Mark Pocan: “I think the point that the gentleman brought up, especially around why we can't amend it, is a real significant one.…”

“I think the point that the gentleman brought up, especially around why we can't amend it, is a real significant one. Congress gave up its ability when it passed trade promotion authority to allow the President to do the final negotiations. We gave up our ability to have any amendments, and we have limited debate. So when there are so many concerns with this trade agreement, unfortunately, there is very little other than an up-or-down vote that we can do. This is exactly why when you have two major party Presidential candidates and scores of candidates for Federal office across the country in both parties opposing this agreement to allow people who could be kicked out of office, essentially by the voters, to make that decision in a lameduck is certainly undemocratic, with a small D. That is one of the real problems we are facing on this. The other issue you brought up, gentleman, and I want to talk about too is the accompanying job loss. Other trade agreements we have had in the past, we have seen that we have had a net job loss both, I believe, from the Korea Free Trade Agreement where we were made one promise and a different result happened from NAFTA. I just last year had a company leave Lafayette County, Wisconsin. Lafayette County is one of the most rural counties in the State of Wisconsin. The largest city is 2,400 people, Darlington. It is one of two counties in the State of Wisconsin that doesn't have a stop-and-go light. This is a rural, rural area.…”