Extending Trade Adjustment Assistance Program

Floor Speech

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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I will be yielding to the chairman to ask a question to get a clarification on one point. But, first of all, I want to thank him for his leadership on this issue, and I do want to agree with Representative Brady's comments.

I think trade is very, very important. It has a very positive impact on the economy in this country. We need to work to improve these trade agreements. But what we try to do with Trade Adjustment Assistance is try to help displaced workers.

I have long been troubled by the fact that it's called Trade Adjustment Assistance. I think it should just be called ``adjustment assistance,'' because regardless of where your job goes, it creates a problem that needs to be filled. In fact, many jobs are lost in this country to advancements in technology. Frequently jobs are lost from one part of this country to another part of the country, and those people who have lost those jobs are no more impacted than if we develop a competitive disadvantage with a country and they start taking over some jobs in an area that we used to occupy. In both instances workers need help and we need a broad adjustment program to do that.

I am, however, troubled, as Mr. Levin pointed out, by the regulations that the administration tried to adopt that would pare back the program and, to some degree, limit the ability of displaced workers to get adjustment assistance.

As we have heard from all economists, skills are going to be the critical factor from this point forward in having an employable workforce in this country. We have got to give our workforce access to greater training, greater technology, and more repetitive training. Sorry, that's the wrong way to put it. They have to update their skills more often. Gone pretty much are the days when you could simply have a high school education, find a job with a company that was going to be around forever, and you were set. If we are going to have an economy where change is more rapid, we have to help our workers in this country.

As the gentleman knows, I am a strong supporter of trade agreements, frequently berated by many in my own party for that, but I don't see that as the piece that is causing the problems for our workers. The piece I see is causing the problem for our workers is we have not made enough changes to reflect the rapid change that is facing them. We don't give them enough opportunities to retrain, update their skills for the changes they have to deal with. We don't have adequate health care protection for them when they lose their job as well. These are things that the Trade Adjustment Assistance Act tries to take care of and that I am concerned that those regulations that the administration tried to adopt would undermine. So I am very grateful to have that language in there.

And this is where, if Mr. Levin could just clarify on one point, and I think in our colloquy here we have two questions, but it is really only one. I just want to be clear that the legislation that we are considering today is simply an extension of the existing program, it is not the reauthorization of the program, so that the prohibition contained in the February 2007 continuing resolution on the implementation of the flawed rules that we have referenced remains in effect even if we pass this bill. Is that correct?

Mr. SMITH of Washington. I want to thank you for that clarification and appreciate your work on this issue. I think it is critical that we pass it so that we can move forward and continue Trade Adjustment Assistance.

Equally critical, as you know, Mr. Chairman, I have been working with you and Chairman Rangel and many others on expanding Trade Adjustment Assistance so that more workers can benefit from it. I know right now we are working on a bill with a variety of different ideas. I think it is critical that we do that full-scale reauthorization and that we expand the bill so that it better protects workers, protects more workers, and makes sure that workers in this country can benefit from the new economy so that we don't have to have these constant wars over trade agreements, so that we can focus on taking advantage of the economic opportunities that are there in today's economy by making sure that the workers who are most vulnerable, who need greater skills, have help so that they too can begin to benefit from the economy.

I appreciate your work on this issue. I look forward to working with you. I know in the next few weeks we will be introducing a bill and we will be moving forward on a broader reauthorization.

I simply urge the body to support this short-term extension in the meantime.

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