zandi, a chief economist for Moody's Analytics, recently said 
for the economy to thrive, we need everyone participating. Mr. Speaker, 
corporate profits are thriving. The stock market is thriving. The top 
10 percent of the country are thriving.
  According to tax expert David Cay Johnston, the top 10 percent 
earners took in 150 percent of the increased income in this country 
between 2009 and 2011. In fact, 40 percent of the increased income 
since 2009 went to the top 1 percent of the top 1 percent, those making 
at least $8 million in 2011.
  But do you know who is not thriving? Well, pretty much everyone else. 
During that same time period, incomes fell for the bottom 90 percent of 
Americans, and the minimum wage continued to lose its value. This is 
not a sustainable future for our economy.
  As the President said today in a speech, the combined trends of 
increased inequality and decreasing mobility pose a fundamental threat 
to the American Dream, our way of life, and what we stand for around 
the globe.
  Democrats proposed a solution, and we are honored to have the 
President's backing. Congressman George Miller of California and 
Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa have introduced the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 
2013. This bill, which already has 150 cosponsors in the House of 
Representatives, would gradually increase the minimum wage over 3 years 
from $7.25 an hour to $10.10 an hour, and it would be indexed in the 
future to increases in inflation thereafter.
  I have already detailed the negative effects of today's unlivable 
minimum wage; but if we pass the Fair Minimum Wage Act, 30 million 
Americans would receive a pay raise. Thirty million Americans would 
have more money in their wallets to support their families and 
therefore support our still-recovering economy. And who are these 30 
million Americans, Mr. Speaker? Critics charge that these are all a 
bunch of high school students trying to make a little extra cash, get 
some work experience, and if you raise the minimum wage, you will take 
away opportunities from young people.
  Well, let me put that claim to rest. It is a myth. Nearly 90 percent 
of the workers who make the minimum wage are 20 years or older. More 
than half are over 25 years old, and 55 percent work full time. In 
other words, they rely on minimum wage for their full-time work; and 44 
percent have some type of a college education, an associate degree or a 
bachelor's degree or higher. And 56 percent of those low-wage workers 
are women. And yet the critics still persist with these myths that 
somehow raising the minimum wage will slow down hiring, especially for 
small businesses.
  Just last month, Speaker Boehner was asked about the minimum wage and 
he said:

       When you raise the price of employment, guess what happens, 
     you get less of it.

  He continued:

       At a time when the American people are still asking the 
     question, Where are the jobs? why would we want to make it 
     harder for small employers to hire people?

  Well, Speaker Boehner has a very different experience than we have 
heard from experts across the country and my experience as a legislator 
in the State of Wisconsin. Every single time we raised the minimum wage 
in recent history in Wisconsin, more people entered the workforce. It 
actually created more jobs by offering that increased wage. More people 
decided they were willing to go out and work. The same has been shown 
to be true at the national level.
  I support raising the minimum wage, as do Businesses For a Fair 
Minimum Wage. So does the U.S. Women's Chamber of Commerce and the 
American

[[Page 18152]]

