Jon S. Corzine: “I rise today, sadly, to express my sincere disappointment with the passage of the Trade Act conference report. It is…”

“I rise today, sadly, to express my sincere disappointment with the passage of the Trade Act conference report. It is deeply troubling to me. I will go through a number of the reasons I have these feelings and why I think they need to be expressed in an explicit nature. I come from a business background, as many know. While I was a very sympathetic and active promoter of the passage of NAFTA early in the nineties, I believe in the principle of comparative advantage and understand that it can work to maintain competition in prices for many goods and services broadly throughout our society, and in certain sectors of our economy it certainly can promote job growth. But on balance, when we look at the nature of a lot of the elements that are a part of this so-called fast-track trade promotion authority given today, I think the costs and the benefits don't align themselves well at all. I feel particularly troubled by the dilution of many of the elements that were in the Senate bill that went to conference that really left us in an even weaker position with respect to where we stand in protecting workers' environmental rights and the ability of America to represents its own interests in negotiations.”