David Thomas: “Mr. Speaker, I asked for consideration of this bill, as amended, because the underlying bill, the Trade Adjustment…”

“Mr. Speaker, I asked for consideration of this bill, as amended, because the underlying bill, the Trade Adjustment Assistance Act, expired on October 1. In the committee we passed as a placeholder, if you will, a simple extension of the bill, fully intending, once we understood the consequences of September 11 and our ability to make additional adjustments, that we would, as we are doing here today, offer amendments on the floor of the House. So I would like to address, other than the simple reauthorization, what those amendments are. The Trade Adjustment Assistance Act says that if one loses one's job primarily related to trade, they are to get assistance and retraining. The problem is the current structure says that they also get income support while they are being retrained. The income support runs out before the training ends, and what we are doing is reconciling the differences between the two. But beyond that, because of the events on September 11, we believe that it is entirely appropriate to include in this bill, notwithstanding the fact that it is supposed to be tied to trade, an act for the Secretary of Labor to assess those individuals who lost their job through no fault of their own associated with the tragic events on September 11.”