[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 7]
[House]
[Pages 9538-9541]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1445
                 THE POWER OF TRADE PROMOTION AUTHORITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2015, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Gohmert) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, it seems so often in this body we tend not 
to learn from mistakes. We passed a bill--I guess part of a bill--that 
the Senate sent, referred to as the TPA, but it is all about a trade 
agreement that will provide a structure in which the President can 
negotiate and dock other agreements into it. Since the TAA did not 
pass, then it can't, apparently, go directly to conference unless we 
pass an amendment to allow it to go to conference or find some other 
way to effectuate a conference on agreement. Mr. Speaker, I can only 
surmise that, since the Speaker, himself, moved to reconsider, then 
there is something afoot in order to keep it from dying, as it should 
have, since both the TPA and the TAA did not pass.
  The TPA, I read it. It has got some good aspects to it, but it is 
not, in and of itself, free trade. As a judge in a district court--our 
highest level trial court in Texas--so many times, I would be the fact 
finder without a jury. So often, you would sit and listen to the 
evidence, and you would wonder why someone would take the action he 
did. There has got to be some motivating factor. You consider all of 
the possibilities.
  We had a very rare visit from President Obama to the Capitol, trying 
to push people to vote for the TPA--this trade agreement--and the TAA. 
It was great to see him come out to the Congressional Baseball Game 
last night. It is not something he does regularly. So, Mr. Speaker, I 
am left to wonder. I mean, we have not seen this President push this 
hard on very many bills over the last 6\1/2\ years, and I am left 
wondering: Why would President Obama push so hard to pass this trade 
agreement structure that allows him to negotiate so many deals with so 
many different countries?
  One possibility is he did it because he knew that Speaker Boehner was 
pushing to pass it, and it is possible that he really wanted to make 
Speaker Boehner and Mitch McConnell, the leader down in the Senate, 
look good. That is a possibility. I don't think it is terribly 
probable. In weighing all of the evidence, it would seem to me that it 
is far more probable that the TPA will give this President far more 
power to fundamentally transform America in his remaining year and a 
half or so as President. That is what it appears to be to me.
  Now, one of our Republicans speaking, whom I have tremendous respect 
and admiration for, commented that we are not a nation that sits on the 
sidelines. I agree that that used to be true, but we have basically sat 
on the sidelines as Christians and Jews are being persecuted and killed 
around the world in greater numbers than ever before. We have sat on 
the sidelines in Nigeria as precious little African girls are kidnapped 
and brutally, sexually assaulted day after day, month after month.
  Then we see an article. According to the article, actually, this 
administration communicated to Nigeria that, if they will change their 
laws to provide for same-sex marriage and possibly for abortions to be 
paid for, then the United States would not continue to sit on the 
sidelines, that we would actually help them stop radical Islamists. Of 
course, they didn't use the term ``radical Islamists,'' but that is 
what they are. They would stop them, the radical Islamists, from 
continuing to kill and persecute Christians the way they are doing in 
Nigeria.
  I have talked to some folks who have been on a recent trip to eastern 
Africa and who have met and even prayed with leaders in east Africa. I 
was going to be on the trip, but, apparently, the Speaker feels, if you 
oppose him, then you are not allowed to travel, that those rewards are 
saved for people who vote as he tells them to. I will tell you what: if 
that is the price of speaking truth to power, it is still a great 
country.
  The people who went on that trip indicated that leaders in eastern 
Africa had indicated that the United States administration, the Obama 
administration, was telling them, in essence, what the article said 
happened in Nigeria, which is that, if you will change your laws to 
allow for same-sex marriage, though it is totally against their 
spiritual beliefs as Christians or as Muslims, then we would help them 
with things like radical Islam, but, otherwise, we are not going to 
help them.
  So I appreciate hearing a Republican say the United States is not a 
nation that sits on the sidelines, but this administration does. It 
sits on the sidelines and uses power to fundamentally transform this 
country and other countries. We have seen that.
  I see my very dear friend from Kentucky (Mr. Massie) here on the 
floor,

