[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 1825-1826]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




              COMMENDING STAFF ON TRADE POLICY LEGISLATION

  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I wish to take a few minutes to thank our 
staff who did so much to address what I call the need for a fresh trade 
policy, for trade done right through the course of this year. Our staff 
and Senator Hatch's staff have put an enormous amount of sweat equity 
into this process. I would like to thank some of these terrific and 
dedicated individuals here this afternoon so that all of the Senate 
will get a sense of what they did.
  Over the course of the last year and a half, with the support of 
Chairman Hatch, we were able to successfully conclude negotiations to 
introduce four major trade bills: the trade promotion authority 
legislation; the trade adjustment assistance legislation; the bill that 
passed overwhelmingly today, the Facilitation and Trade Enforcement 
Act; and the trade preference program renewal and enhancement program. 
These staff leaders helped manage those bills in the Finance Committee, 
on the Senate floor, completed conference committee negotiations, and 
along the way, they did some awfully good work in terms of assembling a 
bipartisan coalition for this legislation.
  In my view, the last year has arguably been the most productive in 
terms of trade policy in decades. In my view, these accomplishments are 
going to make an enormous difference for American workers, American 
innovators, and our country's ability to compete in these tough global 
markets, and the stakes are just enormous. There are going to be 1 
billion middle-class people in the developing world in 2025. Frankly, 
they are just crazy about America's goods and services. They like so 
much what we make, grow, and produce--whether it is airplanes, 
transportation equipment or our wonderful wine and cheese, our fruit, 
bicycles. The list just goes on and on.
  I am going to be home this weekend for townhall meetings in rural 
Oregon. I often say that one out of five jobs in Oregon depends on 
international trade. Trade jobs often pay better than do nontrade jobs. 
If anybody is interested in a modern economic theory, I say we ought to 
do more to grow things here, to make things here, to add value to them 
here, and then ship them somewhere. With those trade-related jobs 
paying better, that ought to be a strategy that would win bipartisan 
support.
  This work doesn't happen by osmosis. It happens because we have a 
terrific team of people behind these efforts. I would like to recognize 
the members of that team who have done so much to make this year 
successful.
  Greta Peisch is our counsel. She put together the Customs components 
of the trade enforcement package. Her patience and her ability to work 
with staff, with industry, with all kinds of organizations--leaders 
representing workers, consumers--Greta Peisch creatively worked to try 
to address all concerns as responsibly as possible and what an 
impressive job Ms. Peisch has done.
  Elissa Alben has done an extraordinary job in influencing the shape 
of the final Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. She put in an awful 
lot of important and valuable exercises in negotiating TPA. Of course, 
these are the rules under which we conduct trade policy, and in my view 
she did superb work with the TPA amendments in the trade enforcement 
package.
  Andy Heiman is our resident innovation adviser. His contributions 
have been crucial on Internet tax policy, on the Trade Adjustment 
Assistance Act, trade preference, creating a new program for Nepal--an 
area where Senator Feinstein has done an awful lot of good work--or 
improving the African Growth and Opportunity Act. Of course, that 
legislation involves several of our colleagues--Senator Isakson, 
Senator Coons, and others--who did very important work on those bills.
  Jayme White is with me on the floor. He is our team leader. It would 
be hard to overstate the excellent work Mr. White has done. Over the 
last 2 years, his ideas, his patience, his leadership, and his ability 
to get a sense of where we needed to go for the future have been very 
valuable. My view is we

[[Page 1826]]

