America Competes Act

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I intended to have considered an amendment I have offered, which is a very important amendment, which would provide assistance from the Department of Commerce to workers, to employees who want to move forward in terms of ESOPs, employee stock ownership plans.

At a time when we are losing millions of good-paying blue-collar manufacturing jobs, white-collar information technology jobs, it seems to me that the ESOP concept, the worker-ownership concept, is, in fact, an important model the U.S. Government should be exploring in terms of how we help those workers purchase their own companies and keep jobs in the United States of America.

I understand there is a problem with jurisdiction. The chairman and ranking member of the Banking Committee would like to work with me on this issue. I think we would like to go forward in terms of holding hearings and then coming forward with some legislation, which seems to me to be a sensible idea.

What I would like to do is, if I could, yield to the chairman of the Banking Committee, Mr. Dodd, and then maybe to Ranking Member Shelby.

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