Sustainable Business Council. A number of business organizations see 
the very key to helping fix the economy is to help raise that minimum 
wage. In fact, two-thirds of small business owners across the country, 
according to a poll by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research on behalf of 
Small Business Majority, two-thirds of small business owners across the 
country support raising the minimum wage because small business owners, 
like myself--I have owned a small business for 25 years--understand two 
things. First, when you pay your workers with a decent wage and treat 
them with respect, you earn their loyalty. You get their hard work, and 
your business does better. That's why 85 percent of small business 
owners already pay their workers more than the minimum wage. Second, 
small business owners know that we need customers and we need people 
making enough money to afford the very products and services that we 
sell.
  When you give a pay increase to the people who need it the most, that 
money goes directly back into the economy and helps support a rising 
tide, lifting all boats in the economy. Sixty-five percent of small 
business owners agree that ``increasing the minimum wage will help the 
economy because the people with the lowest incomes are the most likely 
to spend any pay increases buying necessities they could not afford 
before, which will boost sales at businesses. This will increase the 
customer demand that businesses need to retain or hire more 
employees.''
  This is backed up by research, contrary to what Speaker Boehner and 
other critics will say. Extensive research refutes the claim that 
increasing the minimum wage causes increased unemployment and business 
closures. In fact, according to the Economic Policy Institute, raising 
the minimum wage would actually have a positive impact on our economy 
by investing those dollars right now in the economy when we need it the 
most. When we increase the minimum wage, we raise wages for 30 million 
Americans, increasing salaries by $51.5 billion over the next 3 years.
  And that is not just helping the wages of people who make minimum 
wage, but for millions of Americans whose salaries are pegged to the 
minimum wage. That is extra earnings that could be put in our economy 
right now when we need it the most. We could increase consumer spending 
at a time when weak consumer demand is one of the biggest obstacles 
facing our economy. These extra earnings would increase the gross 
domestic product by $33 billion over the bill's 3-year period, 
generating 140,000 jobs.
  So when we increase wages, we increase consumers' ability to buy, 
which increases the gross domestic product and therefore increases 
jobs. At the very worst, raising minimum wage has no effect on 
employment, but it does provide a greater standard of living for 
millions of American workers. That is why 80 percent of Americans 
support raising the minimum wage, including 57 percent of Republicans 
and 59 percent of self-identified conservatives. It is a commonsense 
economic policy; and as a small business owner, I know it is a good 
business policy.
  The Senate will hopefully consider an increase by the end of the 
year, and I encourage the people's House to do the very same.
  That is one issue that is really important, but I want to just read a 
couple of quotes from business people specifically about raising the 
minimum wage. Let me read a quote from Business For a Fairer Minimum 
Wage director Holly Sklar who said:

       The biggest problem Main Street businesses face is a lack 
     of customer demand. With the Federal minimum wage stuck at 
     $7.25 an hour, just $15,080 a year, workers now have less 
     buying power than they did a half century ago in 1956, and 
     far less than they had when the minimum wage was $10.55, a 
     high point in 1968, adjusted for inflation. We can't build a 
     strong economy on downwardly mobile wages. It is time to 
     raise America by raising the minimum wage.

  There are small business owners who have said the exact same thing, 
who realize what we need to do with the economy. Camille Moran, owner 
of Caramor Industries and 4 Seasons Christmas Tree Farm in Louisiana 
said:

