Make it in America: Infrastructure

Floor Speech

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Ms. KAPTUR. What a pleasure it is to join you this evening, and thank
you for your continuing leadership on jobs, infrastructure--jobs in
America, not outsourcing our jobs elsewhere--and to also be joined by
Congresswoman Hahn, such an incredible leader who has made such a
difference not just in California, but in communities across this
country.

We really appreciate everything that she has done legislatively over
these last 5 years to help our ports develop, to connect rail to ports,
highway to rail. It is really amazing what her leadership has done in
forming the PORTS Caucus. Thank you very much, Congresswoman Hahn.

I rise this evening to join both of you. Obviously, I am in a
different part of the country, but we understand what it means to Make
It In America. I think the last company in Washington, D.C., our
Nation's Capital, was the old Government Printing Office that used to
print some of its goods here, but it doesn't anymore.

To Make It In America creates jobs here, and what is interesting to
look at, Congressman Garamendi talks about the transportation and
infrastructure bill. No bill that this Congress could pass would create
more jobs than that bill. We hope to have it cleared.

I know Chairman Shuster and Ranking Member DeFazio are working very
hard on that. I know Members like Congressman Garamendi are helping
lift them across the finish line.

The Make It In America agenda will create tens of thousands of jobs
across this country. Look at every community you go to, and look at
what is unfinished. Old bridges are falling down. There used to be a
song, ``London Bridge is Falling Down.'' Well, I think they are falling
down in America now. Highways are not complete. We have old airports.

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Ms. KAPTUR. I can only imagine. We have so many unmet needs in my own
community that spans a river called the Maumee River, the largest river
that flows into the Great Lakes.

We built a new bridge, but the challenge there today is with the
weather. Ice is forming on the tensile spans, and they have had to
close the bridge for 3 or 4 days at a time, for fear that these ice
plates will fall on trucks and cars. We have to fix this problem.

All these issues are all over the country, so the transportation and
infrastructure bill is essential. I thought in discussing this tonight
that I would put a couple of really important figures on the Record.

Congresswoman Hahn talked about ports and her championing the PORTS
Caucus here and how much gets imported into our country and what gets
exported. Well, here is a chart that gives you a sense of how many more
imports come in here than exports go out.

Since the mid-1970s and then the passage of NAFTA here, this
represents the growing share of imports over exports into our country.
Since about 1975, our country has amassed $9.5 trillion in red ink with
the world.

That is hard to imagine for most people, but that translates into
47.5 million lost jobs in our country just due to trade--not
technology, but more imports coming in than exports going out. We have
lost two-thirds of our manufacturing jobs.

So when the gentleman champions development in America which yields
jobs in America, these are just the figures relating to one country
with which we have held a massive deficit since the passage of NAFTA.
NAFTA passed back in 1993. Our country moved into a gigantic deficit
with Mexico.

Recently, I don't know if the--and this means lost American jobs, to
other places, and our people struggling, wages not rising, more part-
time work, fewer benefits.

I don't know if the gentleman was able to see what happened with the
recent Department of Transportation ruling. They gave a green light to
long-haul, cross-border trucking by Mexican-based carriers, despite
lingering safety concerns.

It is the jobs, but it is also the safety that you talk about. The
Department of Transportation simply looked the other way when the
inspector general found serious flaws in the pilot program meant to
test this new authority.

Once again, NAFTA led to the lowest common denominator for the
continent. Foreign corporate interests trump the safety of the American
people. And we know that flawed trade deals cost us jobs. They harm our
economy, and they put people at risk on both sides of the border.

So it is time to start fixing the damage, not creating more. I thank
the gentleman for allowing us the time to express our views this
evening.

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Ms. KAPTUR. And the last deal we had was Korea. With Korea they
promised, they said, we will be able to sell 50,000 American cars in
Korea.

Well, what has happened is they have sold, the Koreans have sold
500,000 here. We never got the 50,000 in there, didn't get it--closed
market, deal not kept.

I have a bill that I have introduced in several Congresses called the
Balancing Trade Act, which basically says to the executive branch, for
any country with which the United States has amassed a $10 billion
trade deficit, let's go back and figure out what is the problem? Why do
we have a deficit rather than a balance or a surplus? And before we
pass any more trade deals, fix that first.