couldn't have had these exceptional accomplishments in this Congress on 
the trade issue without Mr. White.
  Now, he is not here on the floor, but I want to say a word about Jeff 
Michels, our chief of staff. Jeff has been with me since I came to the 
Senate. I think it would be fair to say there is not a person in the 
Nation's Capitol who better understands the intersection, particularly 
on technology and innovation, between policy and politics. We would 
spend the entire afternoon if we were to talk about the good work Jeff 
Michels has done on these issues, but in particular, on the Internet 
tax freedom bill, Jeff Michels was there during those first days in 
1998. Our former colleague from the other body, Chris Cox, was the 
sponsor on the Republican side of the aisle. I was the sponsor of the 
legislation in the Senate. I had pretty much just arrived in the 
Senate. We were struck by the idea that somebody might be trying to tax 
Internet access. If you tax Internet access, you are doing something 
that is extraordinarily regressive. What it means--for example, in the 
State of Louisiana--if somebody were to try to do this in one of our 
States that doesn't already have some kind of grandfathered 
arrangement, taxing Internet access means that you have new regressive 
taxes in America--taxes that are especially punitive to working 
families, families who are trying to use the Internet to find out about 
educational opportunities or employment or maybe they are using it to 
learn more about dealing with matters associated with raising children. 
We wouldn't have the Internet tax freedom legislation, in my view, 
without Jeff Michels.
  In addition to the problem with the prospect of taxing Internet 
access, what we found back then is just out and out discrimination. For 
example, people would buy a paper snail mail and they wouldn't face a 
tax. Then they would buy the online edition of the very same 
publication, and they would face a tax for the online edition. We said: 
That seems pretty odd, even by Washington, DC standards. Let's ensure 
that there is, in effect, technological neutrality. So what the 
Internet tax freedom bill is all about is ensuring that there are no 
regressive taxes to hit working families hard on Internet access and 
that we don't reward discrimination against technology and innovation. 
That work would not have been possible without Jeff Michels.
  Importantly, Joshua Sheinkman, who is the Democratic staff director, 
and Mike Evans, our chief counsel, did masterful work in navigating all 
the pitfalls and landmines of the Finance Committee, the Senate floor, 
and the other body in the Congress. Their leadership and their 
experience has been essential to our success on trade and all other 
policy matters before the committee.
  Before I wrap up, I want to note that none of this happens just 
coming from one side of the aisle. Chairman Hatch's trade team and 
senior staff were absolutely essential to the success of the last year 
and today. Specifically, I commend Everett Eissenstat, Douglas 
Peterson, Shane Warren, Andrew Rollow, Jay Khosla, Chris Campbell, the 
staff director of the Finance Committee, and Mark Prater, whom we have 
always been very proud of because he is an Oregonian. All of his 
friends still give me a hard time when we are working out in Southeast 
Portland at the gym. Mark Prater is a truly talented and thoughtful 
public servant, and we appreciate his leadership.
  I would also like to thank a couple of others who have been very 
helpful in the leadership to work with us. Ayesha Khanna on the 
Democratic leader's staff and Brendan Dunn have been very helpful in 
terms of working closely with our team.
  Finally, there are a couple of alums. These issues have gone on so 
long, I believe the Presiding Officer was probably practicing medicine 
when we started some of these battles. A number of alums have also 
contributed significantly to the work that was completed today.
  Hun Quach and Ayesha Khanna started working on Customs legislation 
what seems like eons ago under Chairman Baucus, and Alan Treat helped 
lay the groundwork for the ENFORCE Act. The ENFORCE Act is really 
landmark legislation--landmark legislation that Alan Treat helped lay 
the groundwork for.
  What we found when we set up a sting operation that demonstrated this 
is that trade cheats all over the world were basically laundering 
merchandise. They would get caught violating the trade laws in one 
jurisdiction, and they would just move to another, slap a label on the 
box, and off they would go. Alan Treat helped lay the groundwork to get 
the ENFORCE Act, which I think is going to be a landmark in our ability 
to get tough with the trade cheats and those who rip off American jobs.
  So good policy doesn't just get created out of the ether, and it 
doesn't get advanced unless you have dedicated staff on both sides of 
the aisle. It doesn't happen just because a Senator has an election 
certificate. So I wanted to take just a few minutes this afternoon to 
make sure that the Senate understood that there were very capable staff 
on both sides of the aisle who gave up nights and weekends, family 
time, and a lot of opportunities they could have had to catch a movie 
or a game or go for a jog. It has led us to be able to introduce four 
major trade bills. So I thank them. They don't get thanked enough. They 
probably deserve a lot more praise than I have given them this 
afternoon, but at least what they have heard from me today is a start.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.

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