       A minimum wage increase is long overdue. It is not right or 
     smart for any business to pay a wage that impoverishes not 
     only their working men and women and their families, but also 
     impoverishes our communities and our Nation. Boosting the 
     wages of low-paid workers who could then purchase goods and 
     services they need is the best medicine for our ailing 
     economy.

  Let me read from another business owner specifically about raising 
the minimum wage. This is David Bolotsky, founder and CEO of Uncommon 
Goods in Brooklyn, New York:

       Businesses don't expect the cost of energy, rent, 
     transportation, and other expenses to remain constant; yet 
     some want to keep the minimum wage the same year after year 
     despite increases in the cost of living. That kind of 
     business model traps workers in poverty and undermines our 
     economy. The minimum wage should require that all businesses 
     pay employees a wage that people can live on.

  I have more and more stories from small business owners who get that 
the best thing we can do right now is provide the minimum-wage worker 
an increase in pay, put that money into the economy, create those jobs, 
and let's give a boost to what we need to most in America.
  But the second issue that we want to address with the Congressional 
Progressive Caucus Special Order hour on the American worker is a trade 
deal that is coming down the pike possibly as early as the end of year, 
and that is the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
  We have spoken a lot today about the need to ensure workers receive a 
fair wage for a hard day's work, but we are also concerned about 
another way our workers can get the short end of the stick, and that is 
with unfair trade deals that decimate American industries and ship jobs 
overseas. Unfortunately, we appear to have a massive, secret, and 
likely very harmful unfair trade deal on our hands.
  The Trans-Pacific Partnership, or the TPP for short, is a NAFTA-style 
agreement between the U.S. and 11 other nations that have been largely 
negotiated in secret, and seems to not just repeat but perhaps worsen 
the mistakes made in the past.
  In fact, this coming week, TPP negotiators are going to meet again in 
Singapore, and they plan to have a deal by the end of the year, in less 
than a month. That means we may be less than 30 days away from having a 
final TPP deal, a deal that we have no idea what it may contain. While 
we may not know what is in the bill, we do know what we have been 
promised, and it is similar to promises that people across the country 
and in my State of Wisconsin have been told before about these massive 
trade deals, from NAFTA to CAFTA to the U.S.-Korea Free Trade 
Agreement.
  We have been told that free trade would lead to increased U.S. jobs; 
it would reduce our trade deficits; it would boost our exports; and it 
would lead to improved human rights and labor standards around the 
globe. Unfortunately, almost every single one of those promises has 
gone unfulfilled.
  In Wisconsin, we have seen the devastating effects of free trade 
agreements such as NAFTA to our local manufacturing industries and our 
jobs. In fact, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 5 million 
Americans have lost manufacturing jobs since the passage of NAFTA. A 
recent report found that the U.S. actually experienced a net loss of 
700,000 jobs to Mexico from NAFTA. As a small business owner myself, I 
have seen the number of American-made products dwindle that used to be 
available and made here in the United States.
  The record on trade surpluses is equally as damaging. The year before 
NAFTA went into effect, we had $1.66 billion trade surplus in goods 
with Mexico. Last year, we tallied a $62 billion deficit. And just 1 
year after the U.S.-Korea FTA took effect in March 2012, our trade 
deficit in goods with South Korea has increased by $5.5 billion, a 46 
percent increase.
  Meanwhile, in countries from Mexico to Colombia to Bahrain, promises 
of improved labor rights have instead been replaced with reports by 
Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the U.S. Department of 
State of continued, and oftentimes worsening, abuses.

