Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015--Conference Report

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, this morning at Old St. Patrick's Church in downtown Chicago, there was a funeral service for an extraordinary public servant, the late senate president Phil Rock.

On January 29, Illinois lost one of its most principled leaders and one of its finest public servants. He was a good friend of mine and a good friend of my wife's as well.

Before retiring from politics in 1993, Phil Rock represented Chicago's Oak Park and parts of the West Side of the city of Chicago. He spent 14 of those years as the longest serving Illinois Senate president. During part of that time, I had the opportunity to be by his side and to work as his senate parliamentarian.

People used to say Phil Rock was born a Catholic, a Democrat, and a Chicago Cubs fan, but not necessarily in that order. Phil was also a dedicated public servant.

Before Phil Rock became a public servant, he almost became a priest. He was born and lived much of his life in the Midway Park section of the Austin part of Chicago. He attended Quigley Preparatory Seminary and went on to the University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein, IL. But instead of becoming a priest, he became a lawyer.

After graduating from Loyola Law School--newly married to his wife Sheila--he took a different path than his colleagues. He decided not to join a big law firm. He chose to enter public service. He worked for Illinois State attorney general Bill Clark in 1965, and by 1967 Phil was the chief of the Illinois Consumer Fraud Division. He chose to enter public service at a difficult time--the turbulent 1960s. The country was torn over the Vietnam war and many social issues. The 1968 Democratic Convention was a painful reflection of our Nation's troubles.

Instead of turning away from public service, at that time Phil Rock decided to dive in and make a difference. In 1970 he was elected to the Illinois State Senate, where he ascended quickly in both the Democratic Party and the State senate as an institution. Within a year he was elected Democratic State committeeman for the Sixth District. A couple years later he became assistant senate minority leader. In 1979 Phil Rock was chosen by his colleagues to be the senate president. At the time, Illinois was facing tough times. Illinois was hard hit by the national recession and some of the highest urban unemployment rates in the country. Once again, Phil did not waver. Through his leadership, Phil helped guide the State through a storm of a recession.

Phil was a loyal and passionate Democrat, but he understood that compromise was always an important part of success. ``Bipartisanship'' wasn't a dirty word for Phil Rock; he worked with everybody. He just wanted to get things done for his constituents, as well as the people of the State. His word was his bond. When his allies made unreasonable demands, Phil was firm and said no.

When the day's legislative work was done, though, you could still find Phil presiding--usually over a barbecue pit near the State capitol. Legislators from both political parties came by; they wouldn't miss it. Phil would hand them a cold drink, and they would have a great evening together.

Hardly any of Phil's parties ended without Phil being requested to sing ``Danny Boy,'' which he did in a spirited fashion. On St. Patrick's Day, you could always count on Phil Rock and his fellow State senator Bob Egan being close to a piano, singing great Irish tunes. The events were always bipartisan, with Democrats and Republicans coming together. This is a lesson in friendship and cooperation which all of us should remember today.

Phil leaves a proud legacy. He had a wonderful sense of fairness and a strong voice for the most vulnerable in communities across the State. Phil exemplified what Hubert Humphrey called ``the moral test of government.'' He authored and passed more than 450 major pieces of legislation in his career. He earned dozens of awards from organizations across the State of Illinois, from Cairo to Zion.

Among his legislative accomplishments, Phil started Illinois's I- SEARCH Program for missing children, which provides State funding to provide information almost instantly to save those kids. He also championed laws for mandatory insurance for newborns and the State's original Abused and Neglected Child Reporting Act. One of his proudest achievements was sponsoring legislation for the Nation's first school for the deaf and blind in Glen Ellyn, which today has been named after him, the Philip J. Rock Center and School.

Phil passed away last month at the age of 78. His legacy shines brightly from Oak Park to Springfield and across our State. My wife Loretta and I want to offer our condolences to Phil's wife of more than 50 years, Sheila; their four kids, Kathleen, Meghan, Colleen, and John; and, of course, the grandkids.

Phil Rock was a tireless advocate for the little guy, he was a giant in Illinois politics, and he will be missed.

Madam President, last year I joined a bipartisan majority in the Senate to pass a Customs reauthorization bill. It was strong, it was meaningful, and it really set out to modernize our Nation's customs system and strengthen the enforcement of U.S. trade laws.

One of the greatest concerns Americans have about trade and trade agreements is that when they are cheated on by other countries, we don't enforce them, and the losers are American businesses and employees. So I like that Customs bill. I like that version and the strong language on currency manipulation which has cost a lot of American jobs and hurt U.S. businesses. It strengthened our commitment to combat human trafficking around the world. It would allow us to safeguard our climate policies under future trade agreements.

The conference report that is back to us now and before the Senate at this moment is a much different bill. Let me say there are provisions of it that are good and important. I strongly support the ENFORCE Act. The provision would allow us to have a level playing field so that companies, such as Illinois companies, could ensure that other countries play by the same rules when it comes to trade. These strong anti-dumping rules are vital to prevent foreign companies from dumping cheap steel products and other goods that undercut domestic prices and put our companies out of business and employees out of work.

