[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 41 (Monday, April 15, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2666-S2667]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       TRADE PROMOTION AUTHORITY

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, one of the pieces of legislation I 
thought would be on the floor of the Senate by this time is trade 
promotion authority. I know our majority leader has a lot of problems 
and issues with which he has to deal. I think he has intentions of 
bringing the bill up sometime, but I am trying to encourage the Senate 
majority leader to bring it up soon because we have so many issues 
before us. I want to speak about one of those issues in regard to trade 
and agriculture.
  Trade promotion authority is so important for us to get down trade 
barriers that stand in the way of the successful and fair trade of our 
agricultural products with other countries. Without trade, there is not 
going to be any profitability in farming. The fact is, we produce 40 
percent more on our farms than is consumed domestically. So a good 
trade policy is what is necessary if we are going to have full 
production and if we are going to have profitability in farming.
  We had the pleasure of bringing up a bill that had the support by a 
vote of 18 to 3 of the Senate Finance Committee. That was about 4 
months ago and we still don't have any commitment from the leadership 
to bring this critical, bipartisan trade legislation to the floor by a 
date certain, so we can plan on that date and be ready for one of the 
most important issues to come before Congress this year and eventually 
vote on it.
  We have had several offers: that this bill would come up sometime 
this spring; one time it was in March; another time, it was soon after 
the Easter recess; now it is maybe sometime before Memorial Day. There 
is a great deal of uncertainty. During this period of uncertainty, we 
lose opportunities for the United States to be a leader in global trade 
negotiation.
  Remember, this is not something new for the United States. This is 
something that the United States has been doing since 1947 when the 
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was first started. Whatever 
success we have had until 1994, when the President's authority ran out, 
has been accomplished under U.S. leadership. We ought to be proud of 
our leadership and we ought to be looking forward to reestablishing 
that leadership once again after a period of about 8 years during which 
the President hasn't had the authority. Then we can continue the good 
things that happen when trade barriers are reduced.
  The good things that happen are the creation of jobs. I don't want 
people to take my word for that. I want to repeat one of the things 
President Clinton has constantly said, which I agree with, and that is 
during his tenure as President, with a rapidly expanding economy--I 
think in the neighborhood of about 20 million new jobs were created 
during that term of office--President Clinton would say that one-third 
of those jobs were created because of trade.
  I am not talking about trade as some abstract political theory or 
economic theory. I am talking about the good that comes from trade--the 
good of creating jobs in America, the good that it does for our 
consumers because of the opportunities to get the best buy for consumer 
goods.
  President Clinton's bragging about one-third of the jobs coming from 
international trade was a direct result of 50 years of America's 
leadership in the reduction of trade barriers. Two of those major 
agreements were completed in the first year of President Clinton's 
Presidency--the North American Free Trade Agreement, as well as the 
Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which 
established the World Trade Organization as a more permanent forum for 
the establishment of trade agreements in the future and settlement of 
trade disputes.
  I am talking about having a better opportunity for America's economy, 
for creation of jobs. Again, this is not something from which just 
America benefits. We can look at the economies of Korea, Taiwan, and 
Japan. As we know, after World War II, they were in a terrible state of 
affairs. They were Third World economies. Look at what those economies 
have done in the last 50 years through the principle of trading and 
through the regime that was established under the General Agreement on 
Tariffs and Trade. They were able to expand their economies to the 
advanced economies they have today.
  By having trade in the 77 countries in the world that are the most 
poor--Africa and other countries as well--we can help them expand their 
economies or, as President Kennedy said in his Presidency, trade not 
aid, meaning that trade was a better way of helping the developing 
nations to become strong economies rather than the United States just 
giving something that was not an encouragement for them to advance.
  When I talk about trade promotion authority, I am not talking about 
some abstract delegation of authority to the President of the United 
States to negotiate certain agreements that Congress is going to 
control in the final analysis as we have to vote on that product that 
comes out of those agreements. We are talking about helping countries 
all over the world because we have an expanding world population, and 
we have to have an expanding world economic pie. If we do not, we are 
going to have less for more people. But with an expanding world 
economic pie, for sure, with an expanding world population, we are 
going to have more for more people, and we are not only going to be 
talking about a better life for those people, but we are going to talk 
about more social stability, more political stability and more peace 
around the world.
  This is a very important issue that we ought to be dealing with in 
the Senate. Every day we delay in approving bipartisan trade promotion 
authority for the President is another day that the United States 
cannot advance the interest of our workers or, in the case of my 
remarks today, the interests of America's farmers, ranchers, and 
agricultural producers at the negotiating table as effectively as they 
should, as effectively as we did in the Uruguay Round starting in 1986 
and ending in 1993, which resulted in a very favorable agreement or any 
time since 1947. It is a reality, not some theoretical point.
  While month after month there has been a delay in this issue coming 
up, our agricultural negotiators are at the table right now in Geneva. 
They are fighting for better market access for our farmers, but without 
trade promotion authority, our agricultural negotiators have one hand 
tied behind their backs. There are timetables, there are goals, and 
there are deadlines in Geneva that have to be met if these negotiators 
are going to accomplish what we want them to accomplish for the good of 
American agriculture.