[[Page 9539]]

and I would like to yield to him for his comments and thoughts.
  Mr. MASSIE. I appreciate the gentleman from Texas for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, we had a vote on the TPA here, and I just wanted to take 
some time to explain, and I think my colleague from Texas probably 
feels the same way. I am for trade. I think trade is good. I am not 
against trade, but, today, I voted against the trade promotion 
authority, which would fast track the TPP. I just wanted to take a 
second to explain why I was compelled to vote against this legislation 
today.
  First of all, like my colleague, I have read the TPP. I have been 
down to the confidential room. It is a very thick document, and there 
are two bound volumes, and there is a binder that goes with it as sort 
of a guide. What struck me the most about this TPP document is the 
enormity of it. My staff isn't even allowed to read the document. We 
are not allowed to have access to the Internet while we are in there 
when we are looking at the document. We are not allowed to take notes 
from the room, and this document references other bound documents.
  So how could I possibly--one person, by myself in a confidential 
room--understand what some of the unintended consequences of this trade 
agreement would be if I can't understand the document and if I am not 
allowed the resources to fully analyze this document? I want there to 
be more daylight on this document before we put it on a path to 
approval.
  The other reason I voted ``no'' today was the implication of ceding 
our authority to the World Trade Organization, which struck me this 
week when we voted to overturn our country of origin labeling on beef 
and pork. Now, whether you think we should require companies to label 
beef and pork when they bring them into this country from another 
country--whether that is a good thing or whether that is a bad thing--
that doesn't matter. What disturbs me is that the reason for writing 
this law this week was the World Trade Organization told us we had to. 
They said we have got to do that. We swore an oath to the Constitution, 
not to the World Trade Organization. My concern is that this trade 
agreement could bind us to things that we don't even understand yet 
because, surely, some trade agreement years ago has caused us this week 
to change our food labeling laws.
  The third and final reason I voted against the TPA today--and this 
may be the best reason, in fact--is that my constituents don't like it. 
I have received 30 phone calls a day for the past week against this. I 
might have received 1 or 2 all week saying to vote for it. We didn't 
get a chip implanted in our brains when we came to Congress that makes 
us smarter than all of our constituents. I think it is important to be 
humble, to know that we don't always have the right answer. We don't 
really have a whole lot more information than our constituents have in 
this case. I think that their concern that they expressed to me, like 
of the President getting too much authority and that this President 
does not need more authority, is a valid concern; that there is not 
enough transparency is another valid concern.
  I know my friend from Texas has expressed both of those concerns 
himself, and I am sure he is hearing those from his constituents as 
well.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I would like to follow up with the observation there 
about our constituents because--I wish I didn't--I remember all too 
well how things went in this room on TARP, the Wall Street bailout. The 
vast number of Americans--a huge percentage of Americans--did not want 
us to pass the Wall Street bailout. There was an FDIC former Director, 
named Isaac, who came. He had a lot of economists' support, and he had 
a great free market solution. People were excited when that passed. I 
know we had people clapping today just like they did when ObamaCare 
passed. A lot of people clapped when ObamaCare passed. Then they got 
defeated in the next election, so they were not here to clap for this 
one. There were people who clapped for the Wall Street bailout's 
passing. Some of them didn't come back because the people could see 
this was not a good way to go.
  Now, one of the things I love about being a Republican is that, 
basically, as conservatives, we are optimists. We think things can get 
better, and that is why we are here. I know you and I have worked so 
many times together, and that is why we are here. We want to make 
things better, and we think we can--that we have got a shot at making 
things better. But at some point, you at least have to take notice of 
the old Washington saying that, no matter how cynical you get here in 
Washington, it is never enough to catch up.
  I love that people are aware that the President promised in ObamaCare 
that, if you liked your insurance, you could keep it and that, if you 
liked your doctor, you could keep him. He promised that nobody on 
Medicare would be affected, that it would only affect the 
reimbursements. Well, people have found out that those things were not 
true. They did lose the insurance they liked, and they lost the doctors 
they liked. Medicare recipients had found out: Wait a minute. You said 
it wouldn't affect me, but what I found out is, when you cut $700 
billion from how much you reimburse the health care providers, my 
doctors are not able to see me. It does affect me.
  Then, of course, I remember--and I did consider Bart Stupak a friend. 
I saw him not long ago, and I still think of him as a friend. I know he 
was pro-life and wanted to do what was right. He was promised by the 
President that nothing in or about ObamaCare would cause anybody who 
disagreed with abortion or who had spiritual beliefs against abortion--
that nothing that they would ever have to buy would pay for abortion, 
that no Federal money would go for abortion. As I understood it, he was 
even getting the President to put that in writing for him.

