US: House moves to delay action on trade bill for 6 weeks
New York Times | 16 June 2015
House moves to delay action on trade bill for 6 weeks
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
WASHINGTON — In an extraordinary twist that perhaps only a lame duck president can relish, President Obama has largely jettisoned his plan to lure House Democrats to get his trade agenda through Congress, and instead is now working closely with Republican leaders.
After weeks of wooing, pleading with and occasionally berating members of his own party in the hope that they would get behind what could be his last major economic policy achievement, Democrats delivered a mortifying defeat to his trade package on the House floor last Friday, sparking a change in strategy.
Counting on Democrats “has now been abandoned, essentially,” Representative Steny H. Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland and the No. 2-ranking member of his party in the House, told reporters on Tuesday.
So Mr. Obama has now turned his focus to House Speaker John A. Boehner and Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, to find a legislative strategy that would preserve trade promotion authority, which would give the president accelerated power to negotiate the broader Trans-Pacific Partnership accord with 11 other nations from Japan to Chile.
“The speaker and I have spoken with the president about the way forward on trade,” Mr. McConnell told reporters on Tuesday. “It’s still my hope that we can achieve what we’ve set out to achieve together, which is to get a six-year trade promotion authority bill in place that will advantage the next occupant of the White House as well as this one. And obviously there was a malfunction over in the House on Friday that we all watched with great interest, and we are not giving up.”
After the Senate had passed the trade measure, the House took it up but could not get it to the president’s desk last week as Democrats voted against a component of the package known as trade adjustment assistance that provides relief for workers displaced by global trade pacts. Democrats have long supported such programs, but last Friday voted against it as a way of undermining the president’s push for accelerated negotiating authority.
The Democrats’ strategy worked in stopping fast-track authority, but it also left open the possibility that Congress would ultimately pass only fast-track authority, with no additional protection for workers. On Tuesday, House Republicans were set to take a second vote on trade adjustment assistance. But instead, lawmakers voted on, and approved 236 to 189, another measure that would allow Congress up to six weeks to ponder ways to get the fast-track trade bill to President Obama’s desk before the August recess.
The current strategy being considered by lawmakers is to bring up the fast-track bill by itself in the House, with the hope that enough Republicans — perhaps animated by the idea of delivering a blow to Representative Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California and the minority leader, who led the charge against the administration on the House floor last week — would vote to pass it. “What you saw on the floor on Friday was an expression of concern of the American people,” Ms. Pelosi said in an interview on CNBC. “We are representatives. That is our title and that is our job description.”
If the House passes fast track alone, then the Senate would tuck the worker assistance bill into a noncontroversial trade measure, a nonreciprocal trade preference program with some African countries that has been largely approved in both chambers but for some tweaks, and send it back to the House for final passage. This would complete the package while maintaining the provisions both parties want.
This is by no means easy. Mr. Boehner would need to maintain careful control of Republicans, making sure that few of them abandoned the worker assistance program and while also managing to keep the narrow majority approving the overall trade agenda. Some Republicans are already being hammered on conservative radio stations for approving the trade bill, which the far right believes offers too much authority to Mr. Obama.
Mr. Obama would also be compelled to keep pro-trade Democrats in his corner, who would have to trust that the trade adjustment assistance bill would be sent back to the House and that it would find approval there. “The president said he wants the most progressive trade program in history,” said Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, who has worked hard to find a trade accord across party lines. “And that is why they need T.A.A.”
Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, who has a strong interest in the Africa trade bill, said it “should not be held hostage,” to the broader trade agenda and that he had already gotten calls from the White House on the matter.
On Tuesday morning, many Democrats continued to rail against the idea of maneuvering in a new vote on the trade adjustment. “We don’t want to give up our leverage, that’s the key point,” said Representative Sander M. Levin, Democrat of Michigan. While he continues to personally appeal to a handful of Democrats who would be needed to get a trade bill over the line, Mr. Obama has clearly sided with the Republicans who have long been dedicated to thwarting most of his agenda.
Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, also suggested Tuesday that Mr. Obama’s efforts to win support from House Democrats might have cooled for now. “I don’t expect a lot of arm twisting” over trade at the White House congressional picnic on Wednesday, he said.
Unions and environmental groups strongly opposed giving the president fast-track authority to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, because they say it would hurt American workers and loosen environmental safeguards. The proposed global accord, which would affect 40 percent of the world’s economy, would tie together 12 nations along the Pacific Rim.
Lawmakers in both parties also have long faulted trade agreements on the grounds that they cost American jobs, benefited corporations at the expense of workers in the United States and in countries with fewer rights for workers. “After all the dust has settled,” said Representative Charles B. Rangel, Democrat of New York, his constituents ask, “Where are the jobs?”
Emmarie Huetteman contributed reporting.
