National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016 - Conference Report
Floor Speech
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Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
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SHOOTING AT UMPQUA COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Mr. COONS. Mr. President, before I proceed to the consideration of a colloquy with my colleague from Wisconsin, I just wanted to take a moment. My colleague from Wisconsin brought to my attention that there are news reports that have just come out of a tragic mass shooting at a community college in Oregon. I believe it is called Umpqua Community College.
I just wanted to ask all who might be watching or are with us in the Chamber to keep in your thoughts and prayers the families of the victims, which number somewhere around 10, and of the wounded, somewhere around 20, and to also keep the first responders and students and faculty and our colleagues who represent the State of Oregon and all who have been affected by this tragedy in Oregon in your thoughts and prayers. It is just now being reported.
I appreciate the forbearance of my colleague and the Chair and the other Members present for my taking a moment just to bring that to everyone's attention.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I might enter into a colloquy with my colleague from Wisconsin.
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NATIONAL MANUFACTURING DAY
Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues in marking National Manufacturing Day, which will be celebrated across the country tomorrow.
The simple fact is that manufacturing has been and continues to be a vital part of our economy. But coming from the State of Delaware, I know firsthand the challenges manufacturing has faced in the 20th century and the challenges it continues to face today.
Almost every day I ride the Amtrak train from Wilmington, DE, to Washington, DC, and as I look out the window as we pass through the city of Newark, DE, I see the site of the old Chrysler assembly plant. Each time I see it, I think about what it was like going to the plant gates and visiting with friends and family and the thousands of men and women who worked shifts for decades at this tremendous automobile manufacturing plant that made the Durango and, for decades before that, other models.
Every time I see that site, which has now been leveled and is now being rebuilt, I am reminded that for decades there were men and women there who had one thing in common--good-paying, steady, high-quality manufacturing jobs. Chrysler, General Motors, and other manufacturers, which used to be at the center of my State's economy, each employing thousands of Delawareans, are today gone, and many families and many of our communities still feel the impact of those losses. But for the thousands of Delawareans who grew up with friends and family working every day at GM, Chrysler, the steel mill, the Avon plant or other now-gone manufacturing sites across our State, it is easy to be skeptical about the prospects for a revival of American manufacturing.
I am here today with my colleague from the State of Wisconsin to tell our fellow Americans that despite those harsh realities, there are real reasons for hope. Manufacturing still supports 25,000 jobs in my State. Since 2010, our economy, the growing American manufacturing sector, has created 870,000 new jobs. As production costs have gone up in our competitors--countries such as China--and as the key input cost of energy has steadily come down, businesses have seen over the last decade that more reliable financial, legal, and engineering structures and resources, and cheaper energy here in the United States have made American manufacturing more competitive than it has been in decades.
Just as important as the number of jobs created in the manufacturing sector is the quality and compensation for those jobs. American manufacturing is also responsible today for three-quarters of all private sector research and development, just illustrating once again how innovative this sector has always been. To stay ahead and to thrive in the modern-world economy, manufacturing has to be on the cutting edge.
While American manufacturing is resurgent today, there is much more we can do together to build on this momentum. That is why Senator Baldwin and I are leading a campaign called Manufacturing Jobs for America, to focus on four key areas where we together can strengthen American manufacturing--first by investing in America's workforce; second, by expanding access to capital; third, by opening up markets abroad; and fourth, by creating the conditions necessary for growth.
In the last Congress, the Manufacturing Jobs for America Initiative brought together 27 Senators to introduce 36 different manufacturing bills, half of which were bipartisan. Provisions from eight of those bills are now law, including our bill to create a national manufacturing strategy that will, for the first time, lay out a proactive, comprehensive long-term policy for investing and strengthening American manufacturing, something that all of our major competitors have long had.
The administration has also come forward with strong ideas and initiatives from their investment in nine new manufacturing hubs, innovation institutes around the country, to new Department of Labor jobs skills programs that would strengthen apprenticeships and job training. It is our hope that Manufacturing Jobs for America can continue to play an important role in investing and scaling up these ideas so they have national impact.
We are optimistic that we can continue together to build on the progress we made and pass more of these bills in this Congress. Already, for example, the Career Ready Act has passed the Senate and is waiting to be taken up by the House. This bill would help prepare students for advanced manufacturing jobs by strengthening school counseling programs and educator professional development. Another important bill is the Innovators Job Creation Act, which recently passed the Senate Finance Committee, and if passed into law, would help small manufacturers to invest in and scale up their R&D.
Still, as we know all too well, passing legislation is never easy, and it could take months or even years to get these commonsense bipartisan bills passed into law. But there is something Congress can do right now to help support our manufacturing sector.
Just last week I stood on this floor and urged my colleagues to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank that was allowed to expire earlier this year. The Ex-Im Bank has helped American companies, many of them manufacturers, to sell their goods around the world for more than 80 years, supporting 150,000 American jobs in just this past year. Each day we fail to reauthorize this critical tool for American manufacturers who are exporters, we put more and more American jobs at risk.
