Kirk Watson: “I rise today with Mr. Issa, and offer this amendment that disallows the use of taxpayer dollars to negotiate Russia's…”

“I rise today with Mr. Issa, and offer this amendment that disallows the use of taxpayer dollars to negotiate Russia's accession into the World Trade Organization until Russia is removed from the United States Trade Representative's priority watch list for intellectual property violations. Russia should not be allowed consideration until it takes steps to protect intellectual property before we let them into the exclusive World Trade Organization. The cost of Russian piracy, from the copyright community from the motion picture and recording industry, to software inventors and patent holders, was over $1.7 billion in 2005, and losses topped $6.8 billion over the last 5 years. Russia has been on the USTR's priority list for intellectual property violations for 9 straight years without showing any significant signs of improvement. Delaying Russia's entrance into the WTO until Russia enacts and enforces laws to protect intellectual property rights will send a strong and serious message that the United States values its Nation's ideas and products. We learned this lesson the hard way with China. Once China became a member of the WTO, it has been a very difficult, time-consuming and expensive task to bring a case against them before the WTO to get them to enforce IP protections. The time to pressure Russia, to put an end to their egregious intellectual property violations is now, and I urge my colleagues to support the Watson-Issa amendment.…”