Commerce secretary talks immigration reform during stay in Iowa

DES MOINES - Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker said Midwestern businesses would reap benefits from passage of the immigration reform legislation that's currently stuck in congressional gridlock.

“One of the issues we found all manufacturers are talking about is finding a sufficient depth of skilled labor,” Pritzker said Thursday as she toured the Iowa State Fair. “The potential immigration legislation could be - in the short run - be some part of the solution.”

Pritzker, who was in Iowa as part of a multi-state “listening tour,” said if the immigration reform bill passed, businesses would have access to a larger labor pool.

She added that the legislation lifts limits on work visas for workers trained in the so-called STEM areas. That stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

The Iowa State Fair was Pritizker's final stop in Iowa. Her travels included at Vermeer Corp. in Pella and the Greater Des Moines Partnership in Des Moines.

Pritzker, who took office five weeks ago, launched the listening tour in July in Colorado and has also made stops in Albany, N.Y., Hartford, Conn., and Nashville, Tenn.

She said concerns vary by region. In Nashville, for example, there was a lot of discussion about intellectual property because of the music industry.

She was joined by U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, at both the Vermeer stop and at the state fair.

Last week, Harkin held a public forum in Ames to push for the immigration reform package - also known as the DREAM Act - that passed the U.S. Senate, but is stalled in the House of Representatives.

On Thursday, however, the senator was pushing another idea. He wants to secure a manufacturing innovation center for Iowa.

“One's already in place in Ohio; three more have been allocated,” he said.

He hopes the federal government will build a bio-manufacturing center in Iowa as one of three.

“We need an innovation center out here that is focused on the bio-economy,” Harkin said. “When you're doing the bio-economy, when you're doing ethanol or any kind of energy, you're going to need equipment to do that and that stimulates more manufacturing.”