Manufacturers, such as Boeing and GE, are already moving good American jobs overseas. GE's announcement that it is moving 350 jobs from Wisconsin to Canada is a stark example of this new reality, and the reason is simple. GE, and similar companies, can't risk staying in a country that doesn't have a reliable export credit agency, a tool all of our competitors provide, often with much more robust resources than Ex-Im used to enjoy. Without the backing of such an agency, other countries won't even consider accepting project bids from GE, Boeing or others. I think that is unacceptable, and it should be unacceptable to all of our colleagues. It is time for Congress to recognize what is at stake for our economy, our manufacturing sector, and American workers if we continue to fail to step up and reauthorize the Ex-Im Bank.
Finally, I wish to briefly address a broader issue we face with American manufacturing, and that is its reputation and its public relations image.
While the changing face of manufacturing is a great thing, it is also a challenge because too often perceptions about manufacturing are stuck in the past. I have personally heard from parents and guidance counselors who tell me that they are reluctant to encourage their kids and their best students to pursue a career in manufacturing. Why? Because to them, folks from an older generation, manufacturing brings to mind dirty factory floors, dangerous work environments, and lower wages. Understandably, they don't see these as the viable, promising career paths that today's advanced manufacturing truly offers.
Their worries don't match up with today's reality, where manufacturing jobs require higher skills than ever before, from hard math and engineering skills to the ability to think critically and work as part of a team. Most modern manufacturing jobs require a 2-year college degree, and many require more.
In my 5 years as a Senator, I have had the opportunity to visit dozens of manufacturers up and down my State of Delaware that are creating new high-quality, high-paying jobs, and I am certain my colleague from Wisconsin has had the same insight.
In Delaware, one of those manufacturers is M. Davis, a woman-run, family owned manufacturer that has been around for over 140 years. They produce sophisticated equipment for industrial companies, such as Philips 66, Air Liquide, and DuPont. Jobs at that manufacturing plant require high-skilled workers.
Another advanced manufacturer in my State is Accudyne, which is far more than a typical company. They produce products, not for average consumers, but they solve highly complex engineering and design problems for some of the world's most prominent firms, from Boeing to Airbus to Rolls Royce.
Both of these companies understand that the only way to remain successful is to develop a highly skilled workforce by encouraging and supporting professional development and recruiting graduates from schools such as Delaware Technical Community College and the University of Delaware.
Unfortunately, it is not just public perception that hasn't kept up with manufacturing's transformation. Job training programs have also lagged behind in preparing people with the skills they need to succeed in the advanced manufacturing jobs of today.
While I have more I would like to say on that topic, at this moment I would like to invite my colleague from the State of Wisconsin to add her views and comments to this important conversation about manufacturing in America.
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Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Wisconsin, Senator Baldwin, for her hard work on manufacturing and for her deep and broad experience in what it takes for manufacturing to continue to grow in the State of Wisconsin, in the State of Delaware, and across our country.
Let me pick up on a theme through both of our previous comments, which is that skills are a key challenge for us. If we are going to take advantage of the enormous opportunities, the hundreds of thousands of unfilled jobs in this sector, one of the key issues is a mismatch in skills.
One other theme across both of our comments was how we can't work together across the aisle. Bad things happen, such as the Export-Import Bank going unauthorized, but when we can team up and work together, we can make remarkable progress.
Let me briefly reference two of the bills we have worked on in the past which enjoy strong bipartisan support and which I hope can move forward in this Congress.
One is the Manufacturing Skills Act, and the lead sponsor is Senator Ayotte of New Hampshire. It would help cities and States to modernize their job-training programs and equip workers with the skills they need.
Another bill, the Manufacturing Universities Act of 2015, of which Senator Lindsey Graham is the lead cosponsor, would designate 25 manufacturing universities across the country and invest up to $5 million per year, per school to redesign their engineering programs so they are focused on the needs of modern manufacturing.
Many of the other ideas that have been brought to the floor by colleagues also focus on skills, and let me briefly reference two.
Senator Merkley has drafted and introduced the BUILD Career and Technical Education Act to focus on some of the issues the Senator from Wisconsin was just speaking to--finding innovative ways to improve CTE education in our K-12 system to draw more talented students into the pipeline for these unfilled but lucrative manufacturing careers.
Last but certainly not least, Senator Franken of Minnesota has tirelessly worked to promote greater cooperation between community colleges and their local manufacturing partners. I know in a moment he will share with us his vision for how we can improve skills training in manufacturing.
Let me close by simply saying that tomorrow, as we celebrate National Manufacturing Day, I will be honored to welcome U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker to Delaware to look at and visit several of the manufacturers I mentioned--Accudyne and M. Davis--and to talk about how, working together at the State and the Federal level, private sector and public sector, we can create and maintain strong 21st-century manufacturing jobs.
We see the revitalization that is going on in American manufacturing, and we see the opportunity we have in front of us and we want to seize it. By enacting bipartisan bills that tackle the challenges I have discussed, we hope to have the opportunity to make the very difference our Nation requires.
With that, I yield the floor to the Senator from Minnesota for his remarks on National Manufacturing Day.
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