Conference Reports, House Votes, Senate Ready for TPA

July 29, 2002

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Thomas (R-CA) and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Baucus (D-MT) ended several days of intense negotiations late Thursday when a House-Senate conference committee reached agreement on trade promotion authority (TPA) legislation. The TPA conference report was approved on a narrow vote in the House Saturday. The Senate should take it up this week. The House has adjourned for traditional August recess, and the Senate is expected to recess Aug. 2.

The House vote was 215-212, mostly along party lines. President Bush had gone to Capitol Hill to lobby Republicans to support the bill. For almost a decade, the President has not had the authority to negotiate trade agreements that Congress could only vote up or down, and not amend. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) believes the bill represents "a thoughtful approach to addressing the complex relationship (among) international trade, worker rights, and the environment without undermining the fundamental purpose and proven effectiveness of TPA procedures."

Specifically, the bill gives the administration the authority to negotiate and bring to Congress trade agreement that will eliminate and reduce trade barriers relating to manufacturing, services, agriculture, intellectual property, investment, and e-commerce

It supports eliminating subsidies that decrease market opportunities for U.S. agriculture and other market distorting practices to the detriment of the United States. Issues include biotechnology and ending unjustified barriers not based on sound science.

Also, the bill adds a trade negotiating objective on labor and the environment to ensure that the party to the agreement does not fail to enforce effectively its labor and environment laws through a sustained or recurring course of action or inaction, recognizing a government retains certain discretions.