Political Quotes

“I say to the gentleman, these agreements are so powerful they actually should be treated as treaties because they involve so much more than just goods. When you get into the legal right to sue and you look at what has happened to our country under these trade agreements--I don't know about Minnesota, but in our part of the country, we have something called the emerald ash borer that has eaten through all of our ash trees. It is a multibillion dollar problem. Cities like Toledo and Cleveland are losing 10 percent of their tree cover--10 percent--and those all have to be replanted. And that critter got in here in packing material. But who gets taken to court from the other country for sending in dirty soil here? There is no legal recourse. If you look at the U.S. Department of Agriculture budget, in the invasive species account, you will find it skyrocketing as American taxpayers are being charged to try to clean up some of this mess that is happening across our country. It isn't just the emerald ash borer. It is critters like the Asian beetle, which came in on Chinese packing crate material and is eating hardwoods all across our country. The damage is enormous, and there is no court. There is no place where we can go to hold the importer and the exporter responsible within the laws of our country. What kind of a crazy system is this where we tie the hands of the American people? Under NAFTA, we were told that we would have 200,000 more jobs in our country.…”