but small as it is, tying it to agoa and perhaps pulling down agoa well, we reject that. people said oh, let's defeat the f.a.a. bill and agoa will come up another way. we didn't trust that. we don't trust that the republicans would allow agoa would come up another way. and so for that reason from strength knowing that we could defeat t.a.a., but at the same time bring down agoa, it was wisely decided that we should just end this phase now. especially since the idea that both bills or no bill no longer existed. but this is the end of phase one. and to get to this point there has been a massive mobilization in our country of people of faith, people who are concerned about the environment, women's groups. of course our friends in organized labor, a massive mobilization for america's working families. and we all stand ready to go to the next phase and that next phase is to keep a very sharp clear, bright light focused on the provisions of the trade the t.p.p. most people really didn't realize that t.p.p. t.p.a., they're different things. now they will know and while i respec

to agoa. let's get back to the drawing board and come up with a real fair free, transparent trade bill. thank you very much. the speaker pro tempore: the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from wisconsin continues to reserve. the gentleman from michigan. mr. levin: i yield two minutes to the gentleman from california, mr. sherman, who i think is ranking on the asia subcommittee. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california is recognized for two minutes. mr. sherman: if you vote for this bill, you get fast track without trade adjustment assistance. there is no assurance trade adjustment assistance will come to this floor or it will come to this floor in a form the republicans or democrats will support. the supporters of this deal can't make their case without repeating demonstrably false statistics. the fact is we won a $177 billion -- run a $177 billion trade deficit in goods with the countries we have free trade agreements. $75 billion in services brings the net to over $100 billion

agoa has generated approximately 100,000 jobs in the u.s. and 350,000 direct jobs and a million indirect jobs in subsaharan africa. a byproduct of this trade is increase of u.s. exports. could i ask for additional time. mr. rangel: i would like to give her 30 seconds. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady is recognized for 30 seconds. ms. bass: numerous countries have consistently been cited by the international financial institution as the fastest growing economies in the world. without question i'm pleased to have been part of this important process. i look forward to continuing my work with my fellow members of congress and the administration in strengthening trade and investment relations between our country and home to the world's fastest growing economies and newest and most dynamic trade and investment frontier in africa. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york reserves. the gentleman from wisconsin is recognized. mr. ryan: i yield two minutes to the member from minnesota who has taken a particular interes

agoa can and should stand on its own. the senate should pass agoa and send it to the president. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan. mr. levin: i yield one minute to the gentlelady from new york ms. velazquez. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady is recognized. ms. velazquez: mr. speaker, we are being asked to vote for an agreement that will cost jobs, undermine environmental protections and erode workers' rights all in the name of so-called free trade. this agreement is being negotiated in the dark behind closed doors. that process may benefit large multi corporations and their lobbyists but does not help small manufacturers in brooklyn and does nothing for new yorkers struggling to raise a family while keeping their jobs from being exported. when there is this, we end up with a bad deal for american workers and we have seen this in the past. new york lost 374,000 manufacturing jobs since nafta and the world trade organization agreements. this vote, mr. question. are you going to side with wall street, large corporations, and their lobbyists? or will you sta

to agoa. let's get back to the drawing board and come up with a real fair free, transparent trade bill. thank you very much. the speaker pro tempore: the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from wisconsin continues to reserve. the gentleman from michigan. mr. levin: i yield two minutes to the gentleman from california, mr. sherman, who i think is ranking on the asia subcommittee. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california is recognized for two minutes. mr. sherman: if you vote for this bill, you get fast track without trade adjustment assistance. there is no assurance trade adjustment assistance will come to this floor or it will come to this floor in a form the republicans or democrats will support. the supporters of this deal can't make their case without repeating demonstrably false statistics. the fact is we won a $177 billion -- run a $177 billion trade deficit in goods with the countries we have free trade agreements. $75 billion in services brings the net to over $100 billion

