Make It in America

Floor Speech

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Madam Speaker, given all of the talk that is going on and the investigations and questions about deficits and the like, I thought it would be useful today to start this discussion, which I will spend most of the evening talking about American manufacturing, but I often want to start these discussions with some sense of value: What is our goal? What are we trying to accomplish here?

I keep going back to FDR. At the height of the Great Depression, he said: ``The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.''

And so, last week, the House of Representatives--the Democrats, that is, and maybe just a few Republicans--voted to increase the minimum wage across this Nation so that, over the next 5 years, the minimum wage would rise from, I guess, just over $7 an hour to $15 dollars an hour--not a jump immediately, but over time increase it.

Why do we do that? Well, we are for the people.

That is our goal: for the people; and keeping in mind what FDR said: It is not about whether we add more to those who have much, but, rather, what we do for those who have little.

And so we raise the minimum wage. Why? Because those people who are making $7 an hour across this Nation, they have very, very little, in fact, so little that they cannot have both food and shelter.

And, of course, we talk about healthcare and our goal to expand healthcare to every American so they have insurance, so that the worrying about how they would be paying for their hospital visit or their doctor is set aside and they are able to get the care that they need to lead a healthy and productive life.

That is our goal. We are for the people, and we are going to address this in so many, many ways.

One of the ways that we want to address it is to make sure that America remains a strong manufacturing country.

Many, many years ago in California, I was looking at how to keep the California economy going, and we hit upon the five keys for a successful economy:

First of all, a great education system so that your workers are well educated and can handle the questions of the day and the tasks of tomorrow;

Secondly, that there be strong research, and, from that research, you build tomorrow's things. Sometimes that is an app. Sometimes it is a computer. Sometimes it is a ship or perhaps a car, an autonomous vehicle, a drone, whatever, so that your research then moves on into things that you make, and, that is, the manufacturing. That is the creation of wealth.

Some time ago, I was visiting one of the wineries in my district in California, and I was talking about this Make It In America Agenda in manufacturing. And, finally, the owner got up from behind the desk, and he said: Come. I want to talk to you.

We walked outside and out to his winery, and he said: You know what this is?

I said: Yeah. It is a winery.

He said: No. This is a manufacturing facility. I take grapes, and I turn them into some of the finest wine in the world. So, when you talk about Make It In America, guess what. I am making it in America.

So, it includes all of these things, putting a tomato into a can, into a bottle of ketchup. But what we are going to talk about tonight is something far more than that.

I want to really not so much talk about these gentlemen and ladies, but to use them as an example of what America used to make. These gentlemen, three of them, are World War II merchant mariners.

This is an effort we have now under way to provide these mariners, who had the highest death rate of any unit in the armed services during World War II, a Congressional Gold Medal. We now have nearly 300 Members of this House who are signed on to that so that they will get a Congressional Gold Medal.

But this is not about their gold medal; it is about what they were able to do.

America, during the World War II period, was the manufacturing center of the world. And we made ships--literally, thousands and thousands of ships--that these gentlemen and so many like them sailed the oceans, provided the material, the personnel to fight that war.

When we met and took this picture, they asked me: Why is it that America doesn't build ships anymore?

I said: Oh, but we build naval ships; we build aircraft carriers; we build destroyers; we build many other kinds of naval ships.

They said: No. No. That is not what we are talking about. We are talking about the ships that sail the high seas. Why doesn't America make those ships?

And I said: We can. We can if we write the laws in the proper way to encourage the shipbuilding industry and, just as important, the cargo to go on those ships.

Now, it happens that America is in the midst of a great energy revolution--the green energy, no doubt about it. We are talking about every kind of green energy, from wind to solar, biofuel and biomass, and on and on. And we are doing that.

But, simultaneously, America, over the last decade, has become a major developer and supplier of petroleum products: oil, as a result of fracking in the Bakken area and Texas, California, onshore, offshore. We are a major oil producer.

And, simultaneously, we are also a major producer of natural gas. All of these energy supplies, whether they are the green energy or the petroleum energy, are a strategic national asset.

And, as these gentlemen told me: Our ships, during World War II, were a strategic national asset. We had oil tankers, we had cargo vessels, all of them built in America and with American mariners.

We, the mariners, we were a strategic asset. And a lot of us died. Our ships were a strategic asset, and the oil that we sent around the world was also a strategic asset.

So, where are we today? Are we making ships? Nope. We are not. But we could.

So, this last week, Senator Roger Wicker--my colleague in the Senate, a Republican from the Gulf Coast--and I introduced, for the second Congress, the Energizing the American Shipbuilding Act, taking a strategic national asset, our petroleum and natural gas, and welding it together with the shipbuilding industry, which gives us the strategic ships that we need to move our military around the world and to provide the energy that they need.

So, the Energizing the American Shipbuilding Act is now introduced in the Senate, for the second session, last year and again this time around with the new session of Congress.

What we will do is to address this problem: We could buy ships that are made in China, Japan, and Korea, or we can make them in America. If we make the ships in America, we will provide thousands of jobs, not only in the shipyards and the steel industry and the aluminum industry, but also the maritime suppliers, the men, the factories here in the United States that build the pumps, build the engines--the electrical engines, the big diesel engines--that are in these ships or the LNG engines that are in these ships, and all of the electronics.

That entire array of equipment that goes into a ship could be built in America if the Energizing the American Shipbuilding Act were to become law.

