National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. LaTOURETTE. I thank the gentleman very much for yielding.

We've seen this amendment a number of times in the 112th Congress, and, sadly, it doesn't get any better. It's based upon the misconception that somehow PLAs are costing the taxpayer money.

Definitive research was done by the Department of Veterans Affairs that concluded that it really depends on what part of the country you are in and whether you have a heavily unionized workforce in your area or you don't. They concluded that PLAs are productive and actually come in on time and under budget in areas where you have a heavy unionized workforce and not so much in areas where you don't. And that makes sense because you have to bring people in to do the work.

The amendment, I think, is being billed as ``we just want people given a choice,'' but come on. The people that are advocating this hate PLAs. They don't want PLAs. They want to kill project labor agreements. So this was craftily drafted by the Associated Builders and Contractors to pretend that we're going to give people a choice when they really don't want people to have a choice.

Please reject this. We don't have to go out. And the President's executive order is clear. All it says is you have to consider PLAs in the mix. And I urge us to reject the amendment.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source