Protecting American jobs is Job 1
By U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe
(R-Maine)
With the nation’s unemployment rate stuck at 9.2 percent and the economy adding just 18,000 jobs in June, Congress must focus intently on preventing further job loss and incentivizing employers to create good jobs that help put the 14.1 million unemployed Americans back to work.
As Congress debates comprehensive tax reform, regulatory reform and other job creation initiatives, we can support American workers and preserve jobs here at home RIGHT NOW by diligently enforcing our existing trade policies with other countries. In this difficult economic climate, it is critical that our government act swiftly to address trade violations that undercut the competitiveness and prosperity of our domestic industries.
In Maine, we can attest to the human toll inequitable trade practices take on families, small towns, and key manufacturing sectors in our state. For the thousands of forestry workers and lumber manufacturers in Maine, subsidized and artificially underpriced Canadian softwood lumber has cost jobs, resulted in curtailments and layoffs at our sawmills, and threatened the livelihoods of the families and communities that depend on a fair and open market to remain competitive.
After decades of trade violations resulting from artificially underpriced Canadian imports, the U.S. reached an agreement in 2006 to hold Canada accountable when its provinces violate our trade rules. The 2006 Softwood Lumber Agreement imposed a moratorium on Canadian lumber subsidies and provided for a formal arbitration process to address trade violations and unfair forestry subsidies going forward.
Regrettably, in spite of this agreement, some of the problems faced by the American lumber industry endure. For example, in recent years British Columbia has repeatedly violated the agreement by manipulating its stumpage fee on government owned timber. As a result, this province has at times sold timber for use in home construction for 25 cents per cubic meter, whereas equivalent quality logs can cost an estimated $20 per cubic meter in the open U.S. market. That means a truckload of logs in Maine might cost a mill roughly $2,700, while a comparable load might be as cheap as $15 in British Columbia. At a time when the economy and unemployment in our state continues to suffer, these artificially underpriced foreign imports have undercut Maine producers and put tremendous strain on American businesses.
While our government has initiated three arbitration proceedings under the Softwood Lumber Agreement in an attempt to address the most egregious violations, our trade officials absolutely must do more to ensure that enforcement occurs promptly once allegations of trade violations are reported and the government conducts its legal review. Unfortunately, delays in the enforcement of the agreement have at times allowed Canada to continue to take advantage of our government’s inaction, providing government-owned timber to Canadian companies at subsidized rates – and thus putting workers and businesses in Maine at a severe disadvantage. In the case of British Columbia’s stumpage fee practices, these violations were allowed to go unchallenged for over three years! This is simply unacceptable.
Our international trade agreements are only as good as our commitment to enforce them. For this reason, I recently invited the President’s top trade advisor, Ambassador Ron Kirk, to sit down with me and lumber industry representatives – including Luke Brochu of Pleasant River Lumber Company in Dover-Foxcroft – to impress upon him the adverse impact delays in enforcement have on American jobs and competitiveness.
As the first member of Congress to call out the administration for lackluster enforcement regarding British Columbia’s violations in a call with Ambassador Kirk over one year ago, I continue to insist that our government identify practices that harm American workers and to resolve these disputes in a timely and effective manner. We must send a clear and unambiguous message that violations of our privileged trade agreements will not be tolerated. Objecting forcefully to Canada’s repeated violations of the Softwood Lumber Agreement is the only way to ensure a level playing field for Maine’s saw mills, workers, and the important rural communities these jobs support.
