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House panel to take up trade deals without worker aid program
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) promised Thursday to separately consider an aid program to help workers displaced by trade if the White House sends up three pending trade deals without it.
During a mock markup of the long-delayed accords with Colombia, South Korea and Panama, Camp said he intends to mark up the streamlined renewal of Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) as part of an agreement worked out between the Obama administration and congressional negotiators.
The administration included TAA as part of the Korean deal in draft implementation legislation that Ways and Means and the Senate Finance Committee considered Thursday. Republicans on both sides of the Capitol are pressing for separate consideration of the worker aid program.
While Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) kept TAA in the Korea deal, Camp opted to take up the pending trade deals without it, a move that riled many Democrats.
Camp’s assurances that TAA would be considered didn’t quell Democratic concerns that the program could get left behind if and when the trade deals gain approval.
Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), ranking member on the Ways and Means subcommittee on Trade, said that despite assurances from the chairman, “only a fool on this dais should believe” that the process provides any guarantee that Congress would complete TAA.
He expressed concern that while the committee and the House could pass a TAA bill, Republicans in the Senate could filibuster it.
“TAA has to be in these agreements,” the Washington Democrat said. “If it doesn’t go with these agreements, it will die in the Senate.”
Ways and Means ranking member Sandy Levin (D-Mich.) offered an amendment to put TAA back into the deal with Korea, but it failed to gain the panel’s approval, although all Democrats voted in support.
Levin called the issue “non-negotiable.”
“We’re not going to leave it up to the Speaker to see what’s going to happen [to TAA],” Levin said.
The White House has been clear that the agreement with lawmakers was about substance and not process, even though TAA was included in the Korea accord — a requirement of the administration for sending final language to Capitol Hill.
“I have made clear many times that a decision about the process for voting on these items is something for the Speaker, House and Senate leadership and the White House to make,” Camp said.
Negotiations on the process of passing TAA are ongoing among congressional leaders. Camp said any deal should “ensure the highest likelihood that TAA and the three trade agreements will get over the finish line and not just out of committee, not just out of the House but through the Senate and to the president’s desk.”
“It’s inappropriate to include TAA here absent a clear agreement on the process on how to get it through the House and the Senate,” he said.
“The Speaker and I know we’re going to have to do it,” Camp said of TAA. “But we have to have the process settled before we can move forward on TAA.”
During a mock markup of the trade deals at the Senate Finance panel, Baucus said he’s “open-minded” about how TAA moves forward so long as it is passed in tandem with the trade deals.
The deal includes significant reforms to TAA, reducing overall costs to about $900 million over three years, fully offset with other spending cuts.
The Senate panel approved all three trade deals Thursday. Republicans voted in unanimous opposition to the Korea deal because of the inclusion of TAA.
“The jobs and opportunities this package creates are simply too important not to work together to enact both Trade Adjustment Assistance and the trade agreements — and to do so without delay,” Baucus said.
Senate Finance ranking member Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) led lawmakers in opposing the Korea deal, which was approved on a 13-11 party-line vote.
“While our job-creating trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea are finally one step closer to being a reality, I am disappointed by the majority’s blatant and partisan abuse of longstanding trade rules,” Hatch said. “I hope we can find a better path forward and the president will now act quickly and submit these agreements for congressional consideration, without including the TAA poison pill.”
The House panel approved the Panama agreement and was expected to approve the Colombia deal late Thursday despite mounting opposition from Democrats who want it to include enforceable language on a labor action plan.
The Obama administration has required the Colombian government to meet certain requirements to protect labor leaders and punish those who commit acts of violence.
While Democrats want the language included to ensure the plan is enforced, Trade subcommittee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) said the agreement doesn’t go into effect unless Colombia follows through.
“It simply doesn’t belong in this agreement,” he said.
This story was updated at 12:55 p.m. and 6:59 p.m.
Erik Wasson contributed to this story.
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