Chris Coons: “I thank my colleague from Wisconsin, Senator Baldwin, for her hard work on manufacturing and for her deep and broad…”

“I thank my colleague from Wisconsin, Senator Baldwin, for her hard work on manufacturing and for her deep and broad experience in what it takes for manufacturing to continue to grow in the State of Wisconsin, in the State of Delaware, and across our country. Let me pick up on a theme through both of our previous comments, which is that skills are a key challenge for us. If we are going to take advantage of the enormous opportunities, the hundreds of thousands of unfilled jobs in this sector, one of the key issues is a mismatch in skills. One other theme across both of our comments was how we can't work together across the aisle. Bad things happen, such as the Export-Import Bank going unauthorized, but when we can team up and work together, we can make remarkable progress. Let me briefly reference two of the bills we have worked on in the past which enjoy strong bipartisan support and which I hope can move forward in this Congress. One is the Manufacturing Skills Act, and the lead sponsor is Senator Ayotte of New Hampshire. It would help cities and States to modernize their job-training programs and equip workers with the skills they need. Another bill, the Manufacturing Universities Act of 2015, of which Senator Lindsey Graham is the lead cosponsor, would designate 25 manufacturing universities across the country and invest up to $5 million per year, per school to redesign their engineering programs so they are focused on the needs of modern manufacturing.…”