Impeachment to the senate. [inaudible conversations] thank you all for coming. Before i say a few things im going to introduce my colleagues and thank them for being here so they can come up immediately after each other without my introducing them. We had chairman risch of the Foreign Relations committee, chairman wicker of commerce and chairman are also of the environment. We are here because the Senate Finance committee has voted on usmc a out o mca out of committ. A very strong bipartisan vote we expect the same bipartisan vote on the floor of the United States senate when it gets up there under the parliamentary parliamentarians decision it was referred to several other committees. These committees are going to hear from some of those chairmen, but in the meantime, it takes just a short period of time for them to do what they have to do on it to get it moving. But, i do not see that as an impediment to getting the u. S. Mca passed, and the only unknown thing is whether we are in the impeachment or otherwise. The u. S. Mca is very good for agriculture. My state of iowa is number one in the production as an example, or the wheat growing states in the midwest. Weve never been able to get our dairy products, poultry, eggs and wheat in canada under nafta, and this is a big opportunity for that. We also have overall from the International TradeCommission Statistics that its going to bo create 176,000 jobs, 65 billion of investment in the United States, 34 billion of that is just in the Automobile Industry as an example, and its going to increase the Gross Domestic Product somewhere between ten and 15 . So, this is something that is very good from an economic standpoint for agriculture, Small Business and manufacturi manufacturing. So, i hope it is something that we get to the president very soon. And you know what the questions are so right now we will hear from the chairman of the committee. Chairman risch. Thank you. For my state, idaho, this is important but its important for every state. Clearly the things we have here are bringing nafta up to standards and now its u. S. Mca. Its a good thing its been around too long and its ready to be at dawn in our committee i noticed we have a markup from a week from today on thursday we will market at that time for those of you that the light andn reporting done nothing bipartisan effort gets done here. Im happy to inform you that this is bipartisan and will be voted on in a bipartisan basis and excitedly supported by people on both sides of the oil. This is a good thing for america and it needs to get done. Thank you all for coming today. What else can be said. This is a win for bipartisanship. It is a win for american workers. American Small Businesses and the United States we like to manufacture things all over the world. We only have 5 of the worlds population. We benefit when we can sell things that we manufacture to the 95 of the worlds population that do not live in the United States of america. The same goes for our farm workers and agribusiness people. In the states like mississippi and the others were presented today. Represented today. Wed like to grow things and we enjoyed the fact that when youve got a good trade agreement, we sell twice as many of our goods and products to those countries as we do to the rest of the world, so this up data nafta, this bipartisan achievement of u. S. Mca is good for america and workers in agriculture to the tune of 2. 2 billion. We only have a small part of u. S. Mca in the commerce committee, but the department has required that we report it and we are going to do so on an expedited basis and on a bipartisan basis and that will be part of the Quick Response next week to moving this along towards reality. The economy is healthy, strong and growing and trade contributes significantly to that. If you really want to jumpstart an economy, you cut taxes which republicans have done and get rid of punishing regulations which they have done and unleashed trade. We are going to see that with the usmc av Environment Public Works Committee which i chair and will be improving it to stay it will be a strong bipartisan vote. Trade is certainly very important for wyoming and Agricultural Products and for the number one cash crop also Energy Exports that we have. And i would say it isnt just u. S. Mca. So many of the things weve been doing along the lines of trade, the american trade agreement signed on january 1, and bee thn the 15th of this month, representatives of china will be here to sign the trade agreement. All of this is going to continue to contribute to the economy where there is incredible amounts of confidence in the economy today. Unemployment rates are way down, wages are up, there is a level of Consumer Confidence that we havent seen in a long time. We have a strong, healthy, growing economy and the u. S. Mca is going to add to that. You can see that the senate isnt going to dillydally around while we are waiting to see what the speaker wants to do on impeachment, and these committees are going to act very quickly next weekend so whenever the leader decides to bring this up, we will be ready to go. Any questions. Thank you, mr. Senator. Based on what you said [inaudible] what is your best timing on the floor action given the uncertainty and the fact to take these Additional Committee actions . Your question kind of answers itself beyond the certainty of it, we dont know. But we do know this, when the committees were done with this, there are two privileged motions before the senate, u. S. Mca is one of them. One motion take ten hours and the other takes 20 hours, so that we know that except for us being in the course of impeachment that we are going to be able to move on this very quickly. So, when will the committees actions be completed . Next thursday morning. Yes. January 14 for the budget epa ponte vedra commerce and Health January 15, and the only committee that i dont know if the president has been noticed or not, so i cant give you a date, but i dont have any reason to believe that there is any problem for the appropriations either. Is thursday comes, to ask the question of a problem. Are the leader because i would guess that with one committee finishing on thursday that it wouldnt be possible to get it done next week. Go ahead. Is there concern that we are going to run out of time, is that something no, tha no, that isnt a problem. No problem there. Do all need to approve it [inaudible] for the fulltime job . They want to finish their actions before they get to the full senate vote but once it gets to the senate, this 20 hours of debate debate could be equally divided invite ddelta all of them will be used and then we vote on it and takes 51 votes or if there is less than 100 senators there, the majority of the senators that are there. Why wasnt the Agricultural Committee involved [inaudible] you will have to ask the parliamentarians. In fact it was all the fuss here im sure that the parliamentarians said it should go to the seven committees as opposed to just the finance committee. Lets talk about why it wont be an issue especially [inaudible] i didnt understand the question. You said you are not concerned with the time limit that it would expire. Ive just been assured by those that are experts that it wont be. I dont have any more than i can give you on those experts and then you can ask them and my trade staff. The changes that democrats made kind of weigh in on this and [inaudible] none whatsoever. I heard this from people that are close to the white house and in the white house at the time that our bill was voted on in the committee and certain people received notice of the president was very happy. Yes. Do we know that Foreign Affairs is the last appropriations that will be sometime before i dont know that for sure by that i cabut i bet i can get anr for you pretty soon. But i cant now. Okay. Thank you. One last question on camera. Do you know i if there is if thk between the administration and canada about how quickly they convene on january 27, and its my understanding that they will be ready to move soon after the convening of the new parliament. One other question is there a precedent for having the other committees need t the review to the trade agreement . I think, you know, i think the parliamentarians is kind of like that if they Say Something has to be done, its done. I have Great Respect for the position [inaudible conversations]