Fast Track and Marriage Equality

Floor Speech

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Ms. DeLAURO. Let me say thank you to my colleague from New Jersey. I appreciate her kind words, but it is also true that she has been a strong, strong supporter of what this trade agreement might do to working families in the United States because where her heart and soul and where her values are, are going to strengthen the middle class in this country, not take the jobs away, not lower their wages, but make sure they can take care of themselves and their families.

I was so pleased to see another colleague from New Jersey here as well, and I am proud to join this effort.

On Monday, the beginning of this week, I went to Ansonia, Connecticut, which is in my district. I went to a place called the Ansonia Copper and Brass Company. There I was with the gentleman, John Barto, who was formerly the vice president of Ansonia Copper and Brass. John used to work there alongside of hundreds of others. He made specialty metal products, products that were used by U.S. industry and our military. Not so long ago the company employed thousands. Today this site lies vacant. All of those jobs have gone. What closed this plant? Unfair competition from overseas, exacerbated by bad trade deals.

Just don't listen to me on this. These are the words of a gentleman that I stood with in a hollowed-out building where the rain was coming through the roof on Monday because it is vacant and it is becoming just derelict. They are now taking the steel out of there to see what they can do to sell it in order to see what kind of revenue can be raised.

This is what he says: ``These trade agreements are always promised to bring money and jobs and prosperity to our country, but they've done the exact opposite. We were a supplier to the United States Navy for over 70 years for a very critical part. Now that part is no longer made in this country, and that's terrible.''

Further: ``I think we already know that this is going to be like NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement). There's something undeniably suspicious about an agreement when you're not able to see it''--to read it, to understand what is in it.

Finally, I will just say that his words and he did strike a chord when he talked about:

We've long understood that currency manipulation is the driving force behind jobs existing in this country. It hasn't changed. That's an issue. We talk about NAFTA, we talk about CAFTA, most recently the Korea free trade agreement, and they are going to change things, bring jobs, help manufacturing. It has done nothing short of the exact opposite. I am living, breathing proof ..... This was a vibrant company. There were 300 people-plus working here ..... Now there are zero jobs, zero revenues ..... Hundreds upon hundreds of employees, thousands worked here over time ..... generations of families were supported by this company, and it's with great sadness that we find ourselves here today. The fact is the enemy is ourselves ..... We have got to get our Senators and all of our elected representatives to understand what we're up against is currency manipulation. I don't for a second believe that we need to take this deal, negotiate it in the back room. Our elected officials cannot see it. That squashes democracy. It reeks of impropriety. What is going on here where we cannot see this agreement?

These are not my words. I didn't work at Ansonia Copper and Brass. But today, John Barto, a former vice president, is trying to find another job for himself and for his family. That is the story that this free trade agreement is all about.

What has gone on here and what is happening in our manufacturing sector is that problems are leaving people struggling to find middle class jobs. American manufacturing jobs are being lost; foreign products are being subsidized, and those are coming in, and it is about these bad trade agreements.

The United States is poised to sign the biggest trade agreement of them all, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and it is a very dangerous prospect for our economy, for our working families. It forces Americans to compete with low-paid workers in developing countries like Vietnam, where the minimum wage is 56 cents an hour. It hazards the health of our families by opening up our borders still wider to dangerous, unregulated food, toxic seafood from Malaysia and from Vietnam. It empowers foreign companies to challenge all kinds of U.S. laws, without ever stepping foot inside an American courtroom. It promotes corporate special interests. It relegates labor rights and environmental protections to the sidelines. It does nothing to confront the currency cheats whose abuses have already cost Connecticut over 32,000 jobs.

Now the administration wants us to give it a rubberstamp to say: You go ahead and complete the negotiations that they have been engaged in for the last 5 years without any congressional input so that they can complete the deal without us knowing what is in this Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement.

What is fast track? What does it mean? No public scrutiny; limited debate in the House of Representatives; and no ability by Members of Congress, who have the constitutional authority to review free trade agreements, it gives us no opportunity to amend the process. If we wanted to change it, we can't change it once you have given fast track.

We have been here before. The administration sought fast-track authority last year. It failed. They produced another bill that came out of a committee in the United States Senate; and in the House it is exactly the same, almost exactly the same as it was last year. Our view is it is dead on arrival this time as well.

On that issue of currency which Mr. Barto spoke so poignantly about, which, currency manipulation, when a country devalues its currency, it makes their goods cheaper than our goods. The administration has refused to put a currency chapter in the free trade agreement, and they have said that. They wrote a letter to the United States Senators. That is the biggest link in losing jobs and depressing wages.

I will finish up on this. What is the economic challenge that we face today? People in our country are in jobs that just don't pay them enough money to pay their bills. Middle class families are struggling. Wages are stagnant today. Why would we want to support a free trade agreement that will only exacerbate this problem? It will not create jobs and, further, it will depress wages.

We counter, say ``no'' to fast track and that we are not going to stand by. We are going to exercise our constitutional authority as Members of the House of Representatives. Read this piece of legislation, and it has to reflect not our ideas, but what our constituents believe is the right thing to do on their behalf.

I can't thank you enough for organizing this effort today. You can be sure that every single day we are going to be up on our feet and finding the votes to say ``no'' to fast track and ``yes'' to the American people and to working families in this country. I thank the gentlelady.

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