Obama’s Fast-Track Trade Bill Set for New Vote in House
The House plans to vote June 18 on a bill to revive President Obama’s fast-track trade proposal, members were told June 17.
Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the Republican majority’s chief vote counter, advised members of plans for the vote after leaders decided to attach the fast-track proposal, known as trade-promotion authority, to an unrelated bill.
The bill may pass, said Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wis.), depending on assurances from Republican leaders that a separate measure assisting workers displaced by trade also would be approved.
The Republican plan is designed to bypass House Democrats’ refusal June 12 to pass the workers’ aid plan as a means of blocking the fast-track bill from going to Obama for his signature.
House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell released a joint statement that said, “We are committed to ensuring both TPA and TAA get votes in the House and Senate and are sent to the president for signature.” TAA, or Trade Adjustment Assistance, is the worker-assistance program.
Most Republicans support the fast-track measure, sought by Obama to help his administration complete a Pacific Rim trade deal called the Trans-Pacific Partnership. It would let the president submit trade pacts to Congress for an expedited, up-or-down vote without amendments.
The Republican plan would require the fast-track proposal to return to the Senate. The worker-assistance program, which expires Sept. 30, would be attached to another trade bill granting trade preferences to poorer countries, Kind said.
The fast-track and worker-aid measures passed the Senate in May as a single bill.
Boehner assured pro-fast track Democrats in a meeting Tuesday that TAA will become law, said Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.).
“He said declaratively, ‘TAA will pass,’ ” Connolly told reporters.
While Democrats ordinarily support the aid for workers, many of them oppose fast-track on the grounds that trade deals have cost U.S. manufacturing jobs, and they used the procedural linkage between the two to stall fast track.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest stopped short of a veto threat if Republicans pass fast track without worker assistance, but he said “it won’t come to that” because any bill will require Democratic support, and they want worker assistance.
“The only legislative strategy that the president will support is a strategy that results” in both the fast-track and worker-aid measures reaching Obama’s desk, Earnest said. Such a strategy “will require the support of Democrats in both the House and the Senate,” he said.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who led the rebellion against the June 12 trade votes, sidestepped a question June 17 about the Republican proposals.
