Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021

Floor Speech

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Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, I come to the floor to talk about a couple of items this morning. One is the nomination of Max Vekich to be Commissioner of the Federal Maritime Commission and also to talk about the very important issue of our colleagues working together on America's innovation investment for the future. But let me just speak first about the nomination of Max Vekich to be a Commissioner of the Federal Maritime Commission.

The COVID pandemic has caused unprecedented congestion at our ports and supply chain disruptions. Businesses and Americans are feeling the pinch of the rising prices and shortages of products every day. The news is that our colleagues can do something about that this morning. They can do something about that this morning.

At a time when our country is in need of a strong Federal Maritime Commission, it is important that they do their oversight role--that they investigate, that they regulate unfair practices by foreign shipping companies and make sure U.S. shippers, our growers, and manufacturers get a fair deal. The Federal Maritime Commission is particularly important when it comes to ensuring that American products get access to markets around the globe.

While I don't agree with the conclusion of the minority leader on our investment in helping Americans during the pandemic, I know this: Right now, the Federal Maritime Commission should be investigating international shippers who are overcharging U.S. exporters.

Farmers have been hard hit by congestion and shipping challenges. U.S. agriculture exporters have experienced a 22-percent decrease in exports. Agriculture accounts for about one-tenth of America's goods exports, and roughly 20 percent of what U.S. farmers and ranchers produce is sent abroad. That is why they deserve a fair deal on shipping prices.

Many of these products move by containerized freight, and containerized freight costs have more than doubled since the pandemic. Washington hay producers estimate that the freight costs could be three times more expensive by this winter.

In addition to freight costs, ships are returning to Asia with empty containers and stranding U.S. exports at the docks. This is an unprecedented nature of shipping and has had a major impact on American exporters. It is important that we understand that we need to do something about it.

The National Milk Producers Federation estimates that shipping disruption cost the U.S. dairy industry nearly $1 billion in the first half of 2021.

Apples are Washington's most valuable agricultural commodity, with $2.1 billion in sales in 2020. About 30 percent of the State's product is exported. According to the Washington State Apple Commission, port congestion has producers concentrating this year more on North American markets as opposed to overseas markets, cutting into their profit. For every 1 million boxes of fresh apples shifted into the U.S. domestic market, the price drops about 50 cents per box as supply begins to overtake demand. These losses impact real American jobs and the American economy.

But let's look at the other side of the equation. As Washington growers and American growers and American manufacturers struggle, foreign shipping companies are reporting more than $200 billion in profits--more than double the profit they made over the last 20 years combined. That is what these international shippers are profiting. So it doesn't have anything to do with the fact that we helped Americans get a paycheck during the pandemic; it has to do with foreign companies that are overcharging U.S. producers of goods.

At this critical time in our country, we need a Federal Maritime Commission to move decisively to put in place practices and regulations to address port congestion and support U.S. exporters and help them not be the target of unfair practices such as exorbitant shipping costs and a lack of access to ships. We need a Commission that will take action and improve the information flow at ports, investigate these illegal practices, and take enforcement action against foreign bad actors who are overcharging U.S. exporters and other shippers. We need a Commission that will stand up to foreign shipping interests and protect American manufacturers, farmers, and other exporters.

So, yes, there is something we can do about our supply chain woes, particularly for States that have big export economies.

That is why American shippers and producers--``American shippers'' meaning the people who are actually shipping product--that is why American shippers and producers are behind the nomination of Max Vekich, because Mr. Vekich knows the ports, knows the shipping community, and has spent more than 40 years working on the waterfront. He spent his life working in the maritime industry and knows the challenges we face in maritime, intermodal transportation, congestion, and continuing to move forward on how we advance our ports.

If you have worked on the docks for 40 years, I guarantee you, you know about every product, and you know what challenges we face from this international competition.

We are on the precipice of moving important competitive legislation, but part of that competitive legislation is getting our products on vessels instead of being stranded at the docks and preventing shipping companies from retaliating against U.S. exporters.

