Bart Stupak: “We asked why does it cost so much? From $20,000 to $45,000 to $50,000? And they said: See, when we bring an American car…”

“We asked why does it cost so much? From $20,000 to $45,000 to $50,000? And they said: See, when we bring an American car and put it over in Japan, then we must follow their rules. We must now follow the Japanese standard. Every car must go through a processing center where they go through with a very fine-tooth comb, and they reject and continue to reject it until that is the perfect car. And every time there is a rejection and further inspection, the manufacturer here, in this case Ford, would then have to pay to bring it up to their standards. So if I might, I would like to talk a little bit about standards tonight and food safety, because when we went to Florida and we had heard from the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Boyd), the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Thurman), the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Brown) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Wexler) and others, as we were doing the debate about fast track last year, they said we are happy to compete with Mexico on food standards, especially our winter fruits and vegetables and the citrus, but just have the same standards. But since the implementation of NAFTA in 1993, they said look what happened in our State because we do not have the same standards. Florida has lost 50,000 agriculture-related jobs.”