[[Page 18153]]

  So with all of these examples behind us, and with our economy 
continuing to recover slowly from the financial crisis, it should be 
our Nation's priority to pursue transparent trade policies that promote 
American industry, protect American workers, and improve the economic 
interests of middle class families across our country.
  But as I have mentioned before, the TPP is no better than the deals 
of the past, and it could even be worse.

                              {time}  1830

  At this time, I yield to my colleague from the State of Connecticut 
(Ms. DeLauro). She is the cochair of the Steering and Policy Committee 
and the ranking member on the Labor, Health and Human Services, 
Education, and Related Agencies Appropriation Subcommittee. She is also 
a long-time legislator and a hero of mine in Congress.
  Ms. DeLAURO. I want to say thank you to my colleague from Wisconsin 
and thank you for all of your efforts and what you have been doing. It 
is an honor for me to serve with you.
  At the heart of soul of what your interests are all about is what 
that chart reflects. It is about people who are making the minimum 
wage. What is their life about? What are we doing in terms of the 
policies that we create in this institution, which is an institution 
which historically has been about providing opportunity? A drop in the 
minimum wage is not an opportunity for future success. Your 
characterization of the Trans-Pacific Partnership in creating this kind 
of an effort is absolutely on target.
  In terms of this agreement, next week, as you know, the trade 
ministers from 12 nations are going to meet in Singapore. As U.S. trade 
negotiators continue to push for this partnership, the TPP agreement, 
they want to push to move it so that we can do something by the end of 
this year.
  You made a point before that this could have been a new opportunity. 
It represented an effort to create something that was new, a 
sustainable model that promoted economic development with shared 
prosperity. But, as you know, unfortunately the talks have gone down 
the same road as previous trade agreements: export of more jobs, not 
more goods; unsafe imports; and threats to the public health, among 
other things. You made that clear.
  The country lost more than 5 million manufacturing jobs, millions of 
service sector jobs since the North American Free Trade Agreement, 
which I will tell my colleague that I was proud to vote against when 
that came before this body, and the World Trade Organization. Both of 
those went into effect, and we have seen the loss of more than 5 
million jobs.
  Again, your point is well stated. Wages in the United States have 
decreased and economic inequality is something that is talked about a 
lot today. It is not an abstract concept. It is not an abstract 
construct. It is the result of public policy that has fostered economic 
inequality in the United States, and that has increased as a result of 
these past trade agreements.
  The recent trade agreement with Korea reinforced why we cannot 
continue to do more of the same. In its first year, U.S. exports to 
Korea dropped 10 percent as imports from Korea increased. The trade 
deficit with Korea exploded by 37 percent in just 1 year, which equates 
to a net loss of approximately 40,000 more U.S. jobs. Why in an economy 
that is so difficult for people today are we embarking on public policy 
initiatives that increase lost jobs, lost wages, more economic 
uncertainty, and insecurity for families in the United States? It is 
wrongheaded. There is no reason to believe that the Trans-Pacific 
Partnership deal will not be the same kind of a raw deal for U.S. 
workers and more as this agreement would be unprecedented in scope.
  The President himself has commented that the pact would establish 
rules that extend far beyond traditional trade matters to include ``a 
whole range of new trade issues that are going to be coming up in the 
future: innovation, regulatory convergence, how we are thinking about 
the Internet and intellectual property.''
  The agreement will create binding policies on future Congresses in 
numerous areas to include those that are related to labor, patent and 
copyright, land use, food, agriculture and product standards, natural 
resources, the environment, state-owned enterprises, and government 
procurement policies, as well as financial, health care, energy, 
telecommunications, and other service sector regulations. This is a 
treaty that goes beyond tariffs. The scope is, as I have outlined, 
unbelievable.
  We also know that the lack of transparency on this treaty is 
unbelievable. It is interesting to note that industry has had great 
access to the process and what is going on. Members of Congress, both 
sides of the aisle, have not had that same access to the information in 
this trade agreement, and it is our constitutional authority as Members 
of Congress to approve trade agreements. We cannot be frozen out any 
longer. We are not going to tolerate that.
  We know, for example, that the agreement will likely lead to 
increases in U.S. imports of shrimp and other seafood from Vietnam and 
Malaysia. Here is something I believe my colleague knows but others 
need to know:
  In 2012, imported seafood products from Vietnam were refused entry 
206 times because of contamination concerns while some exporters in 
Malaysia have acted as a conduit to transit Chinese shrimp to the 
United States in order to circumvent both FDA import alerts and 
antidumping duties.
  When I said they had been stopped, why have they been stopped? Filthy 
product, contaminated product, antibiotic-laced product putting in 
jeopardy the public health of people in the United States. And rather 
than improving food safety enforcement and regulations in partner 
nations, the agreement may lead to a drain of resources needed to 
ensure that food safety at agencies like the FDA are called in to 
resolve these disputes with other countries. The agreement may even 
undermine critical U.S. food safety regulations.
  We also know from the recently leaked text that U.S. trade 
negotiators--I say ``recently leaked'' because we don't have access to 
the information. We are not able to come in and have people lay it out 
for us.
  We now know from the leaked text that U.S. trade negotiators are 
proposing unbalanced intellectual property provisions that are going to 
hinder our trading partners' access to safe and more affordable drugs. 
This is not only going to raise the price of medicines overseas, 
preventing millions from getting the medical care that they need, but 
it limits the ability of United States companies exporting these drugs 
to grow internationally and to generate more jobs at home.
  Incredibly, even as the administration is proposing to lower drug 
costs for consumers here in the United States by proposing in its 
budget to modify the length of exclusivity on brand name biologics from 
12 to 7 years, our trade negotiators are demanding 12 years of data 
exclusivity from our trading partners, denying their people quicker 
access to more affordable drugs.
  How can the United States be in that business? It is morally 
unacceptable that people overseas will have less access to lifesaving 
drugs. That is not who we are as a Nation. That is not where our values 
lie.
  These and other critical areas are being negotiated without 
sufficient congressional consultation, even though, as I mentioned, 
under the Constitution, the Congress, not the Executive, has the 
exclusive constitutional authority to ``regulate commerce with foreign 
nations'' and write the Nation's laws. Over the last few decades, 
Presidents have increasingly taken over both of those powers through a 
mechanism known as ``fast track.'' What it does is erode Congress' 
ability to shape the content of the free trade agreement, which today, 
as I said again earlier, clearly goes well beyond tariff issues of the 
shaping of the trade agreement, but it then becomes--if you provide for 
fast track authority, then that means it comes to this body. My 
colleague from Wisconsin knows this. He served in legislative bodies. 
We will have no ability to amend, and you just come and you rubber-
stamp it. No more. No more.

[[Page 18154]]

