First trade bill could hit House floor on Wednesday

The House could take the first step in passing long-delayed free trade agreements as early as Wednesday. 

House Republican leadership might look to pass the expired Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program Wednesday night, around the same time President Obama had originally planned to address a joint session of Congress, a senior Democratic aide told The Hill.  

The move would provide Republicans with a "substantive bill" for the first votes following the monthlong summer recess in the wake of the disagreement between Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and the White House over when the president could address Congress on his jobs plan. 

A House Republican aide said Thursday that the chamber is tentatively scheduled to begin moving trade bills next week, On the Money's Erik Wasson reported. 

GSP, which expired in December, grants duty-free access and is designed to promote economic growth in developing countries.

There has been discussion in the past month that the GSP bill would shake loose votes on the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program along with trade deals with Colombia, South Korea and Panama. 

If the House passes GSP, the Senate is expected to attach TAA to the measure, although the timing of that move is unknown because the congressional agenda is bogged down with patent reform and an anticipated continuing resolution to keep the government running into fiscal 2012, which begins Oct. 1. 

Following Senate passage of the GSP-TAA bill, the House would take it up, possibly in tandem with the three trade deals. 

There's general agreement among the White House and Republicans that the trade deals should be passed, but the two sides have yet to reach an agreement that guarantees passage of the GSP-TAA, satisfying the Obama administration's central demand to send the trade deals up to Capitol Hill. 

President Obama spent most of August saying the trade deals will create jobs, but there is uncertainty around whether Congress can clear the streamlined TAA program, an expanded of portion of which lapsed in February. 

There's enough support in the Senate to pass the bill; the question is whether the House has the votes, which would prompt the White House to submit the three trade deals to Congress. 

The House would then hold four separate votes, one each on the trade deals and another on the TAA-GSP measure. 

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) helped craft a compromise extension of the streamlined TAA program and has vowed to get the bill passed.