Orrin Hatch: “earlier, I sent an amendment to the desk. This amendment will constrain the growth of this domestic spending program. My…”

“earlier, I sent an amendment to the desk. This amendment will constrain the growth of this domestic spending program. My amendment is fairly simple. It tightens the nexus between TAA benefits and actual jobs lost because of trade. It does this by changing the eligibility criteria from one that only requires that trade ``contribute importantly'' to job loss to a more restrictive criteria that the job loss be ``substantially caused'' by trade. Under the current program, the worker only has to demonstrate that imports from or shifts in production to a foreign country--what many folks would call the ordinary course of business--``contributed importantly'' to their job loss. So what does ``contributed importantly'' actually mean? The TAA Program holds that the contributed importantly standard is met if trade is a cause, which is important but not necessarily more important than any other cause of the job loss. That does not sound like a tight nexus to me, certainly not a tight nexus to trade to me. Believe me, these fears are not theoretical. Let me give a real-life example. I am sure, by now, everyone is familiar with Solyndra, the now-bankrupt solar firm that was lauded by President Obama as the poster child for his stimulus and green jobs plans. It turns out, now that Solyndra is in bankruptcy, many of its employees are applying for job-training benefits through TAA. To fully understand this lunacy, let's take a look at recent history.…”