and the agoa and preferences measure the following day too. earlier this morning speaker boehner reaffirmed his commitment to taking up t.a.a. once it passes the senate. he stated his desire to see both t.a.a. and t.p.a. on the president's desk by the end of this week. and he underlined the house readiness to go to conference on the customs bill. speaker boehner is clearly committed to building trust across the aisle on this issue and i am as well. that's why i just moved to go to conference on the customs bill. so this is where we are mr. president. let's vote today. let's vote today to move ahead on t.p.a., an important accomplishment for the country. then we can vote to move ahead on t.a.a. and agoa and preferences. and then we can vote to move ahead on customs. if we all keep working together and trusting each other, then by the end of the week the president will have t.p.a., t.a.a. and agoa and preferences on his desk. with customs in the process of heading his way as well. today is a very big vote. it's an important moment for the countr

the agoa authorization in this preferences bill will improve on this past success. some of our colleagues here in congress have voiced concerns about the agoa program and the fall lure of some -- failure of some beneficiary countries to live up to their commitments. i share many of these concerns and we try to address them with this bill. most notably the bill creates a mechanism under the agoa program to allow for benefits to be scaled back if a country is found to not be making good-faith progress on eligibility criteria. we expect the administration to use this new tool aggressively. finally, the preferences bill will also extend preferential access to the u.s. market for haiti. as wee all know, haiti is one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere. the haiti preference program supports the creation of jobs and stability in a country dealing with debilitating poverty and unemployment. i hope this extension will encourage continued economic development and democracy in haiti. mr. president, it's easy to see why these programs have all received bipartisan

so it is confusing when you call it a female vie agoa.this enhances libido or sexual desire. >> do you think women should be taking a pill every day. you take a pink pill every day, it is not like viagra where you take it before sexual activity. it take ises like an anti-depressant. >> and there is a see alice taken daily by men. if men can take a pill daily and the question is can women. and quality of life is just as important as quantity. and sexual enjoyment is a quality of life issue. but you bring up a good point. this is a brain chemistry issue. and libido or sexual desire or motivation to be sexual has an emotional basis to it. so we are trying to medicalize something that is emotional as well so that is the confusing part. >> and emotional which is a whole other thing which is deeply which is why so many are skeptical of this. and why this sparked so many questions and we asked our viewers to send them in and this is important and daniel robbins wrote on facebook. i would like to know the side effects. are you still able to have

along with the agoa and preferences measure. and before the week is out i intend to go to conference on the customs bill. this is a bill with broad bipartisan support. members of both sides want to get it done. and we are going to formally begin the process to complete our work on the customs bill. so i'm committed to concluding work on that conference as quickly as possible. i'm sure members on both sides will hold us to that commitment. so what does all this mean? it means that with continued bipartisan cooperation, we can ensure t.p.a., t.a.a., and the agoa reach the president's desk this week. and it means we can ensure the customs bill is placed on a path to swift approval too. it was always the goal to ensure that these bills pass congress in the end. it remains the bipartisan goal today. we're now on the verge of achieving it. with just a little more trust a little more cooperation and simply voting consistently, we'll get there. the presiding officer: the democratic leader. mr. reid: over the past several years there's b

bill, the agoa and preferences bill and t.a.a. and so assuming everyone has a little faith and votes the same way as they did just a few weeks ago, we'll be able to get all of those bills to the president soon. i know there's a fourth bill too, a customs bill. given the complex and thorny procedural processes at work on that bill, we'll have to turn to that one as soon as we're able, but we will turn to it. it will have to go to a conference committee and then return to the senate floor where it too -- it too will be passed and sent to the white house. i know it's hard to do, but if we step back a few paces and recall what we were all asking for just a few weeks ago, we should be able to take some satisfaction in all of this. it means that before the july 4 before july 4 the president will have signed t.p.a., t.a.a., and the agoa and preferences bill, and we'll be well on our way toward enactment of a robust customs package. all of that together, mr. president, would be quite an accomplishment. all it's going to take is some hard

and in the next couple of days maybe tomorrow they will be looking at tpa and taa and customs and agoa as well on the trade site issues that are important to technology companies so we are all multinational companies doing business all over the world and making sure there are trade agreements that address ip and the respect for ip and making sure there is rule of law to be able to do business is so important. those are some of the issues where we are working together and there's a common interest. i tend to find when it comes to public policy issues there really aren't any major differences when it comes to them. once while there are a couple of nuances but the truth of the matter is we work a lot together not just with the big companies. it's important to know we work with many others. you have to look at the tech ecosystem and he wants to foster and nurture and make sure startups are doing well and i think of it like one of our main goals is freedom to innovate. make sure that there are no barriers to continue to innovate and we are fortunate in the u.s.. there's a lot of innovation