Again, the majority of this product is moved by international shippers. It is an international business. So we need a Commission in place that is willing to act, a Commission that is willing to use their authority to enforce our current laws and to make sure we are protecting American exporters.

That is why exporters like the Idaho Dairy Association support Max Vekich, because they know he knows how to move product.

That is why the American Association of Port Authorities, a trade association representing more than 80 ports across the United States, supports Max Vekich, citing his unique leadership as a longtime maritime worker in the sector.

The Pacific Northwest Waterways Association represents ports, tug and barge companies, steamship operators, grain elevator operators, agricultural producers, forest products manufacturers, electric utilities, irrigation districts, and other businesses throughout Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. This organization does not typically endorse candidates for these Federal offices, but today, they are calling for Mr. Vekich to be confirmed on the basis of his ``firsthand knowledge of maritime industry operations.''

Mr. Vekich knows what it takes to move product from the heartland. He knows that in our Washington ports, we are helping U.S. farmers get their products to market. So I know that whether it is wheat or soybeans or other ag products, he knows what it takes to move them and what it takes for us to continue to improve the efficiency of our ports. Whether it is the Midwest manufactured products like cars and jeeps, he knows what that takes and what it takes to continue to grow a skilled workforce who will help us do that cost-effectively. He knows how to work with industry, like agricultural producers and the waterfront workforce alike.

So at a time when we are asking our dock workers and our longshoremen to work around-the-clock to help elevate our efficiencies and improve port congestion--and, I might say, at the loss of life. The amount of death in the longshoreman community would break your heart. They continued to work during the COVID-19 crisis and literally lost their lives. This is what these people are doing. They are helping us keep our supply chain going. So the least we can do is invest in somebody who is going to help us understand what it takes to do that on a day- to-day basis.

We need to make sure that we have a competitive and fair environment for U.S. companies. So I ask my colleagues to confirm Max Vekich as Commissioner of the Federal Maritime Commission this morning.

Madam President, I would ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a list of supporters I mentioned.

American Maritime Congress, ILWU, Inland Boatman's Union, Marine Engineers Beneficial Association, National Farmers Union, Masters Mates and Pilots, American Radio Association, Seafarers, TTD, AFL-CIO, Local Washington state teamsters, Local chapters of the Farm Union, Northwest Seaport Alliance, Port of Tacoma, Port of Seattle. United States Innovation and Competition Act

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Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, now I would like to turn our attention to an issue that is also dealing with our supply chain, and that is the issue of Congress moving forward on the differences between the House and Senate bills on America's investment in R&D and innovation.

As the chart shows, our investment today equals U.S. jobs in our economy tomorrow. So the United States Competition Act or, as we passed it here, the United States Innovation and Competition Act is at a crossroads because we need to get it into conference.

Other countries definitely aren't waiting--I guarantee you that. They are making investments in innovation and technology. Where we are in the United States is we are at a 45-year low in the amount of investment in R&D against our GDP. So we are not keeping pace.

Many times I have been out on the floor here talking about why we are not keeping pace. We tried. Unfortunately, we tried several years ago and then had an economic downturn. So everybody signed up: Let's put more into R&D investment. Then we had an economic downturn, and we never fulfilled that promise. So the real consequences of that are we are now behind in some very key sectors that we need to make investments in.

The good news for us is that people are willing to make those investments, like the Intel company, which just decided recently to make a multibillion-dollar investment in the State of Ohio to grow chip fabrication there. So we have opportunities if we make these investments.

When the world presents a challenge, the American people, the people in our State--they rise to the challenge, and the American spirit has never ceased to amaze me. I guarantee, innovation is in the DNA of Americans. Why? Because we live in a country where you are free to do what you want. You are free to go and start a company and try your skill set. We encourage it. We need to have that same spirit here working collaboratively to get this legislation rectified and onto the President's desk. There isn't a moment to wait for revolutionizing science, creating jobs, and invigorating our new economic centers around the Nation.

