Rob Portman: “I thank the Presiding Officer for letting me talk about the trade agenda this afternoon. And I appreciate the words of…”

“I thank the Presiding Officer for letting me talk about the trade agenda this afternoon. And I appreciate the words of my colleague from Alaska, Senator Murkowski, regarding the liquefied natural gas exports and oil exports. This is a discussion about how we ensure that we are accessing the 95 percent of consumers who live outside of our borders. For the workers and farmers I represent in Ohio, that is really important. This is how we are going to be able to get this economy back on track. In part, it is to provide more markets--more customers. Already in my State of Ohio, we depend heavily on exports. One out of every three acres that is planted in Ohio--we are one of the top farm States in the country. We are proud of that. It is the No. 1 industry. One out of every three acres that is planted is exported. Of our soybean crop, which is typically our biggest crop in Ohio, 60 percent gets exported. So for farmers, in order to keep their prices up, these foreign markets are absolutely critical. But it is also really important for our manufacturing sector in Ohio. About 25 percent of our manufacturing jobs are export jobs. And, frankly, what has happened over the last 7 years, while America has not been in the business of opening up these markets, is that they are beginning to lose their market share. So it is good for us to expand exports.…”