Trade Preferences Extension Act of 2015

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. MEEHAN. I thank the chairman for his leadership in bringing the bipartisan solution to the trade promotion authority.

I stand right now in support of the Trade Preferences Extension Act, which is before us at the moment, and encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join in supporting this.

I speak first about Trade Adjustment Assistance, a program I have seen in my own district, where I have watched for workers, when it can be demonstrated that they have had their jobs impacted because of foreign implications, there is a support network in place.

I have seen the value of that program and believe that it is important that we keep the tradition of TAA, but we also need to point out that there have been significant improvements in this program.

There is streamlining. Some of the underperforming programs were not reauthorized. There is accountability. There will now be performance goals for TAA that are aligned with other job training programs.

Consolidation is a third part. It is a process in which we will promote direct services for participants over administrative spending. These are important and critical improvements to a program that already has a history.

I just want to close my comments. There is a very important provision in the Trade Preferences Extension Act dealing with improving antidumping and countervailing duty laws.

As an attorney, I appreciate the importance of creating an accurate record. This allows us to do this in a vitally important area, in the battle against the dumping that is being done that are affecting American jobs at home.

First and most important, it will allow the Department of Commerce to have the ability to create an accurate record. When, in fact, what you have is a foreign party that fails to cooperate with the agency's request, they will be able to impute the information that is necessary to make that case.

In addition, they will be empowered to be able to disregard prices or costs of inputs that foreign producers purchase if the Department of Commerce has reason to believe or suspects that the inputs in question have been subsidized or dumped.

Once again, it creates an accurate record.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. MEEHAN. I thank the gentleman.

Because I think this is such a critically important issue to be able to create the kind of record--and it gives the Department of Commerce the kind of discretion to be able to look at the facts and to take recalcitrant countries and hold them accountable by creating what is accurate in the form of the case that we can make to assure that workers here at home are being protected.

These are important and valuable assets in the ability for us to continue to protect American jobs. It is for those reasons that I strongly encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support the Trade Preferences Extension Act of 2015.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source