Ron Kind: “I thank my friend from Colorado for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, as a member of the Ways and Means Committee and…”

“I thank my friend from Colorado for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, as a member of the Ways and Means Committee and as someone who has been involved in negotiations in regards to the Customs bill before us today, I rise in strong support of that bill. I encourage my colleagues to do the same. The Customs bill before us today is not the Customs bill that was reported out of the House in June of this year, a bill, quite frankly, that I couldn't support because of extraneous provisions--controversial provisions--that got included in it. Through the product of the give-and-take in the negotiations, I think we reached a good bipartisan compromise. This is what bipartisanship looks like: the cooperation, the give-and-take. It is not a perfect bill. I know there are still some objections to it. At its crux, however, this bill provides us important tools and resources to enhance enforcement mechanisms so we can enforce trade agreements and the standards that we are trying to elevate in these trade agreements. For instance, this bill, with the language that I worked on very hard with my colleagues Mr. Levin and Mr. Lewis on the Ways and Means Committee will finally end the importation of goods and products based on the exploitation of child and forced and slave labor. That is in this bill.…”