[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 7]
[House]
[Pages 8943-8944]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         FREE TRADE IN AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Louisiana (Mr. Graves) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GRAVES of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, I am a big proponent and 
supporter of free trade. I think the American workforce is so 
productive. I think that American businesses and our industries are so 
productive and so innovative that we can compete in the global markets. 
I am confident that our innovation and that our workforce can compete 
and we can win, when given an opportunity, again, to compete in global 
markets.
  At home, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has determined that the State 
of Louisiana is the top export State in the United States. In fact, one 
out of every five jobs in our State is tied back to our waterways, and 
that is because we are home to 5 of the top 15 ports in the United 
States.

                              {time}  1215

  We have an awful lot to export at home. We have a huge petrochemical 
industry, one of the largest ones in the United States. Large 
agriculture--in fact, over half the grains from the Midwest from 
American farms come down through our port system and are then exported 
around the country, around the world.
  We are home to all six class I rail lines, only one of two places in 
the United States that actually has all six class I rail lines in our 
State.
  Free trade can be good for America; it can be good for our country, 
good for our businesses, good for our families, if it is fair trade, 
and that is where my concerns come in, is our ability to compete 
fairly.
  The President said: ``High-standard trade helps level the playing 
field for American workers''--``high-standard trade helps level the 
playing field.'' The problem is that, when you compare the cost of 
compliance in the United States with environmental policies, with tax 
policies, and with labor regulations, it is not a level playing field 
in the United States. In fact, it is extraordinarily out of balance.
  The National Association of Manufacturers estimates that in 2012 
alone, that the American workforce wasted 4.2 billion hours just 
complying with regulations, 4.2 billion. The Competitive Enterprise 
Institute estimates that $1.88 trillion in lost economic productivity 
and higher prices were experienced by the American workforce and by 
American families across the country, again, $1.88 trillion in 2014.
  CEI also did a study that estimated that, for every small business in 
the United States, for each employee that small business has, that they 
pay over $11,000 a year just complying with Federal regulations. If the 
total cost of the aggregate cost of Federal regulations were at GDP--
were at gross domestic

[[Page 8944]]

product--it would rank behind Russia's economy and just ahead of 
India's economy. There are extraordinary costs. In fact, it is a 
backdoor way to tax our families.
  Eighty-eight percent of the manufacturers in the United States, 
according to a survey done by NAM, 88 percent identified Federal 
regulations as being their top concern in regard to their ability to 
compete on a level playing field.
  If you take, for example, tax compliance alone, tax policies are 
going to cost $1.7 trillion over the next 10 years, as proposed by the 
current administration, $1.7 trillion on top of all of these other 
extraordinary costs that I have covered to date.
  One of the huge costs that we have in the environmental world is the 
ozone standard. There has been a proposal to change the ozone standard. 
Some have said that the ozone standard being proposed, Yellowstone 
National Park couldn't comply with; yet they want the State of 
Louisiana, where I represent, to comply with this new ozone standard.
  When we had the top--or one of the top petrochemical industries in 
the United States, that standard is estimated to cost perhaps--it is 
estimated to be the most expensive Federal regulation in history. It 
could cost over $2 trillion to comply with the regulation--over $140 
billion per year it could cost to comply with the regulation. In our 
home State of Louisiana alone, nearly 34,000 jobs are estimated to be 
lost on an annual basis.
  Mr. Speaker, I am a proponent of the environment. I spent years and 
years of my life, of my career, working to restore the environment, 
working to restore the ecological function of south Louisiana, of our 
coastal area, of our fisheries, and of our wetlands. I am a big 
proponent of the environment.
  But, Mr. Speaker, I am concerned that, as we move forward with free 
trade, under the policies being put forth by this administration, 
American workers are going to have their hands tied behind their back 
in the cost of complying with environmental regulation, the cost of 
complying with the expensive tax regulation in the United States, and 
the cost of extraordinary labor regulation.
  I will say in closing, Mr. Speaker, I am a proponent of free trade, 
but it must be fair trade.

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