when i traveled to russia last month, i met with russian and american business leaders, including ron pollac who is also here with us today and i worked with activists to improve democracy, human rights and corruption in the country and i met with leaders of the jewish community. the message for all of these activists was clear. the united states should repeal jackson and pass russia pntr. in fact, earlier this last week, human rights activists called on congress to repeal. i'm entering both letters into the record. one letter states that it only hinders the interaction of the economies and the peoples of the two countries and worsens the human rights situation in russia, end quote. repealing jackson-vanick explain that it's a very useful anti-propaganda tool. as they stated, provides a tool to depict the united states as hostile to russia using outdated and cold war tools to undermine russia's international competitiveness. repealing jackson-vanick opens the u.s. to competition and to ideas and transparency. these activists have all raised serious questions about russia's human rights and d