DURYEA, PA—U.S. Senator Bob Casey (D-PA), Chairman of the Joint Economic Committee (JEC), today toured specialty glass manufacturer SCHOTT North America, Inc. to push for an American manufacturing strategy and warn against the negative impact pending free trade agreements may have on Pennsylvania businesses and their ability to create jobs.
“To help Pennsylvania manufacturers like SCHOTT compete, we need to commit ourselves to a national manufacturing strategy that puts jobs first,” said Senator Casey. “Cracking down on China’s unfair trade practices, creating a permanent research and development tax credit and extending trade adjustment assistance to help those affected by foreign competition are essential elements of a manufacturing strategy that I am pushing Congress and the Administration to address.”
“We are proud to share with Senator Casey the technical leadership of the region’s high-tech workforce,” said Dr. Heather Rayle, Vice President & General Manager, SCHOTT North America, Inc. “At Duryea, we have been providing solutions for defense, government and industry with high-quality glass and glass ceramic products for the past four decades. We’re fortunate to have an advocate for manufacturing competitiveness in Senator Casey.”
Senator Casey has been pushing for a manufacturing strategy that helps Pennsylvania businesses create jobs, including a permanent tax credit to give companies like SCHOTT the certainty they need to make long term investments. SCHOTT has utilized research and development tax credits and considers them essential to its ability to create jobs.
In a speech on the Senate floor yesterday, Senator Casey outlined his concerns about a pending free trade agreement with South Korea. Free trade agreements like NAFTA have chipped away at Pennsylvania’s manufacturing sector, Senator Casey said, resulting in a loss of nearly 300,000 manufacturing jobs. Senator Casey is pushing for the passage of his bill to extend Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA), which provides critical services to American workers who have been displaced from their jobs as a result of international trade, before any new free trade deals are considered in Congress.
Senator Casey has also been pushing the Administration to get tough on China’s unfair trade practices that are harming American businesses. SCHOTT is negatively impacted by China’s price manipulation of rare earth elements, some of which are essential to the production of SCHOTT’s products.
Senator Casey will hold a JEC hearing titled, “Manufacturing in the USA: Training America’s Workforce” on Tuesday, July 12. The hearing, the second in a series on manufacturing in America, will focus on equipping workers with the skills they need for new jobs critical to the nation’s long-term economic success.
###