                              {time}  1500

  Well, as Joe Wilson observed during a speech being given in here, I 
think he said it differently, but it turned out those things weren't 
true. Abortion is paid for with Federal dollars. The Federal Government 
even has fought people in court, like these precious Catholic nuns, the 
Little Sisters of the Poor. They have dedicated their lives to helping 
our Nation's poor and people that are downtrodden. Those are the kind 
of people that government officials used to revere, admire, respect. 
Not now. Because those broken promises even resulted in this 
administration fighting them in court to try to force them to have 
insurance that paid for abortion that these precious nuns believed was 
murdering a child in the womb.
  Constituents were against TARP. There were people here that supported 
this free trade agreement, just as you and I support free trade, but 
they supported this TPA that truly will give the President more 
authority.
  I remember some of these same people saying: Look, we don't have to 
worry because by passing the bill we are about to pass, the President 
can't remove anybody from Guantanamo without giving us notice, and when 
he gives us notice, we can stop him. I mean, I have been told that. 
And, in fact, the law is, he can't remove anybody from Guantanamo 
without first giving us notice. The American people remember that.
  They also happen to have noticed that the President cut a deal for a 
guy that looks like he is going to be charged with desertion, and 
released five terrorists from Guantanamo and didn't give us notice 
until after he had released them. So I love the optimism that says, 
yes, there have been misrepresentations from this administration over 
and over and over and over, and now we have had 6\1/2\ years of 
continued misrepresentations from the administration, and the good news 
is this time we really think he means it. Now, I love that kind of 
optimism; I really do.
  I want to yield to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Massie), my 
friend, for his thoughts.
  Mr. MASSIE. Well, you are an optimist, Mr. Gohmert, and I would 
wholeheartedly second that, but, look, you are also a realist, and I 
think we all need to be realists. The best way to keep those promises 
is not to make a

[[Page 9540]]

promise you can't keep or not to make a promise that you can't make 
somebody else keep. So far, we have shown that we are pretty 
ineffectual here in Congress at keeping the President maintaining those 
promises. If you like the plan you have, you can keep it was one of 
those promises I remember.
  While we are talking about the Affordable Care Act, I remember 
Congress was told to pass it so you can see what is in it. And we are 
being told: Pass the TPA so you can see what is in the TPP, at least so 
our constituents can see it.
  I just want to close with this and not consume any more of the 
gentleman's time.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Before the gentleman gets too far, reclaiming my time, I 
want to point out, he and I have been down to the classified area and 
viewed the TPP, but as I understand it, the President is going to be 
allowed to add like 20 percent to that that we have not even had an 
opportunity to see. So even when we say we have been down to the 
classified area, they made it available, we have been through it, we 
can't say that all of it was provided.
  Is that your understanding?
  Mr. MASSIE. That is absolutely correct. Furthermore, the document 
that we viewed was a draft. It is not complete. If you read it, 
virtually every page of it has a little footnote that says, oh, we are 
still working on this page here. So, yeah, we are fast-tracking 
something that we can't see, we are not really going to be a party to 
the negotiations, and we can't control the outcome of it. So I think we 
should do that with great caution.
  I just want to close with this. I want to say that the vote today was 
not a referendum on free trade. It was not a referendum on whether it 
benefits our country to trade with other countries. We know that. We 
believe it. We have seen it. Trade is good. But this was a referendum 
on giving the President more authority; this was a referendum on voting 
for something we can't see, we can't verify; and this was a referendum 
on a huge, giant document. It reminds me of some of the omnibus bills 
we are given 2 days to read that come to this body, 1600 pages.
  But this was a referendum on the process. That is why they couldn't 
get the bill passed today. TPA is not a law yet. It didn't pass today, 
but we support free trade. I know my colleague does. We just don't 
support the TPA.
  Mr. GOHMERT. My friend has observed all the goings-on very closely. 
The President has acted extraordinarily in reaching out to Congress, 
trying to push through this trade bill.
  I am curious whether the gentleman from Kentucky, my friend, thinks 
maybe this, for the first time, is an effort by the President reaching 
out to make the Republican Party, Republican leadership look good. Or 
what kind of motivation do you think most likely caused him to reach 
out more than he has, as I recall, on a bill?
  Mr. MASSIE. Well, I don't want to question anybody's motivations here 
in this body or in the other branch of the government, but I will say I 
have seen a zeal for the deal, a zeal for the trade deal, a zeal for a 
deal that people don't fully even understand but they want to get the 
deal done.
  So I think they just need to slow down, look at the terms of the 
deal, get some experts in that room with you when you are looking at 
that secret document, have them tell you what all those things mean in 
there and just kind of calm down the zeal for the deal. We can do 
trade, we can do free trade, we can do trade agreements, but not this 
giant omnibus-like trade agreement.
  Thank you.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I appreciate my friend, but my problem is, having had so 
many provisions explained, for example, oh, this won't affect seniors 
by cutting $700 billion out of Medicare, and, gee, if you will just 
renew the PATRIOT Act, section 215, gosh, you have got to be a 
terrorist before we get any of your personal information, your data--
there have just been so many explanations and promises that have been 
made. With regard to section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, that was over two 
administrations. But there have been so many representations on what an 
administration--particularly this administration--believes something 
means that allowed activity far beyond that, that even if this 
administration or the prior administration says this is what something 
means, I am sorry, the judge completely hasn't left me, the chief 
justice completely hasn't left me, and so I care more about what the 
language says on its face than what somebody tells me they think it 
will mean or how they will apply it. Again, you know, we were told 
things about ObamaCare and the way it would be interpreted and carried 
out, the PATRIOT Act, the way it would be interpreted and carried out. 
It turns out it simply was not the case.
  It is still why I am concerned over the part of section 215, even 
though I have been assured, oh, no, it really doesn't mean anything. 
But it says not only can they gather the data of people associated with 
terrorists or involved in international terrorism, but it has this 
little two-letter disjunctive, the ``or,'' clandestine intelligence 
activities. Nobody will explain where that is defined in writing 
because until it is defined adequately in writing, that can mean 
anything anybody wants it to mean. It is just too vague, allows too 
much arbitrariness and capriciousness. So I am not as concerned about 
what people tell me something says or means because I know when you put 
words in a bill, at some point some judge somewhere is going to say, 
you know what those words actually say; they mean exactly what they 
say.
  So I am concerned about the power that is given to the President. I 
am concerned about the ability of the President to cut deals, and if he 
happens to forget to give us notice, as he happened to do with regard 
to the five terrorists that were released from Guantanamo, then I don't 
see this body stepping up and stopping him. I know we absolutely 
pledged we were going to on the illegal, unconstitutional amnesty he 
did, but then we decided, well, we will just trust the judge in Texas 
that his ruling will be upheld all the way to the Supreme Court. So we 
gave up on that fight as a body.
  But I just have not seen anything from the House and Senate, either 
when it was under total Democratic control or now, that indicates we 
are going to be able to step up and stop the President if there is a 
violation of the law or a violation of personal commitments that were 
made. Because of that, I was not comfortable voting for TPA. I could 
not vote for it. I voted against TAA because it would facilitate TPA.
  I do have to make a parenthetical note here. It is interesting, we 
are assured that TPA is going to create this massive number of jobs, 
but we have to--absolutely have to--pass TAA, which creates additional 
welfare because there are going to be so many Americans that lose their 
jobs as a result of TPA. So it is going to create all these American 
jobs, but we have got to have TAA so we can cover all the American jobs 
that are lost that go overseas, when the fact is: You want a free trade 
agreement, you want to blow the doors off the barriers in the world to 
American goods and services? Let's cut the biggest tariff that any 
nation in the world puts on its own goods and services called a 
corporate tax. Let's cut it, if not eliminate it, at least get it below 
that of China. And the cuts to the prices will be so astounding that 
the doors will come down. They will have to come down, because our 
goods will not only be the best in the world, but they will be the best 
prices in the world.
  So we want real free trade. You are not going to get it by cutting a 
deal with countries that manipulate their currencies. Those were 
excellent points that some across the aisle made. If you are talking 
about free trade with countries that manipulate their own currencies, 
you are not going to get free trade with countries that manipulate 
their own currency because they can always maneuver around you and make 
their product better. So this didn't address the manipulative nature of 
some nations' currencies. Without that, you are not going to have a 
free trade deal.
  I would like to be an optimist and say that this bill that President 
Obama pushed so hard--historically hard for his administration--to get 
passed, I

[[Page 9541]]

would like to be the optimist, as so many of my colleagues are, and 
say, but the reason President Obama was pushing for this so hard is 
this will really curtail his ability to make agreements without our 
agreement. I would like to think that he worked that hard to curtail 
his own power, but the realist, the old judge in me comes back and has 
to say, the verdict is he pushed for this TPA because it was going to 
give him a lot more power than he has now.
  I yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Yoho).
  Mr. YOHO. I thank my colleague from Texas. I appreciate his loyalty 
and his patriotism to our country. I look forward to working with him 
in the future to talk about future negotiations to make sure that the 
Federal Government, every time we act, every time we move, every time 
we vote is to do what is best for America, to make America stronger, 
more competitive, and a better nation to pass on to our next 
generation.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I thank my friend and yield back the balance of my time.

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