Hatch calls for mock conference of pending trade deals

Senate Finance ranking member Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) is calling on congressional leadership to hold a mock conference to resolve issues around passage of Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) and three long-delayed trade deals. 

Hatch expressed concern over the ability of the Senate to pass the trade agreements under fast-track authority if lawmakers in each chamber take different paths to moving TAA along with the three pending trade deals with Colombia, Korea and Panama. 

"Reconciling the two bills is the exclusive prerogative of Congress, a prerogative which cannot rightfully be devolved to the Executive branch," Hatch wrote in a letter Monday to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

"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," he said. 

Hatch wrote "it is my expectation that a mock conference will be scheduled shortly, thereby providing Congress with the opportunity to present to the president a template for drafting a final implementing bill, which has the support of both Houses."

The Senate Finance Committee on Thursday approved the Korean deal without any Republican support and TAA included while House Ways and Means Committee pushed through all three deals without the worker-aid program attached. 

The TAA program provides retraining for workers who lose their jobs to foreign trade.

Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.), who was part of negotiations with Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and the White House in working out an agreement to streamline the TAA program, said Thursday he would take up the TAA bill in his committee at the same time with the three agreements. 

House Democrats are wary of taking up TAA separately, even if the House can pass the measure, over concerns that the Senate won't move forward.

The Obama administration has said that TAA must be done at the same time as the three trade deals.