The second thing we have got to have is less regulation if we are going to be competitive. About 7 percent overburden we have on our trade products because of regulations. We have got to try to continue to ratchet that downward.

And third, we have got to have less litigation. I don't know about you, but in business I guarantee you I spend more money-or I did when I was in business-let me say, there is no one any more sincere in this Congress than I am about trying to have free and fair trade. I want us to succeed. I could probably not have come back to Congress. I could have probably shoved back and said this is not going to affect Wes Watkins, but my children and grandchildren have no way to go. They cannot. They have got to participate.

What we do has got to lay that kind of foundation in this world in this global economy, and we are not going back, and we all know that. I was born and raised on a farm. I love agriculture. I lost everything to a drought, but I went on to Oklahoma State University and acquired two degrees in agriculture because I love it and know it is very important.

I want to mention to Mr. Micek, could I ask you or maybe one of your individuals to come by the office. I would like to discuss the Emergency Committee on American Trade. And before Mr. Kleckner leaves right fast, Dean, if I could, before you take off, many of my farmers feel like that we are being traded down or we are traded out in agriculture because when we negotiate it away. I detect you have a concern, and we have got to have a package, but not trade us out; is that correct?

Mr. KLECKNER. Yes, sir, Mr. Watkins. You know, I talk to the same people you do, whether they are in Oklahoma, and the feeling is kind of general among farmers that we have not negotiated as well as we could have, or if we did, we have not enforced the agreements as well as we should have. And in the Farm Bureau, and your State president, Jack, in your State, and other people I talk to all around the country tell me consistently we have got to either do a better job of negotiating, be a little firmer or tougher. Our tariffs are so low, for example, that the average 50 percent we pay around the world, other countries send agriculture products in here at 5. What is fair about that? Bring them down a ways before we do anything else or very much of anything else.

Mr. WATKINS. In your testimony you say we are reeling out there in agriculture, and I know we are. And we are under a freedom to farm policy, but freedom to farm will not work unless we have freedom to the markets of the world, and we have to get rid of a lot of these sanctions out there. Literally, we are killing ourselves.

Mr. KLECKNER. Mr. Watkins, you recall when freedom to farm passed in 1996, we supported it. I still think it is a good bill, but there were certain things promised to us in return, including opening markets around the world, less regulation, reformed taxes, all of those things, so it went one way, it didn't come the other way. Mr. WATKINS. That is correct. Thank you very much, and I look forward to having a follow-up. I meet with a lot of your people.

And, chairman Micek, I appreciate what you are doing in those areas. I would like to follow up with you or your people about the emergency, and I will not belabor the Subcommittee by further questioning.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman CRANE. Thank you.

And I want to thank all of the members of the panel, and again, we apologize to you for this chaotic day, but it is going to get worse, not better. And with that, we are going to stand in recess subject to the call of the Chair.

[Recess.]

Chairman CRANE. Folks, the place has cleared out as I indicated before. It is going to remain kind of chaotic this afternoon. But we will get under way here. Our next panel includes William Weiller, chairman and chief executive officer of Purafil Inc., in Atlanta, and he is here on behalf of the National Association of Manufacturers; Steven Warshaw, president and chief operating officer, Chiquita Brands Corp., Cincinnati; Charles Lambert, chief economist, National Cattlemen's Beef Association; Kathleen Ambrose, vice president, international affairs and co-leader of market access team, Chemical Manufacturers Association; and finally David Smith, director, Public Policy Department, American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations.

If you folks will please proceed in the order in which I presented you, and try and keep your oral testimony as close to about 5 minutes as possible and then any printed statements will be made a part of the permanent record.

And we will start out with you, Mr. Weiller.

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM WEILLER, CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, PURAFIL, INC., ATLANTA, GEORGIA, ON BEHALF OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MANUFACTURERS

Mr. WEILLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Bill Weiller. I am the owner and president of Purafil, a leading manufacturer of air purification systems based in Atlanta, Georgia. I would like to thank you for the opportunity to testify before the House Ways and Means Committee on the upcoming World Trade Organization Ministerial and the impact of the WTO on small businesses like Purafil. I am here on behalf of the National Association of Manufacturers and obviously also Purafil.