  Under the recent iteration of fast track--which expired, by the way, 
in 2007--U.S. trade negotiations required various stages of 
congressional consultation before and during the negotiations. But even 
that minimal level of congressional consultation has not occurred with 
regard to the Trans-Pacific Partnership treaty, which is why myself and 
so many of my other colleagues from both sides of the aisle, including 
my colleague from Wisconsin (Mr. Pocan), have made it clear that the 
20th century fast track and its lack of any meaningful input from 
Congress in the formative stages of an agreement is not appropriate for 
the 21st century trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership. 
More fast track is a nonstarter.
  What we need to do is to create a 21st century mechanism to negotiate 
approved trade agreements that ensure that they benefit more Americans. 
Don't decrease their wages. Don't decrease the minimum wage. Give them 
a fighting chance to help themselves and their families. We cannot 
approve a Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement that continues to follow 
the same failed trade template that has hurt working families for so 
long, that jeopardizes our public health here and abroad, and that 
creates binding policies on future Congresses that we had no input in 
creating.
  If we are to uphold the trust of our constituents, for them, for this 
economy, for our country, we need to do better, and the content and the 
process of the Trans-Pacific Partnership does not allow us to do better 
by our constituents or the great people of the United States. This is a 
treaty that needs to be restarted. Instead of being brought up and 
finished by the end of the year, we need to restart the effort, have 
congressional input, and do something that will help to make a 
difference in the lives of the people that we serve.
  I thank the gentleman for having this Special Order to focus on this 
issue. I know that he will, as I will, continue to try to make clear to 
the public what we are talking about, what is in this legislation, 
which is not going to benefit themselves and their families. That is 
something that I know that you are committed to and I am committed to, 
as well. And we are going to continue this battle. As far as I am 
concerned--I won't speak for you--we are not going to make that end-of-
the-year treaty. There are going to be many roadblocks before that 
occurs.
  I thank the gentleman for allowing me to participate in this Special 
Order tonight.
  Mr. POCAN. Thank you, Representative DeLauro, not only for your long 
history of standing up for the American worker and trying to get fair 
trade and not just free trade, but also for really giving a strong 
explanation about the problem with food coming into our country.
  Ms. DeLAURO. The food issue is supreme, and this usually stays under 
the radar. We are bringing it to the fore.
  Mr. POCAN. And medicine. Much less labor standards. We know in 
Vietnam the wage is 28 cents an hour. That is 4 percent of our 
currently already low minimum wage. To think that somehow we can have 
fair trade with a country that has 28 cents as minimum wage, that the 
factories have violated safety requirements eight out of 10 times they 
have been inspected, that workers routinely fail to get the minimum 4 
days a month of rest.

                              {time}  1845

  This is not a trade partner that you can have in a trade agreement 
that is going to at least raise the level for American workers. It can 
only lower the level.
  And another concern I know you and I have had, Representative 
DeLauro, has been on procurement and what exactly is in this agreement 
on procurement. I was an author, when I was in the State Legislature in 
Wisconsin, of Buy America laws, to make sure that our tax dollars went 
to goods that supported American workers.
  The very language that has been in these trade agreements could take 
away our ability to have Buy Local and Buy American laws, and we need 
to change that.
  So, again, thank you so much for your efforts on this. We are going 
to work with many other colleagues on both sides of the aisle to do 
what we can to defeat this fast track.
  Ms. DeLAURO. I think it is important to note that there is bipartisan 
support in opposition to a fast track authority unless it gets changed 
to include congressional input, as well as bipartisan support in 
opposition to this trade agreement for what it does, because people 
being hurt don't have a party label.
  The minimum wage, the drop in the minimum wage, affects Democrats, 
Republicans, Independents. I don't care where you are and who you are, 
it is affecting your life and the life of your family.
  So I thank the gentleman again and look forward to our continuing 
efforts.
  Mr. POCAN. Thank you again, Representative DeLauro, for your many 
years of advocacy for the American worker and your continued strong 
passionate advocacy on behalf of the American worker. Thank you.
  One of the things that, as we talked about the various provisions, 
there are literally over 20 chapters that involve everything from labor 
conditions, the environment, procurement, food safety, intellectual 
property, on and on. This is a wide, wide variety of topics that are 
covered in the trade deal.
  And the fact that Congress could maybe lose its say through a fast 
track agreement would be completely egregious because we are elected by 
the people. We have to represent our constituents and make sure we 
defend that worker in our district.
  If you take away Congress' voice, that is wrong. Whether it is done 
by a Democrat or a Republican, we must have our say.
  People will say that somehow we are anti-trade. We are, in fact, very 
much pro-trade. We just want it to be fair trade. We want it to be 
drafted carefully and correctly, and I believe you can do that.
  But when you have an agreement like we have seen with past agreements 
and what we expect so far to see in the TPP from some of the leaked 
text, it looks again that the interest of global corporations will be 
ahead of the good of the American worker.
  There are situations where a foreign-owned business could have more 
power than our own sovereign courts on issues, and where Buy American 
policies can be undermined, where corporations can be incentivized to 
move their production offshore, and it can engage us in a race to the 
bottom on worker protections, wages and rights. And the American worker 
gets left behind.
  We simply can't do that. We need to make sure that Congress has every 
possible say in a trade agreement, especially something as wide as the 
Trans Pacific Partnership can include.
  We need to know what is in these laws; and if you think about it, we 
don't know that. You just heard Representative DeLauro and me, who have 
been following this issue, we don't even know exactly what is being 
negotiated in this agreement.
  So we have a lot of questions, and we have very few answers.
  Does the agreement do anything to tackle currency manipulation? We 
don't know.
  Does it include enforceable environmental and labor standards? We 
don't know.
  And how much does it deal with the blatantly non-trade items from, 
food safety to financial regulations to Internet freedom?
  Once again, the answer is we don't know.
  Yet, despite all these unanswered questions, despite the fact that 
most Members of Congress have barely gotten a chance to see leaked 
portions of the agreement, and despite the fact that this deal will 
have lasting repercussions on our economy and our workers, once again, 
there is word that we are hearing they are going to try to fast track 
this through Congress. And that simply is not acceptable.
  Given all the lingering questions that we have out there on the 
Trans-Pacific Partnership, I firmly believe that rushing this bill 
through Congress is both dangerous and irresponsible.

