Make It in America
Floor Speech
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Mr. TONKO. We were, and it is always a pleasure to join with you, Representative Garamendi, and with Representative Kaptur for the purposes of highlighting what can be done in this arena to cultivate a climate that grows private sector jobs and to be supportive of American-made products. So I stand here this evening in support of H.R. 1524, which would allow for us to prosper with the energy innovation and energy alternative technology which, as American produced, would be highlighted, would be the focus of attention with H.R. 1524.
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Mr. TONKO. Absolutely. I served as president and CEO before this work in Congress at NYSERDA, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, and some of the partnerships that we inspired, public-private matches, where NYSERDA would have a piece of the action working with our innovator community and our entrepreneurial community and come up with these innovative designs that would allow for us to meet energy demands or to foster energy efficiency concepts which are very important to the outcome of energy policy and performance in this country. So, absolutely, I was involved in that.
I know that that is a growing edge. It is a meteoric rise within our manufacturing sector with all of this challenge as energy consumers to not only provide for alternatives and more efficient and effective outcomes and perhaps, in many cases, reduce costs, which are important, but also embracing an environmental agenda that deals with carbon emission and methane emission through the concepts of climate change and global warming.
So it is an across-the-board win, Representative Garamendi. I applaud you for H.R. 1524 and am supportive of H.R. 194, just recently spoken about by Representative Kaptur, where we have the opportunity, again, to govern the decisions to either sell American-made products in gift shops or not.
One thing I would like to highlight here this evening, we have many traditions that have followed through the Halls of this Congress through the decades, one of which is the Export-Import Bank. So as we talk about product development and working within an international marketplace, there are those concepts in competing nations that help them with their export-import development. We have such a bank. The Export-Import Bank is at risk because it needs to be reauthorized, and, again, there is a sluggish outcome here where there is denial as to that concept.
I can tell you that Export-Import Bank supports about $1 billion worth of sales in my own district. That is no small change. And so we need to make certain that we move forward with this concept of the Export-Import Bank being reauthorized. You look at the Ex-Im Bank and where it provides great services, and that is with the small business and medium-sized business community. Those are the up-and-coming efforts within the resurgence of our economy that need assistance. This program does it. Whether you are selling state-of-the-art energy innovative products or whether it is alarm systems or whether it is electronics, there is a great bit of assistance provided by the Ex-Im Bank.
Just last month, the National Association of Manufacturers and the United States Chamber of Commerce, who don't always agree, came together supporting their togetherness in swiftly addressing reauthorizing the Ex-Im Bank. So I think it is very important. You have an organization here that has supported $37 billion worth of sales through last year that sustains some 200,000-plus jobs with over 3,400 companies. The important thing to note is their track record is stellar. For 80 years, they have been performing without assistance from taxpayer dollars. Their default rate is below 2 percent. Who can argue with that sort of success story?
So as we develop this Made In America agenda, we need the complementary efforts of the Ex-Im Bank so we can wholeheartedly go forward with every tool in the kit for our American manufacturers and our businesses, small and medium and industrial style, to be able to allow them the engine that heightens their export-import opportunity, and that is the way the work should be done, not denied here, not procrastinating about whether or not it should be reauthorized, not making it a political football, but really going forward and showing enthusiastic support based on tradition, on history, on performance, on success.
Let's get it done. Let's do our Export-Import Bank reauthorization. It is the right thing to do. This majority in the House of Representatives, the Republican majority, ought not hold back that progress. It is a support network that is essential to the future, the soundness of our business community, from small to medium to large.
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Mr. TONKO. Absolutely. They are more aggressive than our program. So why would we reduce the complementary force that we provide to Ex-Im Bank. Ninety percent, as you just pointed out, a great amount of the activity, is with our small and medium-sized community; 90 percent is with the small and medium-sized business community. So what gives? Why are we not going forward with great energy, with great passion to say we can't miss, we need to reauthorize.
Instead, we are hearing vibes about not reauthorizing. We are having all kinds of groups coming together in nontraditional fashion, imploring us to do the right thing here. And again, it is being held back by the majority in the House. It is unacceptable, and it is unintelligent to do so.
