Ronald Dellums: “I too join the gentleman from Florida in his concern with respect to the nature of this process. We were told that the…”

“I too join the gentleman from Florida in his concern with respect to the nature of this process. We were told that the Committee on Ways and Means wanted to exercise their option to debate on this matter for the first 30 minutes, otherwise this gentleman would have been more than willing to engage in significant debate because I think this is an important issue. Obviously, the bill before us is designed to put the Congress in the position to ratify an agreement, the purpose of which is to end subsidies, Government subsidies, in the shipbuilding industry across the world. There have been great allusions to the amendment that will be offered by the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Bateman]. They have suggested that in offering the amendment, the ratification of this amendment would kill the agreement. Let us step back for a moment. First of all, we believe that what we are being asked to agree to is a flawed agreement. Congress does, indeed, have a role in this process to ratify. Are we simply rubber stamps, or do we have the option to exercise our intellectual and political responsibilities in this matter? If we do, then it seems to me that it is perfectly within our right and prerogatives to offer an amendment. Now, that is the nature of the process, otherwise why have the agreement here? We think that it is indeed flawed.”