And every weekend on cspan 2. Earlier today Senate Republicans held a News Conference on the trade agreement between the u. S. , mexico, and canada. Heres what they had to say. Thank you all for coming. Before i say a few things for the finance committee, im going to introduce my colleagues and thank them for being here so that they can come up immediately after each other without my introducing them. We have chairman of the Foreign Relations committee here, chairman of commerce and the chairman of environment, epw. Were here because the Senate Finance committee has voted our usmca out of committee, 25 to 3, 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 youre 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 we dont i do not see that as an impediment to getting usmca passed and the only unknown thing is whether were in impeachment or otherwise. The usmca is very good for agriculture. My state of iowa number one in the production of eggs as an example or the wheatgrowing states in the midwest. Weve never been able to get our dairy products, our poultry, our eggs, and our wheat into canada under nafta, and this is a big opportunity for that. We also have overall from the International TradeCommission Statistics that it is going to create 176,000 jobs, 65 billion dollars of investment in the United States, 34 billion of that in just in the Automobile Industry as an example, and its going to increase the Gross Domestic Product somewhere between 10 and 15 percent. So this is something thats very good from an economic standpoint, for agriculture, small business, and manufacturing. So i hope its something that we can get to the president very soon, and you know what those questions are. But right now we will hear from the chairman of the committee. Chairman thanks much. For my state, for idaho obviously this is important but it is important for every state. Clearly the things that we have in here are bringing the nafta up to standards, up to todays world, and now its usmca. Its a good thing. Its been around too long. Its ready to be acted on, on our committee, we have a markup for a week from today on thursday. We will mark it up at that time. For those of you who delight in reporting that nothing bipartisan ever gets done around here, im happy to inform you that this is bipartisan. It will be voted on in a bipartisan basis and excitedly supported by people on both sides of the aisle. This is a good thing for america. It needs to get done. Thank you all for coming. What else can be said . This is a win for bipartisanship. This is a win for american workers, american small businesses. In the United States we like to manufacture things and sell them 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, who do not live in the United States of america. The same is for our farm workers and agri business people. In states like mississippi and the other states represented at the podium today, we like to grow things. And we enjoy 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 update of nafta, this bipartisan achievement of usmca is good for america. Its good for workers. It is good for agriculture to the tune of 2. 2 billion dollars. We only have a small part of usmca in the commerce committee, but the parliamentarians have required we record it and were going to do so on an expedited basis and bipartisan basis and that will be part of the Quick Response next week to moving this along toward reality. By any measure the economy in our country is strong, healthy and growing, and trade contributes significantly to that. If you really want to jumpstart an economy, you cut taxes, which republicans have done. You get rid of punishing regulation, which the president and republicans have done. And you unleash trade. Were going to see that with usmca, the Environment Public Works Committee which i chair will be approving it at a business meeting on tuesday. It will be a strong bipartisan vote. The trade certainly very important for wyoming. Talked here about agricultural products. Beef our number one cash crop, also Energy Exports that we have as well, and i would say its not just usmca, it is so many of the things we have been doing along the lines of trade, japan american trade agreement was signed on january 1st. Then on the 15th of this month, representatives of china will be here to sign phase one of the china 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. Theres a level of Consumer Confidence that we havent seen in a long long time. We have a Strong Healthy growing economy in usmca, and it is going to continue to add to that. You can see that we arent going to dilly dally around while were waiting to see what Speaker Pelosi wants to do on impeachment, and these committees are going to act very quickly next week, and so whenever the leader decides to bring this up, well be ready to go. Any questions . [inaudible]. What is your best estimate on timing for floor action given the uncertainty of impeachment and given the fact that the parliamentarian says you have to take these Additional Committee actions . Your questions, your question kind of answers itself, the uncertainty of it, we dont know, but we do know this, when these committees are done with this, there are two privileged motions before the senate, usmca is one of them. One privileged motion takes ten hours. The other privileged motion takes 20 hours. So that we know that except for us being in court of impeachment, that were going to be able to move on this very quickly. Yes, maam . So when will the Committee Action be completed . If im [inaudible]. Yeah, january 14th for budget epa, commerce and health, january the 15th. The only committee that i dont know whether its been noticed or not so i cant give you a date is appropriations, but i dont have any reason to believe that theres any problem with appropriations either. Go ahead. Can it be voted on next week . Is that possible . The end of next week . If thursday comes you better ask that question of the parliamentarian or 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 under trade Promotion Authority that youre going to run out of time, the 15 days will pass, is that something no, thats not a problem. [inaudible]. No problem there. Do all committees need to approve it in order for usmca to advance to a full senate vote . Those committees will have to finish their action before you get to a full senate vote. But once it gets to the senate, theres 20 hours of debate, equally divided. I doubt if all that will be used, and then we vote on it, and it takes just 51 votes or if theres less than 100 senators there, the majority of the senators that are there. Second question, why wasnt the Agriculture Committee involved . One could argue that there are several elements in the deal that affect the Agriculture Sector . You will have to ask the parliamentarian. In fact, it was a complete surprise to all of us up here im sure that parliamentarian said it should go to seven committees as opposed to just the finance committee. You talk about why [inaudible]. I didnt understand your question. You said youre not concerned that the time limit on epa would expire by the time the senate gets a chance to vote on it. Ive been assured by those that are experts on tpa that it wont be. I dont have any more than i can give you those experts if you want them, and then you can ask them. Are you confident that despite the changes that the democrats made [inaudible]. No, none whatsoever. Have you heard a guarantee from the white house 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 out of committee, and certain people received notice of that, that the president was very happy. Yes . Do we know that Foreign Affairs is the last, that appropriations will be sometime before thursday . I dont know that for sure. I bet i can get an answer for you pretty soon. But i cant now. Okay. Thank you. One last question on canada. Do you know if theres been talks between the administration and canada about how quickly it would ratify they convene on january the 27th. It is my understanding that they will be ready to move soon after the convening of their new parliament. Senator grassley, is there a precedent for having the other committees needing to review a trade agreement . Whats the rationale for the parliamentarian adding these i think, you know, i think the parliamentarian is kind of like god. [laughter] if they say somethings got to be done, it is done