Jim Inhofe: “I had the intention, and still have the intention at some later time, of reintroducing the amendment that is at the…”

“I had the intention, and still have the intention at some later time, of reintroducing the amendment that is at the desk. What it effectively does is address the potential problem and influence that a company called COSCO, the Chinese Ocean Shipping Company, will have on the United States. Mr. President, the Chinese Ocean Shipping Company is Communist China's largest shipping group. It has more than doubled the number of ships that our entire U.S. Navy has. This group has been given preferential treatment by this country and other countries for some period of time. It wasn't long ago that they were given the opportunity to have ports at both ends of the Panama Canal, the Ports of Colon and Cristobal, and our country was supportive of that. This 25-year lease gives them an abundance of control in the Panama Canal and was to cost $22 million a year. But the deal that was made would be to waive that amount of money, and to waive the labor laws and veto rights over a period of approximately 2 years. Other areas where we have given preferential treatment to COSCO fall in the area of taxpayer-guaranteed loans. COSCO was the first shipping company owned by Beijing government to receive a U.S. Federal loan guarantee under a 40-year-old Transportation Department program designed to help American shipyards win business. This was a $138 million loan, which constituted 87.5 percent of the cost of the projects to build four container ships in Alabama.”