Political Quotes

“I believe we are moving to a very important debate in the next week as the Senate moves forward with legislation passed by the House of Representatives today that would advance trade promotion authority. Trade promotion authority is a delegation by the U.S. Congress to the President of the United States, the Chief Executive--power that Congress has--authorizing and directing that the President go forward to negotiate a trade agreement. This trade agreement would then be brought back to the Congress and, through legislation, would be implemented. But the trade agreement would never be subject to full evaluation, full debate under the normal processes of Congress, nor would it be subject to any amendment. Indeed, if the trade promotion authority passes the Senate--maybe next week--this legislation, this trade agreement would be fast-tracked. That is why they call it a fast-track agreement. The fast-track would mean that the treaty--they call it ``agreement'' to avoid the fact that a treaty requires a two-thirds vote--that this trade agreement would be brought up so that Congress--it would be on the floor for 20 hours, it would be subject to no amendment, and it would be voted on, up or down. It would be filed, for example, at 4 o'clock on a Monday afternoon and voted on final passage the next day at noon. That is the kind of situation we are faced with.…”