Saturday, July 19, 2014LORDSTOWN, Ohio -- Trade and energy are among the issues that can be addressed at the federal level to help make U.S. auto manufacturers such as General Motors Co. more competitive, U.S. Sen. Rob Portman said Friday.
Following a tour of GM’s Lordstown complex, Portman, R-Ohio, hailed the efforts of workers and management as well as GM’s “cutting edge” technology. “Right now everybody is working as a team and that team is producing a world-class car in a world-class production facility,” he declared.
GM has made a “huge investment” in its plants including most recently $350 million at Lordstown. That investment here began last year to prepare for the next version of the Chevrolet Cruze coming out in 2016, he said.
“General Motors has clearly made a commitment here. The workforce understands that, the management understands that and they’re going to be sure and earn the confidence that General Motors has shown in Lordstown and in our region,” he stated.
“This is a good story,” Portman told reporters Friday morning after his tour of the complex. The Republican from Cincinnati, who co-chairs the Senate Auto Caucus, said he has visited the major auto plants over the last year to discuss what can be done to make U.S. auto manufacturers even more competitive.
“Some countries, including countries in Asia, are not playing by the rules in the way they manipulate their currency,” he said. “It makes their cars less expensive when they sell them over here and it makes our cars more expensive when we try to export them to their countries.”
The United States also needs to produce more energy domestically. The Lordstown plant benefits from relatively low energy costs, “but we’ve go to be sure we continue to have relatively inexpensive energy here in Ohio through the electricity market, which is coal, natural gas and a couple of nuclear plants here in northern Ohio,” he added.
Although he supports extending the charter of the Export-Import Bank, Portman said he would like to see some of its provisions changed so that it is not competing with private-sector banks, has more transparency and can be held more accountable. He would also rescind a rule that prohibits the bank from financing coal exports.
“If we don’t have some way to help finance exports, then we are unilaterally disarming because other countries do it and we’re competing in an incredibly competitive global market,” the junior senator from Ohio contends. Other countries, including China, Germany and Japan, support export financing to greater degrees than the United States.
As U.S. trade representative in the administration of President George W. Bush, he urged other countries to “lower and eliminate” such support, he recalled. “That would be great. That’s not the world in which we live, so for those who say we shouldn’t have any help for financing exports, you’re hurting American workers if you believe that,” he said.
In reference to recent recalls of GM cars, including some manufactured at Lordstown, Portman noted the matter of the ignition switches has been resolved on the affected models. “What I experienced today is they’re being very careful not just on ignitions but on all kinds of different safety checks and quality checks, understanding that a recall is incredibly expensive and it’s the wrong thing to do for consumers,” he said.
Earlier yesterday, Portman reported, he met with members of the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber to discuss issues that included the challenge of getting the skilled workers they need and the role of the federal government in addressing the problem. “Here at this plant I’m told that roughly half the people could be eligible for retirement,” he said.
The senator said he has promoted legislation that would encourage more people to consider skills training. He also expressed concern over the number of federal job-training programs -- 47 spread over seven departments and agencies -- and often “the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing,” he remarked. Legislation he supported that the Senate just passed will eliminate some programs and consolidate others, he said. Performance measures he introduced are in separate legislation.
The discussion between Portman and the business representatives involved issues that include workforce development and training, “trying to match the person with the job” by funding retraining assistance, said Tom Humphries, president and CEO of the Regional Chamber.
Some 29,000 Mahoning Valley residents are unemployed as many jobs go unfilled, he said. In addition, employers face the challenge of finding applicants able to pass a drug test. Some of the companies at the meeting reported that nearly 30% of applicants have failed the screenings, he reported.
The businesses discussed the challenges banks face because of the degree of regulation they operate under. “It’s difficult to make decisions when [the industry is] so tightly regulated,” Humphries said. “There’s no room to be able to deal with those issues because laws of laws that are established and handed down without enough thought in them.”
Portman's meeting with chamber members was closed to the press.
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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