Providing for Consideration of the Senate Amendment to the House Amendment to the Senate Amendment to H.R. 1295, Trade Preferences Extension Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. LYNCH. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

I want to begin this discussion by saying I have the utmost respect for the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions). I have worked with him on other issues where we have agreed. That is not the case today.

I also know that there will be Members of the majority and Members of the minority that have a different opinion than I do on this matter, and it does not mean I have less respect for them; it just means we have a difference of agreement on this one bill.

Now, when I first met my wife, I was an ironworker. I worked as an ironworker for 20 years. Then I went to law school and became an attorney. Then I ran for office and became a politician. My wife says it has been one disappointment after another.

When I was an ironworker, I had an opportunity to work at the General Motors facility, the auto plant in Framingham, Massachusetts. That was just before they made a decision to close that plant, close a couple in Michigan, and move them over the border to Mexico. I have seen the effect that that has had on local communities where that has happened.

I oppose this bill because I want a stronger America. That is why I oppose this bill. Our trade agreements negotiated under fast track have had a continual pattern of exporting American jobs overseas. That is just the fact of the matter.

Now, you might be surprised that a former union president, a Democrat, an ironworker would oppose a bill. The object of this bill is to provide public assistance to workers after we send their jobs overseas. That is the object of this bill. When their jobs are exported, we will give them public assistance and some training for a new job.

I oppose this bill; some people find that surprising, but I can only draw on my own experience. I always felt that I would rather have my Representative fighting for my job than coming up with a public assistance program to support me after I lost my job.

That is why I am here on the floor today. I think American workers want their Representative in the fight. They want them in the fight to protect their jobs, not to give them public assistance after they ship their jobs overseas. That is as simple as I can describe.

I think I understand the American people. I think I understand the American worker. I have been there, and this does not do the job.

If you want to read this bill, you have to go to a secret location here on the Capitol Grounds. I had to give up my cell phone and my iPad. I had to give them my pen. I was not allowed to bring any paper. I can't take notes. They bring in a big box with the bill, and they sat it down in front of me, and they let me read it. They do not allow me to talk to the people who sent me here about what is in that bill.

That is not right. That is undemocratic. There is a reason they don't let me talk about that bill to the people I represent and everybody else in this Chamber--because they would not like it. They would tell you: Do not pass this bill; it is going to cost our jobs and our kids' jobs.

The people who are drafting this bill, though, as the gentlewoman from New York spoke, are industries like the chemical industry, the pharmaceutical industry. They are all drafting sections of this bill; yet the people who represent American workers are kept out of the process.

Later on, we will be able to vote up or down, but we cannot fix this bill. Unlike every other bill that comes to this floor that we are allowed to amend, we cannot fix this bill. We have to vote it up or down, and that is not right. That is not right. If we see a problem, we should be able to fix it.

I was listening to a guy the other day talk about the fact that we shouldn't really worry about not having manufacturing jobs in America anymore, that we have a service economy. He described it as a Starbucks economy.

Now, I love Starbucks as much as the next guy; I like my grande latte, but the Starbucks economy does not work unless you have someone who can walk into that store and pay $4 for a cup of coffee. This is not good for America.

I was watching that Roosevelt show last night on PBS, and they talked about, after the Second World War, the world called America ``the arsenal of democracy'' because our industrial might, our manufacturing capacity, allowed us to marshal resources and save the world.

We have continually exported millions and millions and millions of American manufacturing jobs in the industrial capacity.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I yield the gentleman an additional 2 minutes.

Mr. LYNCH. I am just getting wound up.

They referred to America after the Second World War as the arsenal of democracy because we did save the world. Today, when the world looks at us after we have exported millions of manufacturing jobs and industrial capacity overseas, I think they look at America and say: You know, in America, they can make us a good cup of coffee if you can pay $4 a cup.

This is not the direction we should be sending America. I have the utmost respect for my friends on the other side of aisle. Democrats on my side of the aisle are going to support this. We have to get America's Representatives, Members of Congress, back in this fight. We have abnegated our responsibility.

We negotiate a lot of complicated bills on this floor and over in the Senate, nuclear regulatory issues, bankruptcy--very complicated issues--war and peace; yet we can't negotiate this trade deal. We have got to leave it up to multinational corporations. That is flat wrong. America wants their Representatives back in the fight on this issue.

Let's vote this bill down; let's get rid of TPA and let the American workers have a voice on the floor of this House of Representatives on this bill.

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Mr. LYNCH. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

I will try not to repeat the arguments that the gentlewoman has put forward, but I do have to say that there is about 8 pounds of bill over there at a secure location, as I spoke of before, that I can't talk about it in public because I am precluded from doing that. I would violate the rules of the House and the classified status that has been accorded that material, so I can't really talk about it.

