[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 13422-13423]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           WASTEFUL SPENDING

  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I have put this poster up for Waste of the 
Week to address waste, fraud or abuse of taxpayers' hard-earned 
dollars, and this is week 51.
  Today I am here to draw attention to the $2.3 billion owed to the 
United States from uncollected anti-dumping and countervailing duties. 
These are nations that have violated our trade laws, that signed up 
through trade laws or trade agreements, and then violated those--or 
companies from those countries that have violated those. There are laws 
that prohibit that and enforce that, and this is what it ought to be.
  Let me say at the outset here that I do support international trade. 
It bolsters our economy; the statistics show that. It creates new 
opportunities for American businesses overseas, and it enhances 
America's security and global roles.
  Trade raises economic prosperity; it has been a proven fact. Just 
take my State of Indiana. In recent years, Indiana has exported over 
$34 billion in goods and services. Hoosier manufacturers export 
automobiles, auto parts, industrial machinery, medical devices, and 
much more. Indiana is a national leader in pharmaceutical and 
agricultural exports. In 2014, our State had the highest share of 
manufacturing employment per capita and the highest manufacturing 
income share relevant to the total income of any State in our country.
  According to statistics, more than one in four--actually one in 
five--jobs in Indiana are due to our ability to export overseas. That 
has a significant impact on our economy here in Indiana. It is vital 
for our State to have strong trade laws that prevent other countries 
from engaging in unfair trade so that Hoosier companies can compete 
with them on a level playing field.
  Having said that, I support international trade for all of the 
benefits to my State and to our country. I also strongly support the 
use of our trade laws to protect American companies against dumped or 
subsidized imports from foreign countries, China in particular.
  Under Federal law, anti-dumping duties are special fees that are 
placed on products shipped to the United States at unfairly low prices. 
Sometimes this occurs when a foreign manufacturer sells a product in 
the United States for less than it cost to even make that profit. They 
are not even trying to regain their costs. They want our market share, 
so they dump products into the United States that undercut our 
American-made goods. I will not stand for that. I will not support 
that.
  Some who support trade laws say that we shouldn't be enforcing these, 
that it will ultimately work itself out. I don't believe that. The law 
is the law. The agreements are the agreements. They need to be 
enforced. Countervailing duties are fees placed on products imported 
into the United States

[[Page 13423]]

that are made in countries where the foreign government unfairly 
subsidizes the product to lower their sale price.
  We are a free enterprise system here in America. Yes, there have been 
some subsidies, and we should not be a violator of that in terms of 
unfairly breaking the laws, and we generally are not in that situation. 
But many countries, we have found and proven through a process, a 
judicial process, have unfairly subsidized their products, and we need 
to impose the fees and penalties against these countries and these 
companies.
  Both anti-dumping and countervailing duties are how we fight the 
predatory practices of foreign nations that unfairly hurt American 
manufacturers by making American-made products more expensive than a 
foreign competitor's product. In order to level the playing field for 
American companies and their workers, the U.S. Department of Commerce 
calculates the duties that should be placed on the imported product to 
make up for these predatory trade practices. Once Congress calculates 
the money owed to the United States, the U.S. Customs and Border 
Protection agency--CBP, which oversees all imports into the United 
States--is responsible for collecting these fees that are imposed.
  Even though CBP is legally directed to collect all of these fees, 
recently the Government Accountability Office discovered that from the 
years 2001 to 2014, the CBP failed to collect about $2.3 billion in 
anti-dumping and countervailing duties. There are a number of reasons 
CBP has trouble collecting these fees, but one key reason the 
Government Accountability Office highlighted is that CBP simply does 
not assess the fees once the item is initially imported or once 
Commerce determines how much is owed. Basically, they are just behind 
the curve. So the agency that is responsible for collecting these fees 
simply is not doing its job successfully enough. CBP is supposed to 
collect the fees within the first 6 months of entry of the product or 
assessment, but in its accountability process, the GAO found that of 
the 41,000 uncollected bills--41,000 uncollected bills--the median age 
of the bills was 4.5 years, and they were supposed to do it in the 
first 6 months. Clearly, we have some dysfunction here. Clearly, we 
have some waste that needs to be corrected so that we can enforce these 
trade laws. Otherwise, we are sending a signal: Go ahead and do it. 
Chances are we will get away with it. Their assessment system is not 
functional. We have a good chance of avoiding the fee altogether.
  That is the signal which is being sent out to countries and 
manufacturers all around the world that are dumping or unfairly 
subsidizing their products and making our products--our competition 
less competitive.
  As I said, GAO has found that out of the 41,000 uncollected bills, 
the median age is 4.5 years. We need to get them back to the 6-month 
standard.
  Additionally, we have learned that nearly 1,000 of those uncollected 
bills were between 10 years and 13 years old. That is simply not 
acceptable. It is a dysfunction of government. It is a dysfunction of 
the bureaucratic processes we have to deal with in Washington. If it 
were somebody else's money, maybe we could make an excuse for this 
dysfunction, but this is taxpayer money. This money is from the hard-
earned money each family takes home at the end of the week to pay the 
bills, to pay the mortgage, to save money for college. It is 
unacceptable to have this happening in Washington, DC, where this 
waste, fraud, and abuse continue to ramp up on our calculator.
  American manufacturers work tirelessly to compete on a global market 
and sometimes against those who don't even play by the rules. Those who 
don't play by the rules have to have the rules enforced. So enforcement 
of our trade laws through the assessment of anti-dumping and 
countervailing duties is essential to ensure a level playing field for 
American workers and to show that predatory practices will not be 
tolerated. That is one reason I supported bipartisan legislation that 
was enacted earlier this year that would give the Customs and Border 
Patrol people the tools necessary to better enforce our trade laws, 
such as requiring CBP to better track which foreign companies may be 
less likely to pay fees owed to the United States.
  Fortunately, CBP has agreed with the GAO's recommendations. Now that 
Congress has also provided the Customs and Border Patrol people with 
the tools to implement and enforce these recommendations, I am 
hopeful--but also watchful--that CBP will improve its track record in 
the near future.
  We have a responsibility not only to sort out waste of taxpayers' 
dollars or misuse of taxpayers' dollars, we have a responsibility to 
try to correct the errors, to give the tools to the agencies to do 
their job as we have ordered them to do and then to oversee and make 
sure. It is one thing that the job is done. It is one thing to come to 
the floor and identify a problem. It is another thing to come down here 
with my colleagues and offer a solution. It is another thing to follow 
up and oversee that solution and see what we can do to make sure this 
doesn't happen again. We are far too short on oversight and far too 
long on rhetoric.
  With that, I am adding $2.3 billion for uncollected anti-dumping and 
countervailing duties, bringing our taxpayer price tag to over $328-
plus billion of waste, fraud, and abuse. Think what we could do with 
that $328 billion--help our defense, help the National Institutes of 
Health produce lifesaving new medical techniques or therapies, pave 
some roads, pay for essential functions of the Federal Government, or 
even better, not have to take this money from the taxpayers and simply 
throw it away.
  Mr. President, with that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.

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