The Loss Of America's Heroes And Of America's Economy

Floor Speech

The Loss Of America's Heroes And Of America's Economy

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Madam Speaker, I have come to the floor tonight to speak about an issue important to my home State. As you can see by the 1-minute speeches given here earlier tonight to this entire Nation, Connecticut pioneered America's shipbuilding and aerospace industries. Shops which were once bustling with workers are now silent. When those shops went away, thousands of good-paying jobs for hardworking people in my State went away with them. We just learned recently that Connecticut will lose another 1,000 jobs when a major defense supplier shutters two of its facilities and moves its operations to Singapore and Japan.

At this moment, 158,000 people in my State and almost 16 million across this country are out of work--many of those as a result of the transfer of military manufacturing jobs overseas. At the same time, the Department of Defense and other Federal agencies have created thousands of waivers of our domestic sourcing legislation, like the Buy American Act, which has resulted in billions of taxpayer dollars being sent to overseas companies.

Now, in working with a group of Members who is dedicated to shoring up the rules that require the government to purchase domestically, I've been drafting legislation which will seek to address the growing number of loopholes that allow companies to take taxpayer dollars overseas. My legislation would begin to reorient and to build up our domestic manufacturing and construction base, which has been hit so hard in recent times, by using taxpayer dollars to do it. Taxpayer dollars are already going to buy, too often, overseas products.

We don't seek to interfere with the decisions of private businesses. We do, however, seek to make it clear that the U.S. Government values American-made products and that taxpayer money shouldn't be shipped off to a foreign country to contribute to the bottom line of that foreign company when American businesses can produce the same high-quality goods right here at home.

I believe strongly in international trade, and I accept the necessity of an interdependent global economy. However, what we are discussing here is not just economics, and it is not simply a race to find the lowest price. It is about national security. It is especially about national security with regard to the Department of Defense. A stable supply of domestically manufactured defense products is imperative to this Nation's long-term safety and common defense. We have a real opportunity here to both reinvigorate our domestic capacity for manufacturing while enhancing our national security.

With that in mind, I, along with a group of Members, am crafting legislation which will seek to assist firms that are victims of the loopholes in our current Buy American and Buy America regime. This legislation will target assistance to suppliers that manufacture or that could manufacture products that Federal agencies have deemed nonavailable from domestic sources, which is a misleading designation. Under current law, an agency can determine that an item is nonavailable in sufficient quantity or quality in the United States and then can just waive the Buy American restrictions. Therefore, the assistance in my legislation will target firms that make these nonavailable items right here in the United States but that might not have the capacity right now to meet the agency's needs.

These firms will use this assistance to increase their capacity so that they can be the suppliers to the American Government rather than ceding that ground to foreign firms. It will also assist suppliers that manufacture an item which is currently being bought through the Buy American provisions. If that firm is in danger of going out of business, then let's step up and help it stay in business because the only place that we are left to go after that firm folds is to a foreign supplier.

Madam Speaker, my colleagues came to this House floor earlier tonight to talk about the major Federal tanker contract which is going to a foreign supplier--Airbus. It is just one example. It is a major example of a growing trend in defense work going overseas. We have had enough. It is time for us as a Congress to deem this unacceptable, to strengthen the Buy American provisions, and to bring our taxpayer dollars back home.

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