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Ms. KAPTUR. Well, I wanted to divert just a moment, if I could, to
tell the story of one valiant American who is a very hardworking
American, and when we don't make it in America, what happens to our
people.

And I want to encourage citizens who may be listening to call their
Member of Congress if they have a story like this from someone in their
family, to please share it with us so that we can be a voice for these
families across our country who have been harmed and are waiting for a
transportation bill to be passed so they can go to work rebuilding
America but, meanwhile, being hurt by international trade agreements
that have outsourced their jobs.

Tonight, I would like to tell, very briefly, the story of Richard
Hahn, a tradesman from northern Ohio whose job was outsourced to
Mexico, one of the countries we talked about, and whose current job
faces new trade threats as foreign steel floods our market.

Richard Hahn spent a long career with York International as an
electrician, 23 years to be exact. He rose through the ranks to the
status of 100th in seniority from his dedication and commitment to York
International.

But in 2001, York International closed its Elyria, Ohio, facility and
moved production to Monterrey, Mexico, leaving 900 workers without
work, without a paycheck, without any assistance to move on.

After uprooting production to Mexico, York reached status as the
world's largest independent manufacturer of air-conditioning, heating,
and refrigeration machinery, and this left it as a prime buy for
Johnson Controls, which acquired the company in 2005.

Mr. Hahn and many of his colleagues were given no training or
retraining to find a replacement job, but York International continued
to thrive. Its parent company, Johnson Controls, even continues to
receive Department of Defense contracts to manufacture the same air-
conditioning, heating, and refrigeration machinery.

For nearly a year, Mr. Hahn was forced to accept unemployment as he
desperately sought work in Elyria, Ohio. Many of his 900 colleagues
moved their families out of Ohio, not finding any hope for reemployment
in their hometown where they wanted to stay.

Fast forward, a little over a decade now, and Mr. Hahn is facing the
trade theft of his job all over again. Although currently employed with
U.S. Steel as an electrician, his and 614 colleagues' positions are
under threat of layoff. U.S. Steel will have to idle its plant in
coming months because they cannot continue to secure contracts to keep
it running.

They have had international trade complaints about foreign-dumped
steel and, unfortunately, Mr. Hahn's story is not unique. In fact, he
said, his story is depicted best by quoting Billy Joel: ``We're all
waiting here in Allentown, but it sure is getting hard to stay.''

The promise of jobs and lives better than your parents' is
dissolving, and free trade deals are to blame for the shuttered
factories.

Millions of Americans from across this great land have lived their
own tale, in their own Allentown, and I encourage them to write or call
their Member of Congress, just as Richard Hahn has bravely shared his
story with me.

Tell us, tell the Members how trade has impacted your life and your
ability to provide for your families. The more stories we receive from
the American people, the more tales we can tell here on this floor and
work with Congressman Garamendi to free our Nation from these flawed
deals and make goods in America again so that our people can lead a
decent way of life and not have their futures taken from them.

So I wanted to thank the gentleman for holding this Special Order
tonight. I used Mr. Hahn as an example of someone who has the finest
work ethic, so highly trained, struggling out there to try to maintain
work. It shouldn't be this hard in the greatest nation in the world.

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Ms. KAPTUR. I want to say, Congressman Garamendi, you are such a
leader for jobs in America. I am sure your constituents are cheering
not just tonight but every day for you and for your work here. You keep
the Congress focused, both sides of the aisle, on Make It In America,
on trade, taxes, energy, labor, education, research, infrastructure,
and, over them all, jobs.

As we close this evening, let me say, this is what the trade deficit
looks like today when we know we aren't building, whether it is tubes
or whether it is trains or whether it is enough trucks in this country,
cars. Imagine if we were to turn it the other way and America started
making it in America and exporting to the world rather than the
reverse. We would have such an economic recovery, it would astound the
American people. It is amazing what we have been able to retain, even
with this hemorrhage that has occurred over the last three decades.

Thank you for drawing our attention to the importance of
transportation and infrastructure as a key job creator in this country.
If we could pass that bill early this year, what we would do for this
economy, and add Buy America provisions to several of the bills that
will be coming before us. I will join you in that effort.

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