So, how does it work? Pretty simple. It simply requires that our strategic national asset, the petroleum and the natural gas, be exported on American-built ships with American mariners--not all of it, just a small percentage of it, 15 percent of the oil and 10 percent of the natural gas, which will be liquified natural gas on American-built ships.

What does that mean? That means that American shipyards that are now producing zero commercial oil tankers and zero LNG carriers would, over the next 13 to 15 years, build upwards of 40 ships: 25 to 30 LNG tankers and 10 to 15 oil tankers.

Thousands of jobs would be created in American shipyards, and that strategic national asset, the shipyards themselves, would be able to continue to operate here in the United States. They would continue to be able to have the skilled workforce and, simultaneously, be better prepared to compete for the U.S. naval ships, giving the American taxpayer a strategic advantage, more competition in the shipyards, more competition when it comes time to build our naval vessels.

There is another aspect of this that I want to bring to your attention. Beyond the shipbuilding and the Energizing the American Shipbuilding Act, there is the rest of manufacturing here in the United States.

About 8 years ago, when I first came to Congress, we were looking at this issue based upon my time in California, and we decided, together with Steny Hoyer, who is now our majority leader, that we should establish the Make It In America program. We have been working on this for 8 years now, and we are looking at different pieces of legislation over time to encourage the manufacturing here in the United States.

One of the ways we can do this--and we are not going to go into the President's tariffs right now, but we are going to go at it in a little different way. Here is just an example of about what happened almost a decade ago.

In California, it was time to build the new San Francisco Bay Bridge. The bid went out. The State of California went out to bid on this thing for the steel in the bridge.

At that time, a Chinese company decided that they wanted to enter the market. Very specialized steel in this bridge in the San Francisco area, so they wanted to enter the market, and they produced a bid that was 10 percent lower than an American steel company.

China got the bid. What did they get? Not only did they get the job; they got a new steel mill, one of the most advanced in the world, and they also had some over 3,000 jobs in China.

At the very same time, New York was building the Tappan Zee Bridge. They said, no, we are only going to buy American steel, and so they did, total cost, $3.9 billion.

In California, total cost, $3.9 billion over the estimated cost. Why? Because the Chinese steel had problems, the welds and other problems with the steel.

Not in New York. They came in on the bid, and there were 7,700 American jobs in the steel industry and in the manufacturing and engineering--just.

An example, not current today, but certainly current nearly a decade ago.

But this is what happens when our laws or our governments decide that we are going to make it in America, we are going to produce the steel, we are going to build the bridges here in the United States.

So, building on this idea, we have now introduced in both the Senate and the House another Make It In America piece of legislation. This legislation is authored in the Senate by Senator Tammy Baldwin and here in the House by me.

It basically says that all of this talk about infrastructure, which is critically important, that that infrastructure, if it is an American taxpayer dollar that is being used to build that infrastructure-- whether that is a power line or a highway or a sanitation system or a water system or an airport--if there is a Federal dollar involved, that we make it in America.

It simply applies to all types of infrastructure. When American taxpayer dollars are being used, that that infrastructure--the steel, the pipe, the electronics, the other elements that are in that infrastructure--that they be made in America.

So it is part of our Make It In America agenda that we have been working on all these years, and we are going to apply it wherever we see an opportunity. If it is in the steel industry for bridges and infrastructure, you bet. You bet, we are going to make sure that it is made in America.

Many of these laws already exist. A couple of years ago, we were able to raise the percentage of American content by a couple of percentage points to about, if I recall, about 65 percent on certain infrastructure projects. But we want to extend that beyond.

And why not go the whole way? Let's make it all in America. If it is a taxpayer dollar, 100 percent American made. That is our goal. So our Make It in America agenda goes forward from here.

I am going to end with putting this one back up again because this has an opportunity to be a very, very important part. The steel in the ships, the pumps, the pipes, the electronics, the propellers, the drive shaft, the engines--all of those things--can be made in America if we have a national policy that simply says the export of a strategic national asset, oil and gas, that that be on American-built ships. Not all of it, 10 percent, 15 percent, 40 ships over the next 15 years or so when the Energizing the American Shipbuilding Act becomes law.

We are looking for support. We have broad support right now, both Republican and Democratic, with Senator Wicker from Mississippi and Senator Casey from Pennsylvania. On this side, about 30 of my colleagues, Democratic and Republican, have signed up in support of this legislation.

It has great potential. It has great potential, but not so much for these mariners. They are all in their nineties right now. Hopefully, we will be able to get them a Congressional Gold Medal.

For tomorrow's mariners, for those men and women who will be on ships that will supply the necessary material, oil, gas, or whatever for our military around the world, and will participate in the annual commerce of goods and services that are being transported in and out of America, that next generation of mariners will have the ships, jobs, and cargo.

For the People, once again, we are constantly looking for different laws, different ways in which we can advance the well-being of the American public. If it is healthcare, we are looking to lower costs. If it is education, we want to make sure that the cost of college education is affordable. If it has to do with jobs, we are looking for ways to make that happen by requiring that your tax dollars be spent on American-made equipment, by requiring that a small percentage of the export of a precious national resource be on American-built ships with American sailors.

I want all of us to keep in mind that there are things that public policy can do to improve the well-being of every American. Our For the People policy includes all of these elements, and we draw your attention to that.

I am looking to my colleagues for continued support on these two pieces of legislation that we will be working on in this session.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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