My colleague Senator Wicker and I worked on a very important aspect of the bill, which is driving more innovation dollars into research institutions in States that haven't traditionally had large research footprints. This will be an issue of contention, I am sure, with some of our colleagues, but my point is, innovation can happen anywhere, and innovation infrastructure should be everywhere. So if we want that to happen in Reno, NV, we need to make an investment in Reno, NV. I believe in that because I am pretty sure the Sierra company is a very big leader in the aerospace sector, and I think they are headquartered in Reno, if I am not mistaken. This is what I am talking about. You can build.

Guess what. Not everything has to happen in Seattle or San Francisco or Boston or out here on the corridor here in Virginia. That is because the innovation age means that innovation can happen at a very flat level. It can happen anywhere.

So why would we constrict it? We don't want to constrict it. We want to empower it. American leadership can't wait. What we need is to be collaborative here in the U.S. Senate because that collaboration between government, academia, and industry is what drives the next level of innovation.

Just think about what happened with ARPA, DARPA as we made the innovations with the internet. As the Acting President pro tempore knows, because she is a programmer, that innovation allowed us to then build out a commercial aspect of the internet that would not have happened, at least at that moment in time. In 1993, it wouldn't have happened. Look at where we are today with an internet economy, all because we had U.S. innovation.

So technology after technology has been invented, and our U.S. companies have continued to innovate, develop a workforce, and skill people for the opportunities of tomorrow. But that leadership is not guaranteed, and time and time again, history has shown us that while we innovate here, other people are going to follow.

In aviation, the Wright brothers were the first to demonstrate this with the Kitty Hawk in North Carolina, but the United States soon fell behind in aviation as European governments invested and built out this new industry. By 1913, the U.S. military had 6 planes and 14 trained pilots. France had 216 airplanes and 171 trained pilots.

So leadership can't wait. You can't wait. I think people get this. We do a lot of the innovation, and other people take that innovation and implement it. That is why a major section of the bill is about translational science. It is about taking that innovation in the United States and translating it into faster adoption applications for industries.

Congress finally decided to invest in American leadership in 1915 by creating the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, which worked with academia and industry to regain America's dominance and find how we build planes that even last today. That is what we are talking about. That is why we feel that NASA is part of this bill. NASA is our R&D Agency for aviation. That is what NASA is. Yes, it deserves a place in this legislation.

A new aviation industry and new aviation supply chains sprung up across the country in places like Wichita, KS, and Seattle, WA. The story would repeat itself after the Soviet Union challenged U.S. leadership in the 1950s. Almost immediately, Congress recognized that leadership could not wait, and that is when we did NASA. Bringing together government, academia, and industry to create new generations of American expertise and technical advancements is what eventually put a man on the Moon and what will put someone--a woman this time--on the Moon, but America had to choose to lead.

That is what we are going to be asked about with USICA in getting it done. We have to choose to lead, to invest in technology. That technology brought us places like Huntsville, AL, and Houston, TX. In 2020, the aerospace industry supported 2 million good-paying jobs, with an average salary of over $100,000 per year, and generated $900 billion in revenue. That is what the innovation economy did for us.

That is why we want to now upgrade the innovation, particularly as it relates to semiconductors. The availability of these tiny chips is one of the most pressing issues facing our country now. People can't get access to them. It is so bad that, of the people who now have electric cars or hybrids, if you have a used car, you know that your price goes down; that it just continues to go down. Now used car prices are actually going up. So few cars are available that the consumers want in this area that, actually, used cars are getting more money. Prices are going up and not down.

This shortage cost the transportation sector $210 billion last year alone. We can't wait. We can't wait on these issues. We can't wait. The essence of acting now--getting together, communicating with our colleagues, working together in a collaborative spirit--is what is going to get this legislation over the goal line and help us.