[[Page 18155]]

  Just earlier this year, I led a letter, with 35 other freshman 
Democrats, expressing similar concerns about transparency and making 
sure that we have a bill, a trade deal that is in the best interest of 
our constituents, our workers.
  Madam Speaker, our job in Congress is to represent the people who 
sent us here. It is not our job to represent the interests of foreign 
corporations or CEOs who want to find the cheapest labor they can to 
increase their profit margins, and it is not our job to sit on the 
sidelines while more bad trade deals get passed through this body.
  We have a responsibility to the American worker to ensure that they 
can compete on an even playing field with workers across the world. If 
we compete on an even playing field, we will always win. We have the 
work ethic. We have the ability to do that.
  But unless we are given that equal opportunity, the American 
workforce cannot be treated in a fair and sustainable way. They can't 
compete when their jobs are shipped overseas, or their wages get driven 
down so low that they face almost unlivable conditions.
  We can and must do better for our workforce. We can raise the minimum 
wage. We can pass job-first trade deals. We can invest in our workforce 
through education and job-training programs that prepare the American 
people for the challenges of the 21st century.
  That is what the Congressional Progressive Caucus is committed to 
doing, and that is what I am committed to doing. That is why I 
encourage the entire body to help us move forward.
  Madam Speaker, the Congressional Progressive Caucus has done the best 
we could tonight to try to raise----
  Mr. POLIS. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. POCAN. I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.
  Mr. POLIS. I will be happy to talk about TPP for a moment. I have 
some time coming up on a different topic.
  But one of the issues around it has been the secrecy under which it 
has been negotiated. I actually, some months ago--to show that these 
are not just partisan concerns--sent a bipartisan letter, with Darrell 
Issa, requesting that there is more transparency about this process.
  I have had the opportunity on three occasions to review the text in 
my office. My own staff wasn't allowed to even be there with me.
  The American people are unable to execute the proper oversight over 
something that is of great economic importance to our country because 
of the secrecy under which it is being negotiated.
  Mr. POCAN. Thank you, Representative Polis from Colorado. Again, you 
have been an outstanding advocate on behalf of the American worker.
  And I too did the exact same thing. I looked at sections of this, and 
my staff weren't allowed; but even more troubling, I wasn't allowed to 
take notes about the language of these agreements.
  But from what I saw in the agreements was definitely no better than 
past agreements and very likely could be worse when it comes to labor 
standards and when it comes to our procurement policies allowing us to 
have Buy American laws.
  So the Congressional Progressive Caucus today really wanted to 
highlight the American worker. And the two issues that we wanted to 
highlight tonight, one was the need to raise the minimum wage, 
something we expect the Senate may be taking up yet this year, and that 
we hope this body will take up. And let's raise that minimum wage to 
$10.10, just like the proposal that we have before Congress.
  Secondly, let's make sure we have fair trade deals, not just free 
trade, but fair trade deals that protect the American worker, protect 
the environment, protect our businesses around intellectual property 
and other concerns. We can do that. And the Congressional Progressive 
Caucus will continue to do that.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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