I can say that it is very complicated. Like I say, there is probably, I am guessing, about 8 pounds of document there that you have to read. It is largely aspirational. In other words, I will paraphrase without disclosing any classified information. It largely says the parties will aspire or engage to do blah, blah, blah. It is largely unenforceable.

Here is another part of the problem. We are negotiating the biggest multinational trade agreement in the history of the United States. You have got some countries that I think are reliable partners and that we have a history with.

Canada, even before free trade agreements, we had trade agreements with Canada. They have the rule of law there. It is not a race to the bottom with Canada or with Australia or with New Zealand.

I think we have rule of law established in those countries. But we also, in the same agreement, are negotiating with Vietnam.

I went to Vietnam not long ago, and when we talked issues, I sat down across the table from a bunch of Communist generals. They run the country. They have problems with prison labor. They have problems with child labor. They have serious problems with environmental standards in that country.

Malaysia, do you know what the minimum wage in Malaysia is? Zero. They do that to try to attract companies.

The situation in Chile and Peru, we have organizers that have tried to work on behalf of workers who have been killed in those countries. There is no rule of law established in those countries where we have had success in enforcing our agreements. That has been a major problem.

So we are going to ask the American worker to compete with workers in Vietnam, who get, I think it is 90 cents an hour, 97 cents an hour--I don't want to sell them short--97 cents an hour in a country that has had a history of major problems, as I have spoken about. Malaysia, the same thing.

We can't enforce our agreements. And on the issue of who has drafted this bill, it is my understanding that the chemical industry provisions in that TPP were drafted by the chemical industry. They like it. They got exactly what they wanted. The same thing with these other industries.

And again, why is it a national secret that I can't talk about a bill that is going to affect every American citizen today? And not only that, it is going to affect their sons and daughters.

There is a reason that our kids coming out of college can't get jobs. We have got to wake up.

I told this story before. I went to Korea recently, with JPAC. It was about the Korean war and recovering our sons and daughters who fought in that country and are still there. But while I was there, I looked for American cars because we had passed a free trade agreement with Korea. We were there for days. I had two young Navy lieutenants with me. I said, Let's all look for American cars.

We saw two American cars in the time we were there in Korea. It is a big industrial country. They have got plenty of traffic. We saw hundreds of thousands of cars. I saw two American cars: the one I was driving in from the Embassy, and the one that the Navy lieutenants were driving in behind me. They have shut us out.

You go to Japan, it is pretty much the same story. I said before, you need to hire a detective to find an American car in Japan.

So we have had very little success in enforcing our trade agreements overseas. We have got a lousy deal.

So all I am asking is, look, I believe in--and you know what? I have to say, the EU did it right. The EU, when they negotiated with South Korea, they said: If you are going to sell cars into the EU from Korea, we want 30 percent of the components in that car to be made in the EU. And they created a lot of work for their auto parts industry.

Think about it. We could do that. Congress could do that. We could maintain that, if they are going to sell a foreign car here, we want 40 percent or 50 percent of the components to be manufactured here in the United States. We would create millions of jobs in the United States. There is nothing wrong with that. It is a good thing. We would restore industrial and manufacturing capacity in the United States if Congress got back in the game.

I am not against free trade. I think free trade works when it is balanced. I want somebody in there fighting for the American worker. We don't have that now. We don't have that now. Congress has abdicated its responsibility by agreeing to buy a pig in a poke because, when they bring that bill back on the floor here, we are going to have to vote up or down.

You won't have the ability to change the bill like you do on every other bill that is brought on the floor of Congress. You will not have that ability. Congress will have abdicated its responsibility to represent the people that sent them here.

Free trade can work. Let's have a fair deal for the American worker. That is all I am asking for.

If there were a fair deal for the American worker that I could read and talk to my constituents about--you know, I have got 727,514 bosses back in Massachusetts, and they sent me here to do my job, and I am trying to do that on their behalf. I think that every other Member of Congress is trying to do their job as well. We can't do that if TPA goes through. We need to give the American worker a voice, and we can do that today.

Let's vote this stuff down. Let's talk to the President. He is a good man, wants to create American jobs. Let's have an open debate. It should not be a secret. It should not be a national secret about these agreements we are having with multinational corporations. We should not be afraid that the American people might find out what is going on here.

We should be proud of what we are doing here. We should want it plastered all over the front pages of the newspapers in this country. We should be proud of our work here.

I can't be proud of what is going on right now, and so I urge my colleagues to vote against it. Vote this down. Let's change this system to a transparent system that the American people can be assured that their Representatives in Congress are doing the right thing.

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