[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 15078]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

  (Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, this being the first day that we've convened 
since the election, I want to begin by expressing my appreciation to 
our chaplain, Father Conroy, for his very inspiring and thoughtful 
prayer.
  Mr. Speaker, we are here this week to deal with a very important 
issue. And I will say that we were all taught as kids, better late than 
never. We're here because U.S. workers at this point don't have access 
to 140 million potential consumers for their goods and services. I'm 
talking about the vote that we're going to have on so-called ``Russia 
Permanent Normal Trade Relations.''
  Mr. Speaker, Vladimir Putin is not a good guy. Vladimir Putin has 
inflicted horrendous human rights policies on the people of Russia. We 
have seen crony capitalism take hold. And that's why it's very 
important, Mr. Speaker, that the United States of America be at the 
table as part of the WTO's effort to force Russia to live with the 
rules-based trading system.
  Last year we exported $11 billion in goods and services to Russia. If 
we can pass PNTR, we will double that to $22 billion by 2017.
  Mr. Speaker, it's a very important vote. We need to make sure that 
it's successful this week, and I'm gratified that it's going to be done 
in a bipartisan way.

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