James Traficant: “it is a very forthright little handwritten amendment. The gentleman from New York (Chairman Boehlert), who has reserved…”

“it is a very forthright little handwritten amendment. The gentleman from New York (Chairman Boehlert), who has reserved the right to object, should make note of the fact that it is like a reinforcement that there is a Buy American Act that everybody seems to overlook and buy goods made from China and all over the place, with a trade deficit that is now approaching $300 billion with China, surpassing Japan's $60 billion. China will amass a $70-plus billion trade surplus. They are buying nuclear attack submarines and intercontinental ballistic missiles with our money. I have got to say ``beam me up.'' So the Traficant amendment says, look, the Clean Water Act has a Buy American statute in it, but it is so weak I do not think it could knock out Palooka. All we say, and all I say in this amendment, is abide by the Buy American Act, but give a notice of what that Buy American Act stands for so that the people who are getting these grants will at least have embedded in their psyche that the Congress of the United States would like to encourage them in expending American taxpayer dollars wherever possible, to expand it on American-made goods and services.”