you add that to the general preferences for african nations and haiti that is called agoa bill. that ought to be one package but more difficult now that the house -- are you on --r this trade deal? >> orveg. of course. >> charlie gasparino and i were talking about this notion that your democratic party has driven to the far left that you're now -- you know, those raidings tea leaves say you have hillary clinton moving to the left on this issue. despite her husband's trade deals. despite her former boss, president trying to push through this trade deal. that the party has moved so hard left. that you have become the party of elizabeth warren an bernie sanders not so the moderate ring of which i would put you a number. what do you think? >> well that is poppy cook. >> that is a strong word senator. >> well it happens to be true. >> there are 14 of us that provided margin of the victory now that one of the republicans is back, will be 63 votes in the senate for the trade package. >> but i'm looking in the house, senator where it wasn't poppy cock to say you barely got 44 votes to o

it also reauthorizes agoa, the african growth and opportunity act, which had strong bipartisan support for many years now and which helps open up many markets in africa to american businesses while making it easier for african businesses to sell their products in america. we are extending a similar program to haiti and renewing support for other developing economies through what's known as the generalized systems of preferences. now, i think it is fair to say that getting these bills through congress has not been easy. [laughter] pres. obama: they have been declared dead more than once they have inspired long and passionate debates, and that is entirely appropriate for our democracy. that is how this country is supposed to work. we are supposed to make sure that we air our differences, and then ultimately congress works its will, especially on issues that inspire strongly held feelings on all sides. but i would not be doing this, and i would not be signing these bills if i was not absolutely convinced that these pieces of legislation are ultimately good for american workers. i would no

for that in order to move the process forward which is already preempted by the passage today of the agoa bill. reporter: the republican leadership has given enormous power to the democrats by saying that passage of trade promotion authority is dependent on passage of trade adjustment assistance before. will democrats take advantage of that and bring down trade adjustment assistance to bring down trade promotion authority? ms. pelosi: i don't know. i think that was an agreement in the senate. as the bill came over to the house, the house rules determined that if a bill comes over that way that's how it has to lead. the failure of one part of it, either t.p.a. failed there's no t.a.a., and t.a.a. is a program that exists not just for this trade bill but for other offshoring and all the rest of that. if either of them fails then the other part of it fails. to get a better funding for it, but i have tried to weigh the equities on both of this as we go forward. i don't know that that would be the case. i'd like to see the t.p.a. rise or fall on its own but, yes, that opportunity does exist. r

hoped with all of the hijacking of bills that was going on with the shameful placing of the taa on agoa that they could have put xm bank on there, but they did not. all the talk has been about trade and all the jobs it will produce, and we know one thing that will produce jobs and that's a strong highway and transit bill. the deficits are clear trillions of dollars, the society of engineers have told us in our country, civil engineers have told us hopefully we can keep pushing for a strong highway bill. the president's bill is an excellent one. it's a significant increase in our investments, in our infrastructure and is paid for and i would hope the republicans would consider that. it has to be robust and sustainable. on the subject of budget, because that's what we are mostly dealing with once we get with trade injected here and there, but as you know this is appropriation season and for one reason or another, the infear your tea of the bills the republicans voted in a way to sustain the president's veto, and the fact they are predicated on a sequestration figure that undermines our ab

adjustment assistance, or t.a.a., on the other hand we have the african growth and opportunity act, or agoa which most of us have supported. the other part of this is a bill that was trounsed in the house of representatives. we find ourselves in a position of supporting the african growth trade at the same time a vote that most of us voted against the t.a.a. linking these two bills together is untenable and goes against the morals of the chamber and as we see that the process is strained, the bill suffers but most of all the people we represent suffer. mr. speaker, i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas. mr. sessions: mr. speaker, thank you very much. you know, the gentlewoman brings up a lot of good issues. we've been on the floor talking about this bill for a long, long time, hours of debate at the rules committee, hours of debate not only in the ways and means committee but also watching the united states senate for weeks work through this issue. i think the gentlewoman knows and understands that any final trade deal will result in our ability