Political Quotes

“I am happy to be on the floor to hear the news from Senator Hatch and Senator Baucus that they have reached an agreement on trade promotion authority. I wish to congratulate them on that, working with Chairman Camp on the House side. This is incredibly important. These two Senators have worked closely together, as Republican and Democrat, over the last few months with the administration to put in place the opportunity for American workers, American farmers, and American service providers to be able to sell their goods and their services on a level playing field by opening more markets for U.S. products. I congratulate them. It is sad to me that for the past 5 or 6 years we haven't had trade promotion authority, and without their strong efforts we still wouldn't have it today. It has been noted that this administration, the Obama administration, is the first one since FDR not to have asked for even the ability to open these markets through what is called trade promotion authority and its predecessors until last March. So until last spring they hadn't even asked for it. They did ask for it, and thanks to the hard work of these two Senators and Congressman Camp, we are now going to have that opportunity. This gives our workers, our farmers, and our service providers the ability to access these markets Senator Baucus and Senator Hatch spoke about. It is critical to economic growth.…”