Last year, Sen. Dave Thomas, R-South Weber, co-sponsored a failed resolution urging Congress to get out of the United Nations.

Now, he is pushing for a resolution to discourage Congress from entering into the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The aim of the FTAA is to foster economic growth, according to a draft agreement generated by trade ministers of 34 countries.

Senate Resolution 1, which was approved this week by the Senate Judiciary Committee, would urge the U.S. Congress to oppose entrance into the agreement and to look at the negative results of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the World Trade Organization (WTO).

"Last year marked NAFTA's 10-year anniversary," Thomas said. "Today, the United States is in a $15 billion trade deficit with Mexico . . . [and] it's estimated that the United States has lost 900,000 net jobs due to NAFTA."

Anne Turner, chairwoman of the committee to stop the FTAA for northern Utah, urged the committee to alert Congress of potential dangers of the agreement.

"We have a hard enough time regulating ourselves, let alone trying to control an entire hemisphere and the way they treat each other," Turner said.