[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 6]
[House]
[Pages 7834-7835]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           MAKE IT IN AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Comer). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2017, the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Garamendi) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority 
leader.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, this is Infrastructure Week.
  Infrastructure. Can you imagine Congress actually talking about 
building things that America needs, like roads, high-speed internet, 
and maybe a few ports and ships and high-speed trains from here to 
there?
  It is Infrastructure Week. Mr. President, you promised us a trillion-
dollar infrastructure bill; however, you seem to be occupied on a few 
other things. So we will be understanding and just kind of take up the 
issue here and talk about it and see if we can move this issue forward 
since we really haven't heard from the administration on your trillion-
dollar program.
  Let's talk about some of the elements of it today. I am going to 
start with a really old placard that we have used now for 7 years. We 
call this the Make It In America agenda, and it has been something that 
Mr. Hoyer of Maryland and I and many others on the Democratic side of 
the aisle have been talking about for some time. We talk about trade; 
tax policy; energy policy; and labor issues, such as the Davis-Bacon 
Act that guarantees that we are not going to have a rush to the bottom, 
but that we are going to hold up the working men and women that are 
making things in America, like roads and bridges; education; research; 
and not at the bottom, but always important, infrastructure.
  So today we talk about infrastructure. As we do so, I want us to 
always keep in mind that infrastructure offers an incredible 
opportunity for America to do more than just lay down concrete, more 
than just putting asphalt on a road or a pipe in the ground. 
Infrastructure offers an opportunity for us

[[Page 7835]]

to rebuild the American manufacturing sector. There are many different 
ways we can do that.
  For example, if we are going to build locomotives for the eastern 
corridor of the Amtrak system here in the United States, new electric 
locomotives. Way back when, some of us do remember the Great Recession 
and the effort of this Congress--then controlled by the Democrats--to 
jump-start, to rebuild the American economy. In what was the stimulus 
legislation there was a piece of it that called for, I think, $700 
million or $800 million for about 80 new electric locomotives for 
Amtrak. Some brilliant staffer wrote into it: 100 percent American 
made.
  Guess what. Siemens, a German company, said, Oh, a $700 million, $800 
million contract to make a bunch of locomotives; we can do that. So, in 
Sacramento, California, they expanded their little trolly plant and 
made it into a locomotive plant. They have now built all of those 100 
percent American made.
  So when we talk about infrastructure--in this case, the Amtrak 
system--it can be made in America. Manufacturing matters.
  To get down to the details here of what infrastructure is all about, 
international trade is critical to the American economy. Unfortunately, 
we are running a trade deficit. All of that trade--about 90 percent of 
it, actually--comes through the ports of America. So when you talk 
about infrastructure, you have got to talk about the ports.
  Harbor maintenance is a particular program that has been in existence 
for a long time. It is a tax on every cargo container that arrives in 
the United States in ports and is basically used for dredging.
  My colleague and I, who will be joining me in a few moments from the 
Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, made a little change here. 
We said that money can't just go for the support of the Treasury and 
the deficit, but, rather, it must be used on harbor maintenance. We 
expanded the definition of harbor maintenance to include on the wharf 
and related issues.
  But when we talk about infrastructure, much of that infrastructure 
will start at the great ports on the West Coast up in Seattle and the 
Puget Sound and San Francisco Bay. Don't let me forget about Oregon. 
They have got some great ports in Oregon. Then, of course, the busiest 
port in America--well, probably among the busiest ports--L.A.-Long 
Beach Port in California.
  Infrastructure. Are the American ports ready for tomorrow's 
international commerce?
  The answer is: Not really.
  The Panama Canal has been expanded and now we have ships called 
Panamax ships and super Panamax ships, all of which require that our 
ports be upgraded. The channel has deepened. The wharf has expanded. 
The number of containers that can be handled at any one time increased.
  So you have got the channel deepening, wharves that need to be made, 
docks, the rest, and all of the cranes and all of the movement 
necessary to handle these ships that have thousands upon thousands of 
containers, all of which have to be unloaded quickly.
  I want to begin with the infrastructure issue at the ports, but there 
is more to it than that. It is the ships that arrive at the ports.
  The United States used to have a great maritime industry. At the end 
of World War II, there were more than 1,500 American-flagged and 
American-built ships. Over the years, we have seen a continuing decline 
in that. We had 500 about 20 years ago, and today, less than 80 ships 
are American-flagged.
  We do have the Jones Act, which is extremely important. That is for 
the domestic shipping. Those are American-flagged and American-built 
ships, but those are all domestic. The intercontinental ships--what 
they call the Blue Ocean Ships--are not made in America anymore, but 
they could be.
  This is where I want to take this discussion. I want to take this 
discussion back to another part of the infrastructure. Remember, I was 
talking to you about the trains, the locomotives made in America and 
really rebuilding the American locomotive industry in California with a 
German company, Siemens, building those locomotives.
  Now, guess what. America is not energy independent yet, but we are on 
our way to that. We would expect to be the third largest exporter of 
natural gas in the form of liquefied natural gas by 2020 and one of the 
world's largest exporters of crude oil by 2025. As of today, none, 
nada, not any of that liquefied natural gas or oil will be on American-
built ships.
  Don't you think it ought to be the American policy that some of it 
should be on American-built ships with American flags and American 
mariners?
  If you care about the national security, you should care about blue 
water shipbuilding in the United States. There are two bills that I am 
introducing that go directly to this.
  The fundamental question is this: Will the LNG ships be made in 
China, Korea, Japan, or will they be made in America?
  American national security depends upon the U.S. Navy and the ability 
to build ships in the United States.
  Right now, the great oceangoing ships on the commercial side are not 
built in the United States and our shipyards are losing the trained men 
and women, from naval architects to welders and steamfitters, and on 
and on, that can build these ships.
  What we need to do is to reenergize the American shipbuilding 
industry and the infrastructure that goes with it by passing 
legislation that we call the Energizing American Maritime Act and 
energizing the American shipbuilding industry, all part of an 
infrastructure package that includes the ports, the docks, the trains 
and trucks that arrive there, multimedia, and on the water itself--
American-built ships with American sailors providing at least some of 
the export potential that is in the process of being achieved.
  Liquefied natural gas. We would expect to have more than 100 ships 
moving that LNG from American ports to somewhere around the world--
mostly China, Japan, India, and Europe.

                              {time}  1945

  But right now it will be zero unless we pass a bill--16 lines of 
law--that say: Build it in America; make it in America, American 
mariners, American ships.
  We can do this as part of a large, trillion-dollar infrastructure 
package--ships on the ocean and ports in America that are capable of 
handling the largest ships in the world, docks that are capable of 
quickly unloading these ships in an efficient, effective manner, rail 
yards that move the goods out of the ports and into the ports for 
export, and the trucks that move across the highways, all of this, part 
of an infrastructure package, just one piece of a much larger issue.
  Now, joining me tonight in our little discussion is an extraordinary 
Representative from the great State of Connecticut who has now taken a 
leadership position on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee 
as vice ranking member, Elizabeth Esty.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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