On the recordOctober 30, 2013
I thank Senator Blunt for his work on this bill with Senator Brown. There are other bills that I hope this body will take up and discuss and debate where I hope we can find ideas that are out there, with progress that is being made and policy innovation that is being made, and that we can take them up, debate them, and find bipartisan sponsors who will carry them forward. I absolutely agree with the Senator's point that we are seeing in manufacturing a revival in this country for a variety of reasons. One of them is less expensive energy. The shale gas revolution is reducing the feedstock costs for chemical manufacturing and reducing the energy costs broadly for manufacturing of all kinds. We are also seeing that lots of American companies fear the loss of their inventions, their innovations, if they move offshore. So some of the attractiveness of operating in other countries has dimmed a bit, as they have recognized that the United States is one that has a rule of law that protects their inventions and innovations. There is also less of a wage gap, frankly, as wages have come up in the developing world. In China, the wage gap is less. So that combination gives us a window, gives us a moment of opportunity. We lost millions of manufacturing jobs in the first years of this century, but in the last three we have been growing them and growing them steadily.…
