Erik Paulsen: “Well, I thank the chairman for yielding. And let me just first say, with the bipartisan support of this important issue…”

“Well, I thank the chairman for yielding. And let me just first say, with the bipartisan support of this important issue, which I will concur in comments from Mr. Meeks, but I want to say I want to thank Mr. Dreier, the chairman, because I think we're having these types of discussions on the floor today thanks to his many years of leadership to educate all of us in the House on a bipartisan basis about the benefits of trade, about selling American, and his leadership in establishing this Free Trade Caucus has been so valuable to me as a newer Member. And I know that our country is in great gratitude, and we're going to miss your leadership down the road, Mr. Chairman, in the future. Let me just say that I also want to rise in strong support for passing this permanent normal trade relations status with Russia. We must pass this legislation to give American manufacturers, American farmers, and American service providers a fair chance to compete and then win and sell more of their goods in the markets of Russia. {time} 1900 Russia joined the WTO already. They already joined the World Trade Organization back on August 22. They've already begun to open their markets to the rest of the world, so now there are about 150 countries, except the United States, that can fully benefit from much better access to the Russian marketplace.…”