[inaudible]. [inaudible]. [inaudible]. [inaudible] Committee Welcomes order. Good morning to everyone and without objection the chair is authorized to declare recess on a committee at any time. Withthat i will now recognize myself from my Opening Statements. I am honored to be convening todays hearing. My very first as chairwoman of the committee on oversight and reform as we continue to mourn the loss of our dear friend and colleague chairman Elijah Cummings and as i sit here today and as chair i am mindful of his Lifelong Mission to seek not only Common Ground but higher ground. With that in mind i am very pleased to hold todays hearing on an issue we have been fighting for for many years. The need for comprehensive paid family andmedical leave. It is important for people to understand the Current Situation in our country. Right now we are one of only two nations in the world that do not provide our workers with any form of paid family or medical leave. The United States and pound gi
Prohibited by the u. S. House of representatives. ] will be er the house in order. The prayer will be offered by our chaplain, father conroy. Pray. In conroy let us god of the ages, we give you hanks for giving us another day. We continue to ask you to be peoples re in the house. Olitical energy is high, yet, we ask that you bless the members with wisdom and as they continue toward the end of the first session. Work to be completed result in blessings for our the funding of the government for the next year. Send a healing pirit upon this assembly, upon our nation. Much harsh language and have been heard in the chamber. Ambassadors of peace and reconciliation so that hope inicans might have a united future. May all that is done be for your honor and glory. Amen. Speaker pursuant to Section House resolution 758, the days of the last proceedings is approved. The pledge of allegiance will be ed by the gentlewoman from california, mrs. Torres. Mrs. Torres please join after me. I pledge alle
[background noises] the ways and Means Committee will now come to order. Good morning, today we will consider the historic u. S. Mca transforming agreement that creates a new High Water Mark u. S. Trade deals moving forward. The implementing bill before us is the result of many months of negotiations and indeed more than a year between House Democrats and the ambassador robert who worked with us honorably every time we met. And im very proud of the outcome of that we have reached. When we assume the majority this year, we were asked to consider a renegotiated nafta that had structural flaws in a number of areas including enforcements, labor rights, the environment, and access to medicines. Let me start with enforcement. Which was the crux of this agreement. As ive noted many times over the past year, i did not vote for the original nafta, the chief reason was a lack of enforceability. In the past 25 years, weve seen the shortcoming of the original agreements, much of which comes down t
Speak the ways and Means Committee will now come to order good morning we will consort considered a historic usmca the high watermark with trade deals moving forward it is the result of more than one year House Democrats and the ambassador light heiser who worked with us every time we met. Im very proud of the outcome we have reached. When we assume the majority this year we were asked to consider a renegotiated nafta in a number of areas including enforcement the environment and access to medicines that we start with enforcement as noted many times i did not vote for the original nafta and the chief reason was the lack of enforceability. The past 25 years we have seen the shortcoming much of which comes down to lack of enforcement in my view the improvements to the usmca finally makes the agreement enforceable n by preventing a country to block a nation dispute settlement attempt. Nafta has been symbolic and over 25 years there have been 39 petitions filed with zero enforcement action
Obviously anything you have in writing, you can enter for the record. We welcome you, we congratulate you and miss granger for bringing all of this together and all of the appropriators, and we will begin with you. I thank you for your congratulations but you have a great team. I will accept the congratulations on behalf of all of my colleagues and all their staff who brought us to this day. I know you are all eager to support this great product. Mr. Chairman those raise funding for Critical National priorities. I am particularly proud we have fully funded a fair and accurate to0 census, provided money states to secure their elections, and appropriated 25 million for gun violence prevention research. These are just a few of the highlights of these bills and our cardinals will provide details on many more examples of investments that will strengthen our nation. Of critical importance, the bill limits the administrations deviateto redirect or from congressionally directed spending levels