John Thune

America cannot continue to lead the world in high-quality agricultural exports unless we continue to open new markets in Asia.

Our hearing today is an opportunity to highlight the American success story, that is, our Nation's growing agricultural exports and the jobs that they support here at home.

We want to be the number one. We want to stay competitive, and those markets are very, very important.

I do want to welcome Paul Casper to the committee today and thank him for his willingness to make some comments.

It is disappointing that, more than 3 years into the Obama administration, TPP is the only new trade agreement being pursued.

I just hope that we can continue to allow American producers, who are the best in the world, to continue to help feed the world.

For the life of me, I do not know why we have not been able to make any headway on extending TPA and moving forward with free trade agreements.

I think this needs to be a priority. This is a pretty big deal for us.

We are going to stay at it until it gets changed. I mean, this is too important.

It appears unlikely to conclude before the end of President Obama's term.

In South Dakota, we understand the importance of opening new markets to our home-grown products.

I find it troubling that the administration has not yet requested an extension of Trade Promotion Authority.

China is today the largest export market for U.S. agriculture, with agricultural exports to China totaling nearly $20 billion and supporting 160,000 American jobs.

Yes. Well, I think the sky is the limit.

I think that a lot of times Americans do not always appreciate how important export markets are to job creation here at home.

Japan is the United States' fourth-largest agricultural export market overall, despite maintaining some import barriers.

Then, of course, there is even the Governor of a State such as California, which I will submit for the Record. But the point is, there are lots of promises made that haven't been kept with this legislation. I yield the floor. The ACTING…

The combination of those things is only going to cost jobs. I yield the floor. The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Iowa. ____________________

I would say to my colleague from Mississippi that one of the areas where jobs may be created is in the Federal Government because it is going to take an awful lot of Federal bureaucrats to oversee and lots of new IRS agents to implement…

We want to make sure we have the most highly qualified pilots flying in the flight decks of our aircraft

The potential for the regional industry--we think there's a potential it would be very difficult.

What's causing the delay there?

If we are going to continue to see the types of commodity prices that have helped agriculture prosper in the last few years, we have to continue to look for ways to open up more markets around the world.

If we do not grant Russia PNTR status, the second question is, do you see the disparity that exists today...

I think it is important that we do everything we can to provide U.S. businesses greater access to markets.