Deficit Reduction Act of 2005

DEFICIT REDUCTION ACT OF 2005

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Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I wish to join my Republican colleagues, Senator DEWINE, Senator SPECTER, and Senator CRAIG, all of whom have already spoken so eloquently in support of a motion introduced by Senator DEWINE yesterday to instruct conferees on the budget bill to strike an ill- conceived House provision that would repeal the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act, also known as CDSOA.

To repeal or abandon this trade law would be a travesty. The Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act was enacted to save American manufacturing and our agricultural producers from wave after wave of unfairly dumped foreign imports.

CDSOA remains one of the most successful trade programs ever enacted. It maintains America's corporate competitiveness; it enables small and medium-sized businesses--and family-owned businesses--to invest in their futures. It keeps American workers employed, so they can receive health and pension benefits. This law is about American jobs. As Senator DEWINE said yesterday, this law is not about rewarding special interests: It is about keeping American jobs.

Five years ago, a bipartisan majority of the Senate approved our amendment to give U.S. companies injured by unfair trade the ability to invest in their factories and workers with funds collected by the Customs Service from unfairly traded imports. I particularly appreciate the continued strong support that Senator DEWINE and many of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle continue to express in support of this law. In fact, three-fourths of the Senate has publicly pledged support for the law.

Before this law was enacted, the Customs Service imposed antidumping and countervailing duties on dumped and unfairly subsidized imports--to make foreign exporters stop dumping and charge a fair price. Despite Customs' efforts, unfair foreign traders refused to trade fairly. Instead, they continued to dump--year after year. And the prices of the dumped foreign imports from China, Canada, the European Union, Japan, and other countries continued to unfairly undercut the prices of American-made products sold here in the United States.

Faced with eroding U.S. market share, American producers struggled to stay afloat, unable to invest in new plants or equipment or to meet their payrolls. This was particularly true for small businesses and many of our Nation's family farmers, ranchers, and aquacultural producers. Even today, valiant producers of shrimp and crawfish continue to suffer from having endured a double whammy: unending unfair trade and Hurricane Katrina.

CDSOA was enacted to restore conditions of fair trade, so that jobs that should stay in the United States are not sent overseas or ``outsourced'' as the result of unfair competition. Under the law, each year, Customs distributes duties collected from unfair imports to those American companies and workers who can prove that they have been materially injured by unfair trade.

While the amounts distributed under the program are not large from a budget perspective---approximately $226 million for fiscal year 2005--the law is critically important to American companies and workers who continue to work hard to stay in business, even when foreign producers refuse to stop dumping. American companies that rightfully receive distributions under the law include producers of crawfish, garlic, furniture, honey, lumber, wheat, shrimp, catfish, semiconductor chips, bearings, mushrooms, crawfish, pasta, steel, raspberries, cement, and a long list of others--all of which deserve to be reimbursed under the law for having suffered the negative effects of bringing successful trade cases against illegally traded imports year after year after year.

There was a claim on the Senate floor earlier this week that CDSOA claims may be fraudulent. That shows a basic misunderstanding of the law. To receive reimbursement under the law, companies must certify, in writing, that they have made qualifying expenditures in their workers and facilities. CDSOA reimburses them for those expenditures. And Customs may verify any claim submitted to make certain that a request for reimbursement is valid. So there are very careful safeguards in place under the law to be certain that funds are distributed fairly, honestly, and legally.

Critics of the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act also argue that the WTO has ruled against the law, so we should abandon it. But the WTO was wrong in opposing it. The WTO was overzealous in ruling against the law; it overreached. The WTO decision against this trade authority was technically beyond the scope of the WTO' legal mandate. The WTO incorrectly read into international agreements a prohibition against our law that was never agreed to by any U.S. trade negotiator. The WTO has no legal basis to request that the United States repeal this law.

Nearly 800 American companies and workers in nearly every State of the Nation receive distributions under its provisions. It is critical to family-owned businesses, like Warwood Tools in Wheeling, WV, and to Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel, and to Mittal Steel's facilities in Weirton, WV. It is equally important to the thousands of steelworkers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere across the Nation. They, and all hard-working Americans, deserve to continue to receive these funds so long as foreign traders keep dumping. If our trading partners don't like this trade law, I have only two words for them: stop dumping.

In the fiscal year 2004 and 2005 Consolidated Appropriations Acts--and, now, in the fiscal year 2006 Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act--both Houses of Congress included language that directs the administration to negotiate a solution to the WTO dispute concerning this law. In fact, the conference report on the CJS bill that contains this language was approved by the Senate on November 16 by an overwhelming vote of 94 to 5.

Pursuant to these congressional directives, the administration last year put this trade law on the table in the Doha Round of trade negotiations, and the USTR even told our trading partners that it agrees it is ``beyond question that countries have the sovereign right to distribute duties as they deem appropriate.''

Even if the WTO disagrees with the law, any retaliation by other countries against us is negligible--equal to only a few hours of trade among a few of our trading partners.

Currently, the United States and other nations are seeking to complete negotiations in the Doha Round of international trade talks by the end of 2006. Now is not the time to weaken the hand of our trade negotiators by attempting to repeal one of our Nation's most prominent and effective trade laws.

In fact, now is the time to do more to hold foreign unfair traders accountable, not less.

I urge my colleagues in the Senate to join me in support of this motion to instruct the conferees to strike from the budget reconciliation bill any provision that would repeal this critical trade law.

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