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Mr. TONKO. I hear you making mention of a long-standing skill set, that of shipbuilding. It is important as we look at that Make It In America agenda that the Democrats in the House of Representatives have put together, a very sound platform of initiatives, of policy and resource advocacy, a multifaceted concept of how to underpin the strengths of our manufacturing sector.
As we move forward with those skill sets that are required to build these ships, we need to make certain there is an investment in skills development and training, retraining, so we are doing it smarter. It doesn't have to be the cheaper price delivered to the market; it has to be the most quality also. And so we can win several of these contracts through brain power, through the investment of our intellectual capacity.
We are a Nation of pioneer spirit. I think that holds true to this day. Our humble beginnings taught us that we impacted not only the growth of this country with a westward movement, but through an industrial revolution. It affected positively the quality of life throughout this world because of that intellectual capacity, because of that pioneer spirit, because of that creative genius. And so it is important for us to include in our package as we do training and retraining, education formats, and research. We see it in the energy sphere. We see it across the board. It is important.
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Mr. TONKO. Absolutely. And it is the way we keep our cutting edge as sharp and precision-oriented as possible.
We know that it is three areas of investment. It is investment in capital infrastructure, physical infrastructure, and human infrastructure. Having that quality workforce, well prepared, skill sets that are at the cutting-edge quality so that we can continue to prosper as we compete, our companies compete, our businesses compete, at that international market. So it is important for us to constantly invest in that upgrading, in that training and retraining, and in that enhancement of education for our young people.
So there is the cornerstone of our plan, along with research which, as we have seen through the last couple of decades, it is critically important. If we look back as far back as the global space race, that space race required an investment of research. Landing a person on the Moon first of any nation, with that American flag being anchored onto the surface of the Moon, didn't just happen; it took an order of planning and commitment and passionate resolve so that with that passion we could make a difference. Well, it happened, and America was energized and it was lifted in the eyes of nations around the world as that leader.
We are at a critical juncture again, and can we afford to walk away from an investment in research? Can we afford to walk away from an investment in training and retraining? Can we afford to walk away from an investment in education, or the Export-Import Bank, or all sorts of incentives that provide for upgrades to manufacturing, advanced manufacturing, robotics, technology that allows us to build the best product out there, and we set the pace, we set the tone? It is about this wonderful agenda of Make It In America, established by so many people, including yourself, Representative Garamendi, the leadership in our House, Leader Pelosi and the Democrats in the House, advancing this cause of investment in tomorrow, investment in today. It is how we get there and how we always achieve by seeing the problem, meeting the challenge, and investing in America and her people.
We don't get there by cutting our way to prosperity, by denial, by games on the House floor, by resoundingly defeating a reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank. It is absolutely essential that we do those building blocks that take us to the next generation of competition, the next generation of workers, and it can happen only if we plan accordingly and if we take that effort to lead rather than just hold back.
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Mr. TONKO. It is interesting, as you highlighted the discussion, the dialogue with your advisers. The business of representing congressional districts, of representing any district in the halls of government, the key factor is listening, opening up to discussion, ideas, constructive criticism of what needs to be done out there, what is being done and what can be done better, what is not being done that needs to be done.
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Mr. TONKO. No, no. It is fine because you are just speaking to the point of listening and responding, learning from our constituents, learning from the front line of the business community and the worker community. Basically, when we travel this route, if we gather the information and then act accordingly, great things can happen. Prosperity blooms and blossoms.
I believe that when the business community is speaking--from small to medium to large industry--when they are telling us we need workforce development investment, we ought to listen. When they are telling us they need immigration reform, we ought to listen. When they are talking about reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank, we ought to listen.
When they talk about incentives that modernize and transfer and transition traditional manufacturing into advanced manufacturing, we ought to listen. The list goes on and on.
Just recently, I toured a manufacturing center, a factory in my district. My grandparents called the district I represent home. Ironically, a set of them worked in that factory. I am a product of immigrants--grandparent immigrants, who were dairy farmers and factory workers.
