the procedure. When the law was struck down, Tillis said that the ultrasound provision was "the most critical part of the law" and that the decision should be appealed. In 2012, he voted to defund Planned Parenthood in North Carolina. In 2013, Tillis supported a motorcycle safety bill that had been surreptitiously amended to include restrictions on abortion. In 2014, a Tillis spokesman told The Washington Post that Tillis would support a personhood bill if it were brought to the Senate floor, but only if abortion would continue to be legal "in cases of rape, incest and when the life of the mother is in danger" and if women would continue to "have access to contraceptives." Economic policy In a 2011 speech, Tillis said, "What we have to do is find a way to divide and conquer the people who are on assistance" by getting people who "had no choice" but to receive public assistance "to look down at these people who choose to get into a condition that makes them dependent on the government." After a video of the speech was publicized three years later while he was running for the US Senate, Tillis faced some blowback, with some likening the comment to Mitt Romney's "47%" remark. Tillis said he regretted the phrasing "divide and conquer" but defended the remark's substance. In 2014, Tillis opposed increasing the federal minimum wage, and declined to comment on increasing North Carolina's minimum wage from $7.25 an hour after opposing the idea in 2010. He suggested the government should not set a minimum wage at all, calling it an "artificial threshold" that "drives up costs" and could reduce jobs. In 2015, Tillis illustrated his attitude towards regulation by saying coffee-shop companies should be able to "opt out" of hand-washing regulations "as long as they post a sign that says, 'We don't require our employees to wash their hands after leaving the restroom.' The market will take care of that." In January 2018, Tillis was one of 36 Republican senators to sign a letter to Trump requesting he preserve the North American Free Trade Agreement. Environment In 2007, Tillis voted in favor of a measure to give North Carolina a renewable portfolio standard; the state is now second in solar energy production. During his first speech on the Senate floor, in 2015, Tillis called for opening up the United States' Atlantic coast for offshore