  Without trade promotion authority, it will not be the United States 
that will shape the negotiating agenda of

[[Page S2667]]

these talks. It will be the countries that want to shield their markets 
from competition that will shape the agenda and the timing of these 
negotiations.
  This would be a devastating situation for America's export-dependent 
farm economy, and it will cost virtually every farming family in 
America. Without greater access to world markets, America's family 
farmers and ranchers will pay more in the form of higher tariffs or 
taxes than will our competitors. As a result, our farmers will have 
lower prices, lower income, and lost opportunity.
  I thought I would bring to the attention of the Senate a letter that 
is shown on this chart in its entirety. I am not going to read the 
letter in its entirety. It is from a constituent of mine. He also 
happens to be a person I know well, not because I socialize with this 
person, but because he is an outstanding agricultural leader in my 
State and, in that capacity, I get to know some of these people who are 
outstanding farmers, outstanding civic leaders.
  I received this letter from Glen Keppy and brought it with me so my 
colleagues can see how a third generation pork producer from Davenport, 
IA, looks at the issue of trade and the relationship between trade and 
the profitability in farming and, more importantly, the strength of the 
institution that we refer to as the family farmer.
  If I can explain what I mean by a family farmer because some think 
that might be 80 acres or 500 acres. I am not talking about the size of 
the farm. I am talking about an institution where the family controls 
the capital, they make all the management decisions, and they provide 
most or all of the labor. That is a family farm. That can be a 30-acre 
New Jersey truck garden; that can be an apple ranch in the Presiding 
Officer's State of Michigan; that can be a ranch, with cattle on 
thousands of acres, in Wyoming where it takes 25 acres of grass to feed 
one cow and calf unit.
  Mr. Keppy wrote to me about the huge foreign tariffs that are on 
pork, averaging in some instances close to 100 percent. He also wrote 
about other foreign trade barriers that hamper his and other farmers' 
ability to export overseas.
  According to Glenn, and I am going to read the first sentence that is 
highlighted:

       The only way our family operation will survive over the 
     long term is if we can convince other nations to lower or 
     remove their barriers to our pork exports.

  That comes from some experience. We have learned from some reductions 
of tariffs going into Mexico since the North American Free Trade 
Agreement. We are sending more pork into Mexico. As a result of 
agreements with Japan, more beef is going into Japan. A lot of 
agreements that were made in the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement 
on Tariffs and Trade proved that as well.
  Mr. Keppy knows that where barriers have gone down, it has created 
opportunities for the American farmer. What he is talking about is that 
we need to continue opening markets, and trade promotion authority is 
the tool that we give to the President to negotiate. We give to the 
President our constitutional power under certain short periods of time 
with restrictions so the President can sit down at the table and 
negotiate because, quite frankly, it is not possible for 535 Members of 
Congress to negotiate with the 142 different countries that are members 
of the World Trade Organization.
  So we give the President this authority. We have done it in the past. 
It has been very successful. We control the end products because if we 
do not like it, we do not vote for it, it does not pass, it does not 
become law.
  We also control the process through consultation that we require of 
the President of the United States. We limit some areas where he might 
be able to negotiate or not negotiate. We instruct the President to 
emphasize some things over other things. So we are not giving away any 
constitutional power. We are asking the President, as a matter of 
convenience, to negotiate for Congress in the exercise of our 
constitutional control over interstate and foreign commerce.
  I remember in the Senate at the beginning of this debate on trade 
promotion authority there were some who said it really was not 
necessary to pass trade promotion authority right away. These critics 
were wrong then. They are wrong now.
  To show how one of my constituents feels about this, this is what 
this family farmer who emphasizes and specializes in pork production, 
Mr. Keppy, says, and I would read another sentence:

       To the American farmer, despite the pressing need to 
     improve export prospects and consequently, the bottom line 
     for American farmers, no timetable for considering TPA 
     legislation on the floor of the Senate has been set.

  That is his way of saying that is not a very good environment for 
agriculture at the negotiating table as we are right now in Geneva.
  He also says in another place in these letters:

       To farmers like my two sons and myself, trade is not a 
     luxury. It is a vital ingredient to our success.

  ``It is the key,'' Mr. Keppy says, ``to our survival.''
  There are a lot of Glen Keppys whose survival as family farmers 
depends on trade. So it matters a lot to Mr. Keppy and to all the 
farmers in America like him when the Senate leadership delays month 
after month in bringing legislation that is vital to the survival of 
family farmers to the Senate.
  Saying one is for the family farmer and then ignoring or delaying 
legislation that is vital to the farmers' survival is beyond most 
farmers' ability to understand. Glen Keppy, his two sons who work with 
him, and all the family farmers like them whose survival depends on 
trade hope the Senate Democratic leadership is listening and will 
schedule this bill for debate. More importantly, the family farmers of 
America hope we act on this bill.
  Again, I know this has been on Senator Daschle's list of important 
things to get done. I know he knows the importance of it because he is 
one of the 18 who voted to bring this out of our Senate Finance 
Committee, but it is something we have to get done, even if it takes 
working extra hours, as we are not tonight. I am not complaining about 
not working nights because none of us want to work at night, but 
sometimes we might have to do it to get the job done.
  I welcome that opportunity and I thank Senator Daschle for his 
consideration of my request.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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