Political Quotes

“Thank you, Mr. President. I am saddened to hear that there is an objection in a context in which the majority leader has argued that he is going to have a robust and open amendment process. So why is there an objection to bringing an amendment forward to debate a core issue, which speech after speech after speech in support of this agreement--this fast-track to accelerate consideration of TPP--has referred to enforceable labor standards? Why not debate an amendment that would actually require enforceable labor standards? Why not? Well, because apparently that is not a serious goal. Let's turn to another piece of this. There is a part of this system referred to as ``dispute settlement,'' an international system of dispute settlement, ISDS. What this does is it sets up a tribunal not subject to American law. It is an international tribunal, has one person chosen by America and one chosen by a foreign investor and one chosen by the combination. This group, this ISDS, is empowered to apply a series of standards and say that an action by our country has damaged the interest of a foreign investor, and the foreign investor must be compensated or, if they are not compensated, that the law has to be changed.…”