Those factory workers worked on that same floor that we were visiting, those grandparents--my grandparents. One couldn't help but wonder the equipment changes that have come in those decades that have passed. While they wove carpets--they were weavers in that carpet industry--today, they are weaving fiber strands for defense contracts, for huge equipment out there.
The owner implies and states to me that: I can't compete, I have to offer my product at a 1985 price level.
Why? One would ask why? He responded rather quickly and theoretically: a, our foreign competitors are subsidized by their government--they oftentimes own the factory, the government owns the factory. In this case, China manipulates the currency.
He said: you take away any of those factors, any one, and I can compete; you take all of them away, and I am a winner, hands down.
When our communities speak to us--in this case, workers, businesses, management--when they speak, we ought to respond accordingly. I don't understand the lack of action on an Export-Import Bank reauthorization. I don't understand the dumbing down of research opportunity. I don't understand the lack of resources to provide for a Make It In America agenda fostered by the Democratic leadership of this House, understanding full well that we are at our best when we invest in our tomorrow.
That pioneer spirit comes fully alive when we do that. Let's move forward with progress by committing to that order of agenda
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Mr. TONKO. Okay. Well, some of those trends that saw decline in some of the manufacturing sectors in our economy over the decades are now beginning to close on that gaping bit of disparity.
Labor rates, for instance--as countries had very, very cheap labor rates, they witnessed that their labor population began to demand more, which is a sign of civilization. When you are investing your skill set, your brain power, into the development of products and working on that assembly line, you will begin to understand that remuneration for what you do is important.
An order of social fairness, social justice, comes into play, economic justice, so the discrepancy between the labor rates has narrowed.
We have earlier talked about the energy supplies and energy costs. Many now are citing us as the millennium of Mideast here, with the supply of natural gas and energy issues that are being addressed significantly through innovation and alternative supplies and through natural gas supplies.
So the energy quotient in that formula for manufacturing has been very much flipping, cycling favor for the U.S. economy.
As these major factors begin to steady our way, there is a brighter bit of hope out there that is launched. If we accompany that with the appropriate policies and attached resources, if we can adopt, if you would, the Democratic agenda for Make It In America, great things can happen.
It takes a vision, and it takes leadership, and it takes planning so as to get to that point where we are investing in that pioneer spirit of America. I earlier talked about my grandparents and the fact that they claimed the 20th Congressional District in New York as their home.
They tethered their American Dream there. They went to work in those factories, on those farms, and made certain they could climb that ladder for economic opportunity. They shared that with their children and their grandchildren. They wanted to make certain that this American Dream was there for their family and then share it with others. That is us at our best.
Why not invest in that American Dream, so that as families go forward, as they dream their dreams, as they tether those dreams, as they become all they can be, as they submit to an American agenda that has always been about opportunity, about taking your natural skills, talents, and abilities and investing them for your own growth, but certainly for the growth of community and the American culture--that has been us, that is our history. Let it speak to us.
As we hear others who speak to us about the needs to grow the economy, let us respond. Let us do that with a keen sense of awareness, of empathy, of attachment to an American agenda for jobs.
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Mr. TONKO. Absolutely. Just underscoring your statement that when women succeed, America succeeds--when women succeed, that lifts all families, whether it is a single female head of family, whether it is a male-female household, two women in the household, whatever it is, across the board, that is a win situation.
So families prosper, families succeed, and then, of course, America succeeds. Again, a multifaceted agenda that speaks to core needs. It speaks to social and economic justice. It speaks to the fact that pay equity and equal pay for equal work is a cornerstone to our women succeed, America succeeds agenda, the minimum wage being lifted, and certainly quality child care, affordable child care. That is what sustains the agenda, so that when women succeed, families succeed, America succeeds. We move forward with a vibrancy that began with its underpinnings of support here on the Hill in Washington, with Congress working toward the needs of workers and the business community and making certain that we respond to the present-day needs that exist out there that only build upon the richness of history and allow America to truly succeed.
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