Camp Outlines Plan to Move Trade Pacts

July 28, 2011

CQ

Sam Goldfarb

House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp said Wednesday that congressional leaders had largely agreed on a process to pass three pending trade deals but were waiting for the approval of White House officials distracted by the debt limit discussions.

The plan, Camp said, is for the Senate first to pass a scaled-back version of Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA), which offers benefits for U.S. workers displaced by free trade.

The White House would then send trade deals with South Korea, Panama and Colombia to Congress, and the House would approve those agreements along with the separate workers’ aid measure. Camp has promised his committee would mark up the TAA bill the same day as the trade deals if the administration submits them separately. Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, also has said the House would take up the TAA bill in addition to the agreements.

“We have set up a framework that is reasonable that will ensure that TAA is done and that the agreements are done,” said Camp, R-Mich., after speaking about trade and tax issues at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Although Camp said Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., was trying to persuade the White House to go along with the arrangement, a Senate Democratic aide disagreed with Camp’s assertion that a deal was at hand.

“There have certainly been productive conversations with the leadership in both houses on a path to pass this job-creating trade package and ensure U.S. workers have the opportunities and training they need, but so far there is not an agreement on a path forward,” the aide said.

Later on Wednesday, Baucus confirmed that he has been discussing trade issues with the White House, and that the plan outlined by Camp is “one live option” under consideration, if not necessarily the only one.

Camp noted that President Obama needs to approve the procedural framework.

“I don’t necessarily subscribe a motive to this,” Camp said, referring to the slow White House response. “I just think that many of the same people who are involved in the debt discussions are the same people we need to sign off on the trade agreements.”

GOP Support
Camp’s comments were the latest expression of optimism relating to the trade agreements. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., recently said he sees a “pretty clear path” to their enactment after the August recess.

Last week, a dozen Republican senators pledged to speed consideration of a stand-alone TAA bill. That followed a deal worked out between the Obama administration, Camp and Baucus that made changes to the substance of the TAA benefits in an effort to make them more palatable to conservatives.

Many Democrats say the TAA benefits will have to pass if Congress is to move forward on the trade agreements, and so far the White House has been reluctant to take House Republicans on their word that they will renew the program as a stand-alone measure.

Another possible consideration for the White House is “the terms under which the Senate will take up TAA,” said Bill Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council. Even if Senate leaders know they have 60 votes to pass a TAA bill, they may not be able to guarantee that the legislation can be approved quickly and without amendment.

Last month, the Obama administration announced its intention to package the TAA benefits with the South Korea agreement, but Republicans in both chambers objected to that approach.

The three trade agreements are protected from amendment under fast-track trade procedures, which require Congress to vote up or down on the trade pacts within 90 days of receiving them

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