The first transistor, as part of this chip industry, was invented in 1947 in New Jersey, representing a collaboration from scientists across physics, electrical engineering, and chemistry, but in the 1980s, the U.S. semiconductor industry faced a serious challenge from an ally of ours--Japan. Leadership did not wait. We did not wait. The government set up a government-industry partnership, Semitech, with specific goals of creating new collaborations and investing in American manufacturing. The United States maintained that leadership role, and in the 1990s, we produced 37 percent of the global chip supply. The semiconductor industry now supports more than a million jobs because people didn't stand around and wait.

But today we see overseas competitors who are investing heavily in the technologies of the future--everything from AI, to composites, to clean energy solutions--and they are trying to do everything from driving their own energy independence to combating climate change. They are investing in the resilience of their supply chains by promoting domestic production. They are training their workforce.

So the aspects of the legislation that we passed that help to skill and keep Americans working and trained for the workforce are very important policies. In fact, the administration just released yesterday another round of investment as part of what was the aerospace and manufacturing jobs program that helped keep the aviation worker in place or actually try to recapture some of them who were laid off during the pandemic.

It is a very important piece of legislation that we have worked on that my colleagues over here, for the most part, didn't support in the final package. Some of them supported it as a concept and as an idea but did not support the final package.

Right now, it is 30 to 50 percent cheaper to build a semiconductor foundry in Asia than in the United States, mostly because of foreign government investment. Moreover, as I said, we are being hard hit by a semiconductor supply chain crisis. Car manufacturers, including Tesla, GM, and others, are removing some of their most advanced and desirable features from their cars just to reduce the number of chips that are needed. Literally, we are cutting our innovation skill set just because we don't have the chips. Ford announced last week that it will either halt or cut production at eight plants.

Are we really going to sit around and wait to get this legislation done? Are we really going to sit around and wait?

We have eight plants that are going to shut down because they don't have chips, and we are going to sit around and wait for another 3 or 4 weeks before we go to conference to resolve these issues. It has been projected that this chip shortage cost the global auto industry, in 2021, $210 billion in revenue and a loss of production of 7.7 million cars. So leadership can't wait. It can't wait.

Fortunately, the United States is showing that we can respond, and we in the Senate did pass legislation. Now we have an opportunity to go to conference and work with our colleagues, but some people want to wait another 3 weeks or 4 weeks to do that. I don't want to wait. I don't want to wait another second. The competitiveness of U.S. manufacturers that are competing on an international basis and that receive the investments that we make in technology just can't wait.

Recent investments from the commercial sector from Intel show that over 10,000 new jobs will bring a domestic semiconductor industry to the Midwest, specifically to Ohio, and our experience has shown us that, if we make the investments that we are talking about in USICA, in the competitiveness act, that we will grow an even larger U.S. semiconductor manufacturing business.

Yet foreign competitors are not sitting still. When it comes to technology leadership, they are, obviously, going to try to do their part. So our solution is simple. All we have to do is work together. All we have to do is be collaborative. As someone once said, collaboration is the next phase of innovation. You can have all the science; you can have all the creativity, but if you can't get it implemented because people don't sit around the table and talk and innovate and work together, then you can't get it implemented.

That is where we are. We know we need to do this investment in R&D. We know that we need to invest in chips, and we are not doing it because some people don't want to move ahead and get this done.

The Senate Commerce Committee passed the legislation, and we, obviously, got and understood the urgency of it. We got and understood the urgency of it. Trust me. There are many other things we thought we were going to put on our agenda. The Acting President pro tempore knows--because she sat through the hundreds of amendments that were marked up--the process that we went through, the regular order, the regular order that we went through here on the Senate floor, and the regular order we are willing to go through. So no one is asking for anything else but for regular order.

Of the people who want to hold up and don't want to move forward, I would ask them to think about our competition that is working very hard at beating us on semiconductors and the issues that it represents as it relates to the investments we should be making.

I want us to make the investments in semiconductors. I want us to make the investments in manufacturing extension programs, in STEM education, in tech hubs, and in making sure that the United States of America maintains its leadership role.

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