[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 5568-5569]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




           DO NOT PASS THE U.S.-COLOMBIA FREE TRADE AGREEMENT

  (Ms. SHEA-PORTER asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Ms. SHEA-PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased as Speaker Pelosi decided 
to assert Congress' power over international trade by waiving ill-
advised fast-track rules, and I hope the decision to waive the 90-day 
deadline for a

[[Page 5569]]

vote on the Colombia FTA will effectively kill the agreement.
  This is not a good idea at this time. Colombia has not proven that 
they are capable of providing the human rights that the people of 
Colombia so desperately need. Passage of the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade 
Agreement would greatly diminish our Nation's reputation as a leader in 
the fight to end human rights abuses worldwide. Like the Peru agreement 
which preceded it, the Colombia FTA is based on the flawed NAFTA-CAFTA 
model which also led to the outsourcing of millions of high-paying 
American jobs. This comes at a time when our own country is in a 
recession and experiencing unprecedented job loss.
  All around, this is not a good idea, and I hope that we will kill 
this.

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