Joe Lieberman: “this amendment that I offer strikes 27 words in the bill. These words are not many in number, as legislating goes, but…”

“this amendment that I offer strikes 27 words in the bill. These words are not many in number, as legislating goes, but they embrace, in their exclusion, a very important series of principles that are at stake. So let me read the words to you that would be struck. And I quote: No retaliation may be authorized based on the exercise of these rights or the right to establish domestic labor standards and levels of environmental protection. I say, respectfully, to those who put these words in the bill, and reported it out of the Finance Committee, that these words are a mistake because they essentially cancel out this provision, this section in which they appear, which is one of the 13 principal trade negotiating objectives in this bill before us, and the only one dealing with labor and environmental protections. In effect, because of this language that this amendment would strike, this becomes the only objective in the bill that the bill itself says, in effect, 'we, the United States, will never enforce these portions of an agreement.' And that is the section relating to domestic labor standards and levels of environmental protection. I do not understand why we would place such a self-defeating provision in legislation, to create a standard and then to frustrate any potential for realizing and implementing it.”