Many might be surprised that Purafil, a small American business, about 70 employees, is even remotely interested in the World Trade Organization and its objectives. In fact, we often encounter the notion that global free trade is good for big companies and bad for the little guy. Small-and medium-sized businesses do not attract the headlines the multinationals do and often our success in a global economy go without notice. I am here to let you know that open trade is not only good for Purafil, it is the backbone of our business.

In fact, Purafil is representative of many small businesses. I have attached a chart to my testimony which you may find interesting. In 1989 nearly half of the NAM's small- and medium-member companies said they did not export. Today only 1 in 5 fall into that category.

In other words, in the last 10 years the share of NAM's smalland medium-member companies that export has gone from half to more than three-quarters and it is a 50-percent increase. Let me

just hammer the point home. In 1989 less than 10 percent of NAM's small-and medium-member companies derived 11 percent or more of their revenue from exporting. Today that share has grown, doubled to more than 20 percent. That is an important change that has taken place over the past decade and Purafil has been part of it.

So let me tell you about Purafil. We manufacturer air quality systems that remove odorous, corrosive, and toxic gases from the air. In short, we sell clean air. Our customers include petrochemical companies like Saudi Aramco, Exxon, paper companies like International Paper, Stora, Weyerhaeuser, museums and archives such as the Sistine Chapel, the Holocaust Museum, da Vinci's Last Supper, or the U.S. National Archives. Despite our small size, Purafil is an industry leader in a niche market. Sixty percent of our sales are made outside of the United States. Exporting is vitally important to Purafil. It is the cornerstone of our coporpate strategy.

We have recognized that in order to survive and grow we have to export and become experts in doing international business. The problems that we solve are the same worldwide. A refinery in Baton Rouge experiences the same hazardous emissions from manufacturing processes as does a refinery in Saudi Arabia. If Purafil were not present to solve these problems, the increased demand for a solution would result in someone else from our foreign competitors gaining the business. Right now Purafil is the best in the world at solving air purification problems. We have few viable U.S. competitors that serve all the applications in markets that we do. That someone else could likely be a company from outside the U.S. The trade barriers we come across when trying to export to some countries are beyond the ability of any individual business to change. For example, Mr. Chairman, the tariff for our equipment to South Africa is 19 percent. In response to this, we signed a licensing agreement with a local representative so they would build portions of our equipment in their country and remain competitive. That representative utilized the Purafil name and proceeded to dissolve the relationship and become a low-cost, Purafil-educated competitor, leaving us with little recourse.

We are facing similar high tariff situations in India, Brazil, China, Russia and others. Purafil will continue to do everything in its power to remain competitive. I am here today to ask you to do your part. Level the playingfield so our people, our technology, our products can compete in a global market. Don't force us to compete with the lack of transparency, the lack of access, irregular rule of law and some of the trade barriers and tariffs currently in place. That is why we support the NAM's leadership role in organizing a coalition to support the upcoming WTO Ministerial in Seattle. The Alliance for U.S. Trade Expansion, commonly referred to as U.S. Trade, encompasses an impressive broad-based group of agriculture, consumer, manufacturing, retailing and service organizations, representing $2 trillion in annual trade and over 150 million Americans.

The coalition seeks to promote the benefits of economic growth, job expansion and higher living standards in the United States as

a result of free trade and specifically U.S. participation in the WTO.

And while Purafil is a small piece of the overall coalition we are participating because we will continue to be successful only if we maintain our international customer base. In order to do that, we will depend on the reduction of tariffs and other trade barriers. A multilateral rules-based approach to trade, negotiated through the WTO, is strongly supported by Purafil. The United States should take a leadership role in the pursuit of free and fair trade through the WTO in order to support American business.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement follows:]

Statement of William Weiller, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Purafil, Inc., Atlanta, Georgia, on behalf of the National Association of Manufacturers

Good morning, Mr. Chairman. My name is Bill Weiller, I am the Chairman of the Board and CEO of Purafil, a leading manufacturer of air purification systems based in Atlanta, Georgia. I would like to thank you for the opportunity to testify before the House Ways and Means Committee on the upcoming World Trade Organization Ministerial and the impact of the WTO on small businesses such as Purafil. I am here on behalf of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), and obviously also for Purafil.

Many might be surprised that Purafil, a small American business with about 70 employees, is even remotely interested in the World Trade Organization and its objectives. In fact, we often encounter the notion that global free trade is good for big companies and bad for "the little guy." Small and medium-sized businesses do not attract the headlines the multinationals do, and often our successes in the global economy go without notice. I am here to let you know that open trade is not only good for Purafil, it is the backbone of our business.

