Ensuring Tax Exempt Organizations the Right to Appeal Act -- Continued

Floor Speech

Mr. MURPHY. Madam President, this is an exceptional thing we are
debating right now. We are talking about limiting our own
constitutional power. We are talking about a trade promotion authority
act that would restrict our ability to offer and debate amendments on
free-trade agreements.

We have been told this is the only way we can move forward on things
such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the soon-to-be-completed
European free-trade agreement. There are great disagreements about
whether that is necessary.

It is hard to understand why we hold trade to a fundamentally
different standard than so many other things that are vitally necessary
for our economy to move forward. Why not have a different process to
pass immigration reform or energy reform or tax reform? Those are just
as, if not more, necessary to economic growth than trade.

But in that we are talking about limiting our ability to offer
amendments to a trade agreement, it would be the height of irony if we
were to conduct that debate in a way that limited our ability to also
offer amendments on the very act that takes away our power to amend the
trade agreements.

So here is just a point on process. I am fairly new to this body.
This is the first time I have been in the Senate debating a trade
agreement. Certainly, it is the first time I have been in the Congress
to debate a fast-track bill, a trade promotion authority. I think we
can take our time to allow this body to work its will, to make sure we
vote on more than a handful of amendments to a piece of legislation
that takes away our power to offer amendments on the final trade bills.

We took 3 weeks to debate the last fast-track bill. Now, I don't
think anybody is asking for 3 weeks, but we are
asking for more than a few days, given that many of us think we have
amendments, such as the one Senator Portman is offering, that can make
this bill a lot better. So I am coming to the floor today to ask for
that time to get to a better place on this bill and, specifically, to
ask for this body to take up a series of amendments surrounding one
vital issue, and that is the issue of protecting the American supply
chain on products bought by the U.S. Government. It is commonly
referred to as the ``Buy American'' law. It has been on the books for
decades.

It is a pretty simple premise. When we are buying things for the U.S.
Government, we should buy them from American companies, by and large.
It is a pretty meager requirement. At the start, it just says that when
you buy stuff for the American Government, primarily for the Defense
Department, you should buy 50 percent of it from U.S. companies.

That makes a lot of sense to people in the United States. In my State
of Connecticut, we believe that is just good economics, but it is also
good national security policy, because if you are not making things for
the Department of Defense here, you are making them abroad, and you
become reliant on a supply chain that is increasingly internationalized
and puts you at risk when one of those companies that is supplying
parts for a jet engine, for a tank, for a weapon all of a sudden isn't
your ally any longer.

The ``Buy American'' law has been riddled with loophole after
loophole, exception after exception, such that the exception is now the
rule. I won't go through the litany of ways you can get around the
``Buy American'' law, so that sometimes today items being bought by the
Department of Defense are majority made outside the United States and
frankly, often by countries that we may not be in total alignment with
when it comes to our security policy.

I want to talk about one waiver, one way around the ``Buy American''
law, and that is a really big one. There is a waiver to the ``Buy
American'' law for any country that we have entered into a free-trade
agreement with. So if you have signed a free-trade agreement with the
United States, you can supply content to goods made for the U.S.
military and have it count as made in America.

Now, that is a pretty limited exception when you have only a small
number of countries you have signed free-trade agreements with. But the
two regions we are talking about adding to the ranks of those that have
trade agreements with the United States would represent the bulk of the
global economy. We are talking about a swath of countries in Asia with
very low wages and then, ultimately, with the European trade agreement,
the whole of Europe.

All of a sudden, we don't have a small exception to the ``Buy
American'' rule, we have a truck-sized exception to the ``Buy
American'' rule, rendering it almost obsolete and unenforceable at that
point, because then almost any country that is producing a good can
apply for the trade-agreement waiver.

So we have a series of amendments that would try to tighten up this
particular waiver, this particular option built into trade agreements.
The amendment I hope to offer simply says that if you want this waiver
around the ``Buy American'' law, then you have to show that, No. 1, the
result of moving the work overseas won't cause a U.S. company to go
under--and I can give examples of when that has happened--and, No. 2,
you have to prove it you can't find it in the United States--that your
only option is to go overseas because you can't find it in the United
States. If there is an American company making it for a reasonable
price, then that company should be able to get that waiver.

Now, it doesn't take away all the other waivers. There is a waiver,
for instance, that says if you can get it much cheaper overseas, then
you can go overseas. We don't eliminate that waiver. We just say you
have to prove you can't get it in the United States and you can't get
it for a reasonable price in the United States, and then this waiver
would apply.

I think all of our constituents would support trade agreements that
make sure our taxpayer dollars being used to buy goods for the United
States get used, preferentially, on American companies. And simply by
tightening up this loophole in the ``Buy American'' law, we will
protect a lot of jobs.

How do we know that? Because in 2013, the last year for which we have
records, there were 1,200 of these waivers approved--1,200 waivers for
existing countries with free-trade agreements--worth $500 million worth
of goods. That is $500 million worth of work that would have gone to
U.S. companies that went to foreign companies because of this waiver
that said that any country that has a free-trade agreement just doesn't
have to worry about the ``Buy American'' clause. That is 1,200 today.
Imagine how many that will be in a year if we were to add all of the
countries in TPP and all of the countries in TTIP. We are talking about
factors of two and three and four added to that number.

So all I am asking for at this point is a debate. Let us just make
sure on this seminal issue, the preference that we give American
companies for work paid for by Federal taxpayers, that we have a
discussion about that on the floor of the Senate at some point over the
course of this week. Members can choose to vote up or down. They can
choose to support American companies. They can choose to support the
outsourcing of American taxpayer work. But let us have a discussion on
it. We don't need 3 weeks, like we did last time, but be probably need
a couple more days.

This is as big as you get for the Senate. We are debating giving away
our power to amend a major trade obligation of the U.S. Government. Let
us have a debate about the consequences of that with respect to
American companies.

It would make a difference to one set of people in my district, and I
will end on this--the former workers of Ansonia Copper & Brass. This is
a company that made copper-nickel tubing for our submarines. They were
the only American company that made this copper-nickel tubing, and they
had a competitor in Europe that was trying to take their business away.
Because of a waiver to the ``Buy American'' law, the contract was
awarded by the Department of Defense to the European firm and taken
away from Ansonia Copper & Brass. Because of that waiver to the ``Buy
American'' law, Ansonia Copper & Brass went out of business. We now
have no ability in the United States to produce copper-nickel tubing.
Some of the most important components to the American sub fleet in the
United States--gone. Our capacity has ended. And you can't just rebuild
this, because this is a really specialized kind of material, a really
specialized kind of product. Once that equipment, once that expertise
is gone, you can't just start it back overnight. That has real security
consequences for the United States.

I would argue that, even more importantly, it has serious economic
consequences for the men and women who were laid off about a year ago
from Ansonia Copper & Brass, because of an ill-thought-out waiver to
the ``Buy American'' clause that compromises our economic security and
our national security. Let us just pledge to have a debate about that
on the floor of the Senate before we come to a final vote on trade
promotion authority.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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