I recently had representatives of the steel industry come by my office, and they explained the dramatic increase in imports of steel product, particularly rebar from Turkey. They can't understand how Turkey can sell its rebar in the United States so cheaply, putting American businesses at a disadvantage. Turkey takes scrap metal from the United States and transports it across the ocean, transforms it there into rebar and steel, and ships it back to the United States--and they are still able to charge less.

The folks in the steel industry here say: We are ready for competition, but something else is going on here.

There is clearly a subsidy when it comes to Turkish steel. And the net result is that companies like Granite City Steel in Granite City, IL, and companies across the United States are being threatened.

Some countries are dumping their products in the United States. They are selling them for less than the cost of production to run American businesses out of business and to put our steelworkers out of work.

The ENFORCE Act puts some teeth into this process, and it is one of the sections in this bill I would wholeheartedly support if it were a separate piece of legislation. But that is not how bills are presented to us in the Senate. We are given an array of issues and topics in every bill, and we have to decide whether at the end of the day the bill is worth voting for even if there are provisions in it that we like and some that we hate.

The inclusion of this important legislation is not enough to overcome my concerns with the overall bill.

Unlike the Senate-passed bill, there was a provision airdropped into this bill at the last minute in conference that really creates a problem. It is called the Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act. What it means is, with this legislation, we are by Federal law prohibiting State and local governments from imposing taxes on access to the Internet. Generically, I think that is a good thing to do, to encourage use of the Internet and not to create hardships on families, students, and individuals who use the Internet, but let's go into this conversation with our eyes wide open.

If you use a telephone to make a call to someone, you are likely going to face a tax from your State or local unit of government on telephone services. If, however, you do what my wife and I try to do every weekend and Skype your grandkids, you are using your computer for that conversation, and there is no tax on your use of that computer. Some people say, ``Good. I didn't want to pay the tax.'' But remember, local and State taxes go to sustain critical services in communities.

What we are doing with this bill is prohibiting States and localities from, in most cases, imposing taxes on Internet services. So we are closing the door to State and local units of government raising revenue that they might view as reasonable and fair to sustain police protection, fire protection, and all the demands they face. That is the reality of this provision.

What we had hoped to do was, at the same time, say that State and local units of government could collect sales tax on Internet sales. Let me explain. More and more Americans are turning to the Internet to buy things, our family included. You go to the usual vendors on the Internet, and in some cases, if they decide to, those Internet retailers collect the local sales tax. So when I give my home address in Springfield, IL, they check the ZIP Code, and they decide that when I make the purchase, they will collect the sales tax on the Internet sale of a book, for example, and they will remit that amount to the treasury of the State of Illinois. But it is not required, and many Internet vendors do not collect the sales tax. So what happens? State and local units of government don't get the benefit of the sales tax from Internet purchases.

However, if I decided, instead of buying a book on the Internet, to buy it at a local bookstore in Chicago or Springfield, I would pay a sales tax. Well, people are learning this. As they learn this, they are changing their shopping habits.

A friend of mine, Chris Koos, is the mayor of Normal, IL. He is an extraordinary person beyond Normal, as far as I am concerned. He is also a businessman as well as mayor. He has a business that sells bicycles and running shoes. He tells me people will literally come into his store and say: I need size 11 New Balance shoes. What do you have?

They bring out the running shoes, and people try them on, stand in front of the mirror, and say: Thanks a lot, Chris. I appreciate it.

They will then write down the number for the New Balance running shoes, go home, buy them on the Internet, and not pay a sales tax. Well, Chris is the loser. Here he is with a good, solid business in Normal, IL, that not only provides good service and good products but collects--as required by law--the sales tax on transactions, the sales tax going to the State and to the community to sustain basic services. So when people use his store as a showroom and then buy on the Internet and not pay the taxes, of course the State and the community lose.

What we had hoped to do was to put these two things together and say that if we are going to prohibit State and local units of government from imposing taxes on access to the Internet, at the same time, we will require Internet sellers and retailers, to collect sales taxes for purchases. That would be remitted back to the State and local government so at least there was some balance. It isn't as if we are closing the doors to State and local units of government for what they might have otherwise collected.

Unfortunately, only half of what I just described is included in this bill. The prohibition against State and local governments collecting taxes on Internet service is included, but sales conducted over the Internet is not included. That is unfortunate.

Initially, I opposed this bill and said that this was brought into it at the last minute, that it has nothing to do with customs whatsoever, and that it should never have been included. It is the kind of thing that I think gives us a bad name sometimes when it comes to the way we write bills. I opposed it. I then ended up deciding to talk to Republican Leader Senator McConnell. With his assurance that we will get a shot at calling the marketplace fairness or internet retail tax this year--either if it is sent from the House or if it originates in the Senate--I have dropped my opposition to the overall bill--although I will vote against it, I am not working against it--and the earlier rollcall indicated strong support.

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