In fact, Purafil is representative of many small businesses. I have attached a chart to my testimony, which you may find interesting. In 1989, nearly half of the National Association of Manufacturers' small and medium-sized member companies said they did not export. Today, only one in five fall into that category. In 1989, only 4 percent of those members earned more than 25 percent of their revenue from exporting and another 4 percent earned between 11 percent and 25 percent. Today, those percentages have more than doubled to 9 percent and 11 percent respectively. Let me just hammer that point home. Today, in NAM's surveys we're finding that exporting generates over 11 percent of the earnings for 1 out of every 5 exporters and over 25 percent for 1 out of every 10 of these smaller manufacturers. That is an important sea-change that has taken place over the past decade and Purafil has been a part of it.

I'd like to tell you a little bit about my company. Purafil manufacturers air quality systems that remove odorous, corrosive and toxic gases. In short, we sell clean air. Our customers include paper mills in Argentina, Oklahoma and North Carolina. We protect valuable artifacts in the Netherlands, the Sistine Chapel, and in Washington, DC. We service petrochemical refineries in Texas, Brazil, and Saudi Arabia. Despite our small size, Purafil is an industry leader in this niche market.

Sixty percent of our sales are made outside of the United States. Exporting is vitally important to Purafil: it is the cornerstone of our corporate strategy. We are not a company that got into international sales by accident or solely as a reaction to market demand. We have recognized that in order to survive, to continue to provide jobs to our employees, and to continue to fund the R & D efforts necessary to our success, we have to export and become experts in doing international business. The problems that Purafil can solve are the same worldwide. A refinery in Baton Rouge experiences the same hazardous emissions from manufacturing processes as does a refinery in Saudi Arabia. The Sistine Chapel protects its artwork from environmental degradation, as does the U.S. National Archives in Washington. Our intellectual property, considering our size, is significant. We have worked hard to take a technology that was developed in the U.S. about 30 years ago and have constantly refined and improved it.

If Purafil were not present to solve these problems, the increased demand for a solution would result in foreign competitors gaining the business. Right now, Purafil is the best in the world at solving air purification problems. We have a technology that cannot be matched. Purafil has worked hard to stay on top of our industry, and

I fear that without exporting, someone else will take the lead. We have few viable U.S. competitors that serve all the applications and markets that we do. That "someone else" could likely be a company from outside the U.S.

The trade barriers we come across when trying to export to some countries are beyond the ability of any individual business to change. For example, Mr. Chairman, the tariff for our equipment in South Africa is 19%. In response to this, we signed a licensing agreement with our local representative so they could build portions of our equipment in country and remain competitive. That representative utilized the Purafil name and proceeded to dissolve the relationship and become a low cost, Purafil-educated competitor, leaving us with little recourse. We are facing similar high tariff situations in India, Brazil, China and others. One solution is to form licensing agreements in these countries, but in doing so, we dilute our profit margins and make it easy for partners to eventually become competitors.

Purafil will continue to do everything in its power to remain competitive. I am here today to ask you to do your part-level the playing field so our people, our technology and our products can compete in the global market. Don't force us to compete with the trade barriers and tariffs currently in place.

I don't need statistics, studies or business experts to tell me that exporting creates jobs and is good for the economy. As a small business owner, I see it every day I go to the plant. I'm constantly reminded when I look at the shipments on our dock and see their final destinations.

That is why we support NAM's leadership role in organizing a coalition to support the upcoming WTO Ministerial in Seattle. The U.S. Alliance for Trade Expansion, commonly referred to as "US Trade," encompasses an impressive broad-based group of agriculture, consumer, manufacturing, retailing and services organizations representing $2 trillion in annual trade and over 150 million Americans. The coalition seeks to promote the benefits of economic growth, job expansion and higher living standards in the United States as a result of free trade and specifically U.S. participation in the WTO.

While Purafil is a small piece of the overall coalition mentioned above, we are participating because we will continue to be successful only if we maintain our international customer base. In order to do that, we will depend on the reduction of tariffs and other trade barriers. A multilateral, rules-based approach to trade, negotiated through the WTO, is strongly supported by Purafil. The United States should take a leadership role in the pursuit of free and fair trade through the WTO, in order to support American business.

Thank you.