Roy Blunt: “Well, before we go to one other topic, I'd just say that for bills where we could have started, particularly for…”

“Well, before we go to one other topic, I'd just say that for bills where we could have started, particularly for military families, the quality of life issues there and for veterans, I think it's a shame that we're not starting those on Tuesday, when they could have started. The other thing that just happened, the President just sent the Peru Free Trade Agreement to the House. The Ways and Means Committee held its markup on the Peru Free Trade Agreement this week, and I've read, at least, that there's an intention, before we go to that trade agreement, to go to a trade adjustment bill that has not yet been written. That trade adjustment bill, when it has passed in the past, has passed with trade promotion authority. With no new trade promotion authority, there's less reason than there might have otherwise been for new trade adjustment authority. And more importantly, it seems, we might run the risk here of slowing the Peru agreement, the clock of which just started, if we wait for a bill that's not yet been written. And I guess my two questions would be, do we plan to do trade adjustment assistance with TPA? And does the gentlelady have any sense of why it's necessary to do that before we do a trade agreement that we've already held the markup on and the President just sent down? And I'd yield.”