Hatch calls on leadership to resolve FTA differences
Senate Finance Committee ranking member Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, today urged House and Senate leaders to resolve Korean trade agreement differences in versions passed in “mock markups” by the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways & Means Committee. The measures were meant to advise the Obama administration on finalizing implementating legislation for the agreement before submitting it to Congress.
The Senate version contains a reauthorization of trade adjustment assistance for workers and farmers hurt by free trade and the House version does not. Hatch said that the Senate Finance Committee-passed version that contains TAA “breaks long-standing trade rules,” although the North American Free Trade Agreement implementing legislation also contained a TAA program.
In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Hatch said it is the “exclusive prerogative of Congress” to reconcile the two bills.
“While we may have individual differences as to matters of policy, I believe we can all agree that integrity of process is an important safeguard which, among other things, serves to ensure that Congressional prerogatives are preserved,” Hatch said. “Process plays a particularly important role with regard to Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) procedures, as under these procedures legislation to implement trade agreements cannot be amended once it is submitted to Congress by the President.”
Meanwhile, Bill Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council, which has called for approval of the Korean, Panama and Colombian free trade agreements and TAA, said Friday that he considers approval of the agreements in committee to be progress, even if they were in different form.
“There are an infinite number of scenarios as to what might happen next,” Reinsch said. “The most obvious is the traditional one – after mock markups that produce different bills, have a mock conference to reconcile the differences. While there are differences in the bills that could be resolved fairly easily (largely different offsets), the big one, of course, is TAA, where the two sides have dug themselves into holes so deep there may be a better chance of agreement on the debt limit than on this. Even so, the effort should be made, and, who knows, a miracle could occur.
“Failing a miracle, there are other options,” Reinsch said. “First, failure would mean the two committees would send the president different drafts, and he could choose between them, or do something entirely different. That’s good for the president, because if Congress is divided, it’s easier for him to justify ignoring at least some of them.
“Eventually, however, the president will submit something, and that will become the focus of action. The House could ignore – or even preempt – him by passing the FTAs and TAA separately, using a closed rule to protect them from amendment, but that won’t help the Senate, where at least one of them, if not all, will encounter both filibuster and amendment. The House could solve that problem by combining the bills it has passed into a form that matches what the president submits, allowing the Senate to consider them under fast-track protection.
“Conversely, the president could solve the problem by accommodating the Republicans and putting TAA somewhere else – most likely the debt limit package, where its modest cost would be more than offset by the overall savings – but agreement on that is also far from certain.”
The Senate version contains a reauthorization of trade adjustment assistance for workers and farmers hurt by free trade and the House version does not. Hatch said that the Senate Finance Committee-passed version that contains TAA “breaks long-standing trade rules,” although the North American Free Trade Agreement implementing legislation also contained a TAA program.
In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Hatch said it is the “exclusive prerogative of Congress” to reconcile the two bills.
“While we may have individual differences as to matters of policy, I believe we can all agree that integrity of process is an important safeguard which, among other things, serves to ensure that Congressional prerogatives are preserved,” Hatch said. “Process plays a particularly important role with regard to Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) procedures, as under these procedures legislation to implement trade agreements cannot be amended once it is submitted to Congress by the President.”
Meanwhile, Bill Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council, which has called for approval of the Korean, Panama and Colombian free trade agreements and TAA, said Friday that he considers approval of the agreements in committee to be progress, even if they were in different form.
“There are an infinite number of scenarios as to what might happen next,” Reinsch said. “The most obvious is the traditional one – after mock markups that produce different bills, have a mock conference to reconcile the differences. While there are differences in the bills that could be resolved fairly easily (largely different offsets), the big one, of course, is TAA, where the two sides have dug themselves into holes so deep there may be a better chance of agreement on the debt limit than on this. Even so, the effort should be made, and, who knows, a miracle could occur.
“Failing a miracle, there are other options,” Reinsch said. “First, failure would mean the two committees would send the president different drafts, and he could choose between them, or do something entirely different. That’s good for the president, because if Congress is divided, it’s easier for him to justify ignoring at least some of them.
“Eventually, however, the president will submit something, and that will become the focus of action. The House could ignore – or even preempt – him by passing the FTAs and TAA separately, using a closed rule to protect them from amendment, but that won’t help the Senate, where at least one of them, if not all, will encounter both filibuster and amendment. The House could solve that problem by combining the bills it has passed into a form that matches what the president submits, allowing the Senate to consider them under fast-track protection.
“Conversely, the president could solve the problem by accommodating the Republicans and putting TAA somewhere else – most likely the debt limit package, where its modest cost would be more than offset by the overall savings – but agreement on that is also far from certain.”
