The Power of Trade Promotion Authority

Floor Speech

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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